Saffira Raudhania

and this is the place that I use to meditate through words my writings

[joyfulterror]

Perspective Shift

This week has been rough. This is the first week of solid food preparation for my daughter (cooking is very stressful for me 😭) , combined with personal problems, and hectic days at work. Last night, though, while I was doom scrolling, I came across this instagram reels that talked about surah Al-Baqarah 2:286,

Allah does not burden any human being with a responsibility heavier than he can bear.

The reel said: "The only difference between you and them (people who have life that is harder than yours) is God’s mercy on your soul- which means God does not give a soul more than it could bear". Wow. I had a perspective change after watching the reel. It was a scary coincidence that I find this verse when I needed it the most.

Two things came into my mind:

God has choosen this specific life for me, with what my soul can bear in His mind

I sometimes wonder why I have an easier life than someone else. I sometimes wonder why I have a harder life than someone else. I sometimes wonder how can I live in a war-zone, in Palestine, for example. I would not have survived. I would not have the hope and courage as what the Palestinians have been going through. And it is God’s mercy on my soul. It is a humbling thought, that God knows that my soul is not strong like them, and has given me this portion of life because He knows that I can handle it.

No matter how He tested me, He had the faith that I can bear it

In contrast, it is also a comforting thought that any test that God has for me in the past and in the future, is given to me because I can bear it. Because he knows exactly what my capabilities are. This knowledge helped me while I'm in a hard time, and to have confidence in myself that I can solve any of my problems, and to heal me from wallowing in sadness and the hardness of life.

This post has been uncharacteristically serious and deeply personal. Writing about spiritualism or religion is not my forte, but I hope the verse can help and heal you from the tiredness of life, to be able to semangat!!! when dunia kocar-kacir, like it did to me :)

[joyfulterror]

A Letter to A Young Product Manager

It is always my wish that you might find enough patience within yourself to endure, and enough innocence to have faith. It is my wish that you might gain more and more trust in whatever is difficult for you, in your aloneness, among other things. Allow life to happen to you. - A Letter to A Young Poet, Rainer Marie Rilke

Based on my Linkedin, it has been two years and eight months since I worked in eFishery. It also has been one year eleven months since I have become a product manager. Akin to the much asked question in any eFishery deck, here I will try to answer: 'What has been your biggest learning'?

My journey as a product manager is a rocky one. Having no background in anything tech or management, I thought I had zero basic skill to excel work in this job. I had no confidence doing discovery, speaking in or leading a meeting, or negotiating to stakeholder. Beside the zero skill, eFishery has also been testing my Linkedin self-declaration of being 'Adaptable', drowning me in everchanging context. Feed agents, field sales productivity, financing, and many more. You can count me to change context every three months :')

So.. Two years in - What have I learned? There is no guide or self help book that can help me lead a meeting. There is no online class that can make me confident enough to negotiate to a stakeholder. There is no documentation that can help me learn new context every three months *insert pepe the frog in rain emoji*.How, then?

For me, the lesson I learned is: To practice and experience everything. To welcome challenges as it comes. No matter how many books I read, how many youtube videos I watch, there is no lesson more powerful than experiencing those moments myself. Experience builds self-reliability and self-confidence that can not be replicated by theories alone. As Rilke said: to allow life (and work expectations) to happen to you, to gain more and more trust in whatever is difficult for you, until one day it has become an effortless thing to do. This lesson is also applicable for anything in Life. The answer is just to experience everything.

Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. - A Letter to A Young Poet, Rainer Marie Rilke

I also would like to quote my fellow PM, Mas Way, when faced with many bug reports: 'Banyak bug report berarti banyak yang pakai appnya. Ini happy problem.' Such was a demonstration of self-confidence, as he welcomed challenges and trusted himself and his team that they can handle any problems thrown at them.

