Ambiguity and Patience

Ambiguity is factual. Patience is a skill.

And practice truly makes a skill perfect.

Sarjana.co.id is an example of an initiative initiated in an environment saturated with ambiguities. In this context, ambiguites take several forms: unreliability, indirectness, confusion, inconsistency, etc. It would be very easy for me to link them with the local culture and pass on the blame, especially when the culture is my own. Being away from this culture for so long has helped me see them more clearly, for better or worse.

For better, I have been so committed to giving back to the land where I was born. Carved in my adolescent mind: nationalism, rebellion, idealism. My life experience keeps me grounded. The most memorable moments I went through as a young adventurous lad which shaped me were being away from home to get educated. The privileges I had, I think, are worth sharing with others. What was missing in those moments, I wish I had, is what I am building to give back. Justifiable, I think.

For worse, I often forget that idealism will be broken again and again. This idealistic initiative with a glamorous title attached to it, 'Sarjana', does not seem to thrive as well as I thought. Not forgetting that it's trying to change a whole industry and stubborn mindsets, it is lacking a firm support system.

Sarjana.co.id faces potential clients that do not return your calls or respond to your email, vendors that do not communicate when they deliver their work, potential hires that don't show up to interviews. Potential partners get confused with our vision and activities, and they are skeptical about our motive. Bookkeeping can never be 100% honest. What we can hold on to, for most of the time, is positive feedback from users, most of whom are not very generous. So it does take a lot of patience for progress (I don't dare to use the word 'success'). 

The reason why I write this post is frustration at myself for not anticipating ambiguities. I do and should feel that these ambiguities are familiar. I am flaky at times, but have had the privilege being trained not to be. Business and leadership books are best sellers when they talk about it. So patience is what I am depending on.

While the song 'Blurred Lines' are at the top of the charts, I need to find ways to take advantage of the 'pleasurable' ambiguities: bargain more, be a visionary that projects certainties, train your management skills, be polite but clever. But I can only hope that the amount of patience required will be ... tolerable.