The Kid in The Pool

Weren't you afraid of the adult swimming pool as a kid? 

I myself nearly drowned once. 

I had been so curious about swimming in the deeper pool that one day I tried to swim down the brink of the shallow pool, right before the bottom of the pool got deeper and deeper, holding tight to the plastic divider that was dividing the shallow pool from the deep. I then challenged myself to swim a little further from the divider for an inch or two, and then quickly swam back to the thing, just to see how it would feel like swimming in the adult pool. 

I was about six years old at that time (I was a late swimmer), my father was somewhere in the kiddie pool with my little sister, and my mother was guarding our stuff in one of those tables under the umbrellas. Without adult supervision, my little game became too dangerous as I swam further and further from the divider I had been using to hold on to, that at one point I did not realize that I had reached the part where the bottom of the pool just dropped, and the pool was so deep that I could not touch the bottom anymore. I got panic a little bit, and for about ten or fifty second which seemed to be hours, I struggled to swim back to the more shallow pool to save myself. I choke myself, I even drank some of the pool water (where some people might have even peed in, eww!), but I survived. I think that it was the day that I started to swim better.

Changes are freaky in the beginning. However, the freakiest part did not occur until you take the plunge. Like those adult pools, they seem harmless from the surface. Tempting, even. Yet when you realize that you're tiptoeing under the surface, and water is up under your nose, that's when the panic starts setting in. You ask yourself, what are you doing here? But it's too late to go back now. Might as well go further, because you never know what you can find there: it could be sharks, may be Atlantis, may be a hot swim-guard trying to save you from drowning, or may be -which is more likely- a better swimming skill. And like that kid in the pool, I found myself a little panicking right now because I can feel that water is right at the tip of my nose.

Just a couple months back, I made a big decision to take a gap year -you know, between jobs- to teach elementary school students in one of the remote villages in Indonesia. There are so many villages in this country that are in a huge need for so many teachers, and there is this program called Indonesia Mengajar (loosely translated into: Teach for Indonesia) which sends fresh-graduates from any kind of majors to teach to fill in the gaps for at least a year. The tag line is: one year of teaching, a lifetime opportunity to inspire. I have been interested in the program since the final year at the university. Education has always been one of my interests, I think that it plays a significant role in someone's life, and more importantly, the development of a nation. For me, education is not only about transferring knowledge. It is about shaping one's character and developing paradigm. And in this fucked up country where teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated, students are neglected from their rights to education, and politicians are killing one another to safe their own necks and not giving a damn about developing future leaders, I have had enough of cursing darkness. So I applied, and several selection stages later, I got accepted.  This is my time to light a candle, and actually be the change. 

It is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm totally not having a cold feet. 

Or may be I am.

It is still two months away from deployment, but tomorrow the training camp starts. In the pool of big mess which used to be my room, I look around and scan several things that I haven't packed into my backpack, and then suddenly I feel so mellow. Here is the thing. It is one thing to change your life, but when your decision involves a very big responsibility for your nation, it is natural that people start to have expectations on you. You feel that you have to live up to that expectations, however, deep inside, you know that you're just a vulnerable human being, and as a human being there is always a space for mistake. And that's what I am afraid of right now: what if I can't do the jobs right? What if I fail people's expectation? Even worse, what if I fail my students? I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. 

On the other hand, in a mistake, there is always a learning opportunity. So I think to myself, I should never miss that opportunity.

Hence, I looked back to that day when I nearly drowned in the swimming pool and how my swimming got better. It was one of those life's little triumphs. Before that, I saw the adult pool as a a challenge. A scary place. A huge change from being in the kiddie pool. Changes are scary, but they are necessary in order to advance in life. Had I stayed being afraid, I would never have learned how to swim in deeper pools. Or the lake. Or the sea. I would have stayed in the kiddie pool for the rest of my life, and missed out so many things. Yes, I nearly died when I tried to swim in it, but I managed to struggle, kept my head above the water, and I survived. The next time I swam in the adult pool, I was accompanied by adults, wore my floating vest correctly, and my confidence got better. I thought to myself, hey, I've been in this pool before, and I survived. Why should I be scared now?