Define “Susah”: Learning How to Persist
It’s a glassy day, the sun shines through the water mirroring the sky and everything above it. I finally learned the best way to do it: to enjoy. Smile, paddle, smooth, strong, paddle, sing a song, paddle, take off, ride.
Some days, the weather helps. But that isn’t always the case, and regardless of it you still gotta go surf, live life and do business.
I am usually hard on myself, regardless of the circumstances. I would first wonder “what’s wrong with me”, then I’d stop enjoying and drift my focus away from reality, into what should I do better.
While it seemed to be the right attitude as an entrepreneur, surf taught me there’s you can’t solve a real problem by ignoring adversities and external factors involving it. The current may be strong some days. You just gotta accept it. Deal with it, not fight against. You create fake certainty by “taking charge” and making yourself responsible for factors you can’t control.
Under that mindset, the outcome would be: I failed. When taking yourself out of the picture would bring solutions to the surface.
But mostly: there’s no point surfing if you don’t enjoy it. Same for business.
Define: Satu Ombak Lagi
I started surfing around a year ago. It helps me a great deal to deal with anxiety, nurture patience and resilience.
So I coined myself the motto “satu ombak lagi”, which translates from Bahasa Malay/Indonesian as “one more wave”. “Satu ombak lagi” means both “passion” and “persistence”.
Passion for a “positive addiction”. You crave for one more wave, then just one more, and there you go, until you spend 5 hours at the sea.
Persistence to stay passionate while facing hardships. It means: don’t give up. It defines the attitude of facing your fears to keep improving, trying harder even when you look at yourself and feel like “not enough”.
There are days when current is strong, the wind cuts sharp and makes it harder even for the most experienced surfers. Beating yourself up isn’t the best way to deal with it.
Recognizing hardships is the first step to overcome it.
Surf gave me the definition, understanding, and acceptance of the word “susah”. I learned it at the Secret, Nias (a pro-surfers spot that I visited too soon in my surf journey).
Background Story. Define: wipeout
First, let me share about my first deadly wipeout, in Canggu, around a year ago. It traumatized me for months to come.
I was excited after spending some weeks in Cherating with my 2–3ft waves, point break, long rides. The dream come true for a goofy longboarder. So I went to Canggu, a lovely and hip “surf town” in Bali.
There are several breaks there. In the morning, I went to Batu Bolong just because it was the nearest to my Airbnb, just “testing the waters”. Literally.
Early evening, I went to check Echo Beach. Beautiful sunset, I couldn’t resist. I ran to rent a board, got convinced by the local guy (and my ego) to try a shortboard for the first time.
I went from Cherating’s 2–3ft waves with a longboard to 5–6ft waves on a shortboard.I had no idea what I was doing.
As a big wave came and no one went for it, I turned around to catch it and heard someone screaming ‘No!!!’ behind me as I dared to paddle forward. That’s not what you want to hear after you decided to catch a wave.
I didn’t catch it, it caught me. Badly. That’s kinda what people call wipeout.
After almost drowning in what felt like one minute on a giant laundry machine, I could swim my way up to the surface, cough some water and breathe. Glad I am still alive, as you can read.
That wave put a great deal of fear in my brain. But the worst was yet to come.
As I said, “susah” joined my vocabulary last year in the Secret, Nias, a small village around a reef break blessed with bountiful swells, which attract pro surfers from all over the world.
I knew little about it when I decided to join that trip. And I decided not to Google a lot of it and “be surprised” instead. Bad idea.
Well. Nias did surprise me with many things, but mostly:
1. There was no board rental in Nias. People who were convinced enough to take 2 flights and a 2-hour van to get there had their own boards; but me.
2. My friends were excited that Mick Fanning had stayed in the same guesthouse we did. “Who dat tho?”, I thought. Months later I learned that was the guy who punched a great white on public TV.
3. Nias is a pro-surfers destination. Even the kiddies corner is for pro-kids. It’s a damn reef break and waves would reach 6–8ft when we were there.
I managed to rent a 7,7” board from a local guy and kept it throughout the trip. But I had been surfing for only 3 months by then.
I was scared but failed to admit it even to myself. I got that “gotta be tough” spirit, coming from a kinda red neck small town where being tough gives you brownie-points for belonging.
As it followed, I copied + pasted everything my friends did.
They walked barefoot on the reef while carrying their boards with one arm, so did I… Even though I felt that shit was cutting my feet.
