The only constant in life is change.
Plus death. ☠
And, possibly, taxes. 💸
Just as suddenly as the chance to move to Bali came two years ago, my family and I are now back in Jakarta. Decided to come back here amazingly just a day after we landed in Denpasar.
I don’t see all these changes as a lack of planning. Maybe this is just how life guides us toward the goals we’re meant to achieve. Sometimes the path isn’t what we mapped out, but it gets us where we need to go anyway.
A few years back, when we were building our family’s future plans, financial projections became one of our biggest priorities. As someone who tends to be very realistic (pessimistic, perhaps), creating family financial forecasts felt difficult. It’s different from making a business plan. With family planning, so many aspects need to be considered with your heart, not just calculation on your spreadsheet.
One big challenge is of course education. We learned that quality education often requires higher investment. Of course, that’s not always a definite rule. Every family has their own values, their own goals they want to pursue for their children.
With our somewhat lofty goals (budgets for two children through higher education can be quite substantial), it’s hard not to view these numbers as pressure sometimes. The weight of providing the best for your kids while staying financially responsible can feel overwhelming.
With the plan in hand, we move forward. Of course this was accompanied by lots of prayers and hope.
During this time, many challenges came our way. More often than not, the path wasn’t as straightforward as our plan suggested. We found ourselves constantly adjusting, recalculating, and sometimes questioning our approach entirely.
As we went on, we learned something important about how we were praying and hoping. Instead of asking for specific outcomes like “Please give me Rp100 million monthly income so we can send our kids to reputable universities,” we started praying differently: “Please provide good education that will truly help them in life.”
The shift was subtle, but kinda lift the weight in our shoulders. We had gotten stuck in the details, thinking that our plan was the only way to achieve our goals. We were so focused on the path charted in our plan, that we couldn’t see other options that might lead to the same destination, or maybe even better ones.
Then opportunities started appearing. Not always in the form we expected, but opportunities nonetheless.
What we realized was crucial: we had to be prepared to take those opportunities when they came. This meant staying flexible, learning to let go of things, and most importantly, learning to embrace change rather than resist it.
The move to Bali definitely wasn’t in our original plan. Neither was the move back to Jakarta. But both transitions taught us something valuable about being agile, not just in business terms, but in life.
Embracing the Uncomfortable
Living in Bali for two years gave us perspectives we never would have gained staying in Jakarta. The slower pace, the different community dynamics, the way our children adapted to a new environment – all of these experiences became part of our family’s growth story.
Now, being back in Jakarta, the hustle feels familiar yet fresh. The environment we’re all facing feels new and challenging. But we’re ready.
Our children are more adaptable. They’ve learned that home isn’t just one place, and that change doesn’t have to be scary.
I’ve learned that embracing change doesn’t mean being reckless or abandoning the plan completely. It means holding your plans lightly enough that when better opportunities arise, you can pivot without feeling like you’ve failed.
As entrepreneurs, we talk about being agile in business all the time. But being agile in life? That’s a different skill, and perhaps more important. Change isn’t always comfortable, but sometimes it’s exactly what we need to get where we’re supposed to be.
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