"The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before."

- Albert Einstein -

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A friend tag me in her note, quoting some lines from Einstein. I'd love to say I strongly agree with him, yet I just couldn't prove it myself. Not yet. 

Nonetheless, I've seen it in some women I adore. My role model architect whom I quietly look up to and my best friend are among them. And not to say this dear friend of mine who tagged me. 

However on the opposite, I couldn't really say that following the crowd is not that good. Of course, each of us, already had our own way written (with huge of effort we might change it though), whether it is making our own path, or following other's. 


And, one more thing, by "place", I don't think it's literally "place". It could also be some certain condition out of our comfort zones while spatially we didn't go anywhere. 

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Get to know our comfort zone, and leave it! is my tagline for my 28 going 29. Well, going out from the so-called comfort zone is not something easy. It's one big thing. Until today, I always see the leaving comfort zone as going somewhere else outside Bandung, still I haven't made it yet. But it's definitely one thing I always keep in mind. However, pulling it backward, leaving the comfort zone could be this simple : leaving all the bad habits those prevent us from improving, from reaching goals, from making the very first step going out. For those who already had such kind of habits (including me for sure), it's indeed not something "simple". Mind you, how many action plans I've made to turn the bad habits into the good ones, and how many of them were failed. I'm not yet over with my transformation proposal. I'm still searching the best way for me to improve. And yes, now I can admit, it's a whole-life-time process.

As for now, the master thesis I'm currently working on is some kind of examination, or a checkpoint, for that process of leaving my comfort zones (yeap, I'm talking about laziness, procrastination, impatient, unstructured, and being easily distracted). If I were succeeded (of course I wish I will), then I could then say 'I'm passing a stage', couldn't I? And for sure, another stage of checkpoints will be waiting ahead.

Going on the (supposed to be) halfway, I found that the root of my bad habits, or I might say my comfort zone, is my anxiety. I worried too much over unnecessary thing. Yes, I know shouldn't, but I just can't help it. Questions are flooding my mind all the time, even at times I should be focus to my thesis. What will come next? What if I couldn't finish this according to my timeline? What if I couldn't push out my best in this work? What if I don't have the chance to continue to a PhD? What if it is really not the suitable field for me? What if for all this time I went through a wrong path? What if after I could finish this I still couldn't meet my lifetime partner? What if it's all meaningless?

Once again, I know, I really know, I shouldn't worry too much over things. Once again, I just can't help it when those anxiety came overflowing. Well, worries might be added over times. But there's also a first thing first. While I know exactly what my priorities are, isn't it paradoxical to keep still my worries and screw my focus? It is.

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Then, here came the quote. It's like a pat on my burning head.

At some point in my life back then, I really hate it when I found my self not in a good compatibility with the crowd around. I felt lost and insecure. I felt like I was being ignored and unaccepted. And as if I'm nothing. It's a traumatic thing to have bad relationships with others. It's a traumatic thing to picture yourself all alone in the middle of the crowd.

But now, the incompatibilities do me just fine. Being all alone in the middle of the crowd doesn't feel that threatening. I'm not lost. I feel safe. I see my self in various level of interactions with others. And acceptance is all about appreciation. And I never be a thing. I am a human being.

It feels good to see myself making my own path, scratching randomly based on mere intuition of which direction I feel like going to. 

It feels good to realize that I, whether alone or with some crowd, am a part of a big constellation. 

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There's no connectivity in my writings above, no? -___-"