“Come on. You’re a tough gal!”.
When I got in the water, I saw a dolphin sparking by and sending wishes of love and happiness to the world. I’m kidding, checking if you’re still here.
I saw a guy wearing a freaking helmet, wetsuit and reef booties. Yeah, “holy shit” from the 3-month old surfer me, barefoot on a bikini.
OK, I was admittedly scared about the reef. If it had hurt my feet, imagine what it could do with my head if a wave catches me like that one wipeout in Canggu. Lizard brain memories (aka trauma).
Some people say that Nias’ queuing system is tough for visitors, they said locals rule the sea like wave lords. That was not my case. I got “lucky”. They offered me a wave just as I got on the sea. I don’t know why. They probably thought I knew what I was doing. 5 minutes after I got there, a wave came.
They said, go! I went.
I should have been grateful and happy, but the memories of Echo Beach lead me to another majestic wipeout, 3 times stronger than before.
It hit harder and dragged me away from the point. The worst part is that monster waves come in a gang: each set has 3 to 5 waves. If you happened to be at the wrong place in the first one, oh dear: get prepared to hold your breath, let go your board and dig deep into the water over and over again.
Basically, Nias 3-day trip taught me how to get paddle through big waves.
Define: susah
That’s when a local guy, named “Eef”, came to help me.
After trying to paddle back to the point with me, he figured that I was tired and invited me to sit on the reef for a little while and rest.
He spoke little English and my Bahasa Indonesia was even lesser. So we tried to communicate with the few words we got, as he was trying to explain something about Nias. Something I didn’t understand.
I got all the context, but that missing word was defining it. He said “Nias, susah” and pointed at me.
I’m like: “susah apa?”. What does “susah” mean?
He didn’t know the word in English so he tried explaining it in spare words: “susah like you want buy bike, no money, no work… Can’t buy”
And I’m like: “like… Excuses? Lazy?”
He laughed and nodded as in “no, no” and continued with similar examples like: “want work, can’t get”, or “want do, can’t do”.
And the only words that pop to my mind are: lazy, stupid, excuses? As he was trying to explain the relation between Nias and me, and from his examples, these were the only words I could think of.
We went on until I decided, OK. “I’ll google it later”.
I left Nias 2 days later with a serious inflammation on my feet, from the cuts I got at the reef. The word susah popped into my mind. I wrote it down on Google and the result was genuinely surprising:
susah {noun} : hard, difficult
Eef meant that Nias was hard for me.
Understanding and dealing with susah: hardship
Accepting that things are difficult wasn’t lacking only in my Bahasa Indonesia vocabulary. It was lacking in me as an attitude.
The fact I couldn’t understand the word, nor his examples, meant to me that I had been completely ignoring the word “difficult” in my life.
As an entrepreneur, constantly dealing with uncertainties, I found comfort in taking charge of everything and living the illusion that I was in control. Blaming on me felt braver than pointing out external circumstances.
I couldn’t accept external factors. Circumstances. Difficulties. Things I can’t control. It was all about me being lazy or making excuses. Essentially it gave me a fake impression of control, at the cost of reality.
But surf gave me the truth: certain things are hard. Accepting it is the first step to getting better.
I wasn’t improving by merely going back to the sea with the same mindset from before, spiced up by the trauma from previous wipeouts.
By not acknowledging the existence of hardships and throwing yourself back into the water as your “toughest gal/guy” version, you are ignoring adverse circumstances that need to be addressed.
You are being brave, maybe. But not smart. And entrepreneurship, as surf, requires you to be both.
Nature isn’t controllable. Neither is life, including business.
Accepting “susah” is something surf taught me in order to pause and recognize which things were hard and required me to pace myself, take a step back and learn.
And mostly: it taught me to be gentle with myself.
Main Learning: Are You Enjoying It?
Surf is a great metaphor for life translated into enjoyable hours at the sea.
Catching and riding a wave is the definition of pleasure that I couldn’t find elsewhere, yet. But surf always brings me hardships, susah.
It makes me ask why are you doing it? Why do you insist? Why don’t you give up, pick something else, maybe table tennis? Because “one more wave” means passion and persistence.
Every time it’s hard in a different way, but every wave is worth it.
Surf is my exercise of enjoying life besides of its hardships. In fact, of enjoying life including its hardships. And loving it anyways.
I’m off to one more wave soon. Jom?