So, my fellow eFisherian, if you are struggling and enduring things, and things have not been easy for you: Me too, but I hope it will someday be our precursor for more self-reliability and self-confidence. Cheers, my friend, to new challenges and experiences, I hope we all will be a better person for it! 🥂

[...] But everything assigned to us is a challenge; nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters. [...] Therefore dear friend, embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. - A Letter to A Young Poet, Rainer Marie Rilke

*P.S: This post is actually an ad an invitation to read A Letter to A Young Poet by Rainer Marie Rilke because IT. IS. SO. GOOD.

[joyfulterror]

raison d'etre

It has been a long time since I have a reason for waking up in the morning. A reason for being. I remember a distant memory when I was so excited for tomorrow, being in elementary school, my curiosity got the better of me when reading Harry Potter. I need to know the ending! *cue to twelve years old me, lugging 400++ page of The Prisoner of Azkaban on my backpack*. Such was a simple life, when my worry in life is having to wait a whole year for a new Harry Potter book.

I don't remember much after that. At some point around high school, I lost my reading habit, and gone was my curiosity. Being a melancholic person, I like to wallow on sadness and the hardness of life, which is not a condusive space of thinking to be excited about a tomorrow. Life went on relentlessly, until... exactly six months ago, I had my daughter.

To be fair, life is not easy when having a baby. My first 3 months were a rollercoaster of the highest of high and the lowest of low. I still remember when my only to-do list was to 'Search for a psychologist'. I also still remember when she first smiled at me. Nowadays, as a working mom, life is a chaotic thing that I go through hour-by-hour.

I read somewhere that being a mother is basically a repeated cycle of maintenance work, and I have to agree. Life is not easily plan-able, and sometimes I still dread waking up in the morning, having to be ready for anything, from unexpected tantrums during meetings, to emergency rush to the hospital. Life goes past in a blur, but now I feel like every minute of it is a still photograph of my daughter growing up.

So if you ask me, what is my reason to wake up in the morning? My answer would be, realistically and as an ode to my daughter: a mix of messy bath times and daily stand up meetings :))

[hirpinia]

katiaerokhin

[kissycat]

Imo a lot of the time the cure for modern malaise is not to focus more on yourself and engage in more self care, but to find a way to help/do something for other people, though importantly (and this is just a matter of attitude) not out of a sense of duty or self sacrifice but out of a desire to enrich their lives. Get out of that self reflection hole and start volunteering or something and you truly will feel better or at least useful

[grosezero]

Every decision i ever made sits on my chest like that goblin in that one painting 

[monster2003]

[nevver]

Stray light, Clarissa M Bonet

[psikonauti]

Tù.úk'z (Arthur Machado)

[campsis]

豊田画廊 (@toyotagarou): 呉 亜沙 / go asa

[paulfrankjuliusthemonkey]

@matchagirl

[eatpussypraylove]

Had this moment where I was late and stuck in traffic today where I just thought “well, I can’t go any faster, might as well blast the music & open the sunroof.” It’s so simple but something just clicked for me this year after suffering a lot of grief/death/life changes where I’m very aware of how precious each moment is and I constantly think “I’ll never be as young as I am today again.” Like I’ve had those thoughts before, but it’s getting applied in real time without concentrated effort now. Glad I had that realization at 27 instead of in actual old age

[joyfulterror]

pengen mikirin diri sendiri, anak, sama kerjaan aja rasanya wkwk. terlalu banyak drama ga penting, terlalu banyak buat cape diri sendiri. kayanya jadi single mom lebih ga cape drpd begini :')

[sentimentalbeing2001]

[389]

Catherine Jansen The Blue Room 1970-73 / Photosensitized cloth, photographic dyes, embroidery

[00l000]

🧩

[b4rfbrain]

via prostheticcatears

[whimsigothwitch-deactivated2026]

I love pretty vintage bookcovers

[femcelgirlie]

the girlies reading

[sweatermuppet]

this is going to be difficult -> i am capable of doing difficult things -> i have done everything prior to this moment -> this difficulty will soon be proof of capability