Greatness (sometimes) equals invisibility

Lately, I have often stumbled upon social media. I saw many people, including friends, are becoming 'influencers' in their own ways, be it for the cook recipes, movie reviews, homeware reviews, or anything. I realized that social media is not only a way to express your idea nowadays but also to earn money and fame. Until now, I still use social media for fun and personal activities, thus I made them all private accounts. But this kind of phenomenon made me realize that now "people are wanted to be seen". It's different, given that maybe twenty years ago, people still used "lock" for their diaries (:P). But I know, not everything in social media is real, and people often only share their happy sides of the stories. I still think that some influencers earn my utmost respect because I know that they have to keep up with more and more ideas to engage with their audiences...and it needs research, persistence, and also patience. 

I might be quite 'invisible' on social media. But I've always wanted to be quite 'visible' in the real world, especially at work. I wanted people to give credit to my work and involve me in the field that I think I'm good at. You know, the need to be needed...maybe that's part of me being the only child and the one who silently wants to be the center of attention. 

But I know, on the other hand, I'm a soft-spoken type of person and not the one who can speak out my opinion loudly. I sometimes tend to avoid conflict and often follow the rules too religiously. These past years of working experience in Jakarta made me realize that I was often invisible at work. People sometimes forgot my name, or bosses sometimes forgot that that's the work I've done. In the beginning, I was quite upset and ask myself, "what did I do wrong?" But it keeps happening, and I talked to myself: "maybe I have to admit that I'm more a "behind the curtain" person, rather than the frontwoman?" 

I watched a TEDx video on being invisible, especially work here. Presenting is David Zweig, who wrote the book "Invisible" and worked as a fact-checker in a newspaper/publishing company. As a fact-checker, for him, "perfection equals invisibility", people won't see him if they don't find any mistakes in the texts. And that sort of woke me up. Maybe I tried too hard to be visible. I think at this point I have to admit that everyone carries their own purposes in life, including at work. I might be the one who initiated the decision in my past experiences, but maybe now is the time for me to re-learn and be that "behind the curtain" person. And it is okay; not everyone is meant to be the shining golden star, some shine quietly in the universe, and they're still stars. 

Jakarta, 26 July 2021.