Neyna Rahmadani - Inspirational Woman Story

"After juggling a number of jobs at a creative agency, F&B, education and real estate industries in Surabaya, East Java, I 'retired' as 'big city slave' and move to Ubud, Bali, to continue doing what I love : communications, design thinking, and photography."

SD: Where are you from originally? and where did you grow up? where did you live for most of your life?

I was born and raised in Indonesia, specifically in the region of East Java. I grew up in a relatively small city - suburb of Surabaya, which is the capital city of East Java. In early 2008, I left my hometown to start living in Surabaya, as I had to pursue my bachelor degree in Communications Studies at Airlangga University. It has been almost nine years for me to live on my own - to live independently and separately from my family, as they are now living somewhere near Jakarta.

After finishing my university studies, I started my professional career as a graphic designer and lay-outer at a creative agency in Surabaya: Positive Communications. Two and a half years later, I joined Ciputra University, a leading business school from one of the biggest real estate groups in Indonesia (Ciputra Group) as promotion staff, but still working mostly for graphic design. In early 2017, I left my corporate job and ended my career as a nine to five cubicle worker to relocate to Ubud, Bali. Here in Ubud, I work full time as a media manager for Natural Instinct Healing, a detox and wellness centre in Bali and Australia. Besides, I enjoy working as a photographer mainly covering human interest, holiday and street photography.

SD: How long have you been living in Ubud?

Around six months by the end of this August.

SD: Why did you choose to move to Ubud specifically?

Ubud has been one of my favorite travel destinations, and nothing beats doing what I love ever since I was a kid (drawing and being curious on anything that is visually attractive) in my favorite holiday spot. There are lots of reasons why I eventually decided to leave Java and moved here, but in brief:

• I found out that professional career is not merely about what I do, but also how I do my work - and I realized that corporate culture just doesn’t fit my needs and wants. I know my ‘ideal’ might be constantly changing, but for now, this kind of location-independent working is definitely a good idea for me.
• Freedom of working. My current job allows me to do my work in a more flexible way - yes I still have to work around 8-9 hours per day, but I can do it at anywhere I feel comfortable. It sounds pretty much similar to my former corporate job, but it gives me more and more freedom on how I get all my stuff done : set/adjust the due dates, create my daily to do list, where I can work from, etc.
• Expanded networking. Most of the time I work from a co-working space (Hubud), and thus, I meet a lot of new people : fellow location-independent workers with various skills and abilities. Sharing, or even just hanging out with them is one of the best things I get from my current job.
• I have more time for myself. Surprisingly, working remotely and independently has taught me a lot about self-discipline and time management. I feel that the way that I work now has improved - more efficient and well-organized, so I have more free time for hobbies, exercising more regularly or just spending time with close friends.

SD: How do you find living in Ubud and being completely independent and freelancing?

My decision to leave my corporate job and move to ubud is definitely a quantum leap for me. It is somewhat life changing, as I have to really adapt to a lot of new things - the way I work, the job itself, the culture, the people, etc. I must say that I felt a bit afraid at first, because I don’t have any close friends and relatives who are living here in Ubud, or Bali in general. But it’s wonderful how I started to slowly find those which are really ‘my things’ here - where to eat or drink coffee, whom to talk about my work or my personal life, where to enjoy sunrise/sunset.

Starting a new career as a location-independent worker is so challenging. It’s like erasing a paper full of sketches and then starting a new one. It’s just amazing how my current job affords me the opportunity to meet people (office mates) who are really supportive, but at the same time, they give me enough space to work independently. Besides, I get involved in several side projects in social media management and photography. I found these kind of projects important for me as a professional, because sometimes I need a specific space for the ideas that I couldn’t put into action at my full time job. As long as I can keep them both (full time and freelance jobs) in balance, working with people from different companies will be an advantage for me as it really enriches my professional experience.

SD: What was your family's reaction to your decision to move away from home? were they supportive or against the decision? 

I grew up in a family that’s not too open in expressing our feelings and emotions, therefore, we tend to always subdue our (negative) emotions. I don’t discuss much about my professional life with my parents, so I told them about my decision when I was 85% ready to move here. And as always, they didn’t get angry or reactive, but I did know that they (especially my mom) were worried and questioned my decision : you already had a good job and life in Surabaya, why do you complicate your life now?

 As we have a completely different point of view in professional life, I understand that deciding to live in Bali means ‘unsettling’ my life for them. But I did know at that moment deep in my heart I was unhappy with my Surabaya life, everything was getting worse and boring, I didn’t have much time for myself … I explained to my parents about the ‘why’ behind this decision. They said okay, but they are still worried about lots of things that don’t need to worry about. LOL. But, yeah, I don’t ask much from them - respecting my decision and letting me live in my own way is more than just enough for me.

SD: What advise would you give to other Muslim women or any others who come from conservative families/cultures and who want to be more independent and break free from social and cultural traditions and values?

I wouldn’t say that my family is a conservative Muslim family. Like what most Indonesians experience in their lives, we live in a society with different cultural background, religions, tribes and languages that it is impossible for us to not be diverse. My family has taught me a lot of religious values as much as they have let me get along with neigbours and friends from different backgrounds. Talking about social and cultural traditions/values, I will not say that all parts of it are bad or have restricted us. But still, there are some traditions that I find really disturbing for our lives as Indonesians in general - for instance : patriarchy, marginalized LGBTQ community, and sad but true, religion fanatism/extremist.

For those living in conservative family/culture, and for women in general, my words of advise are :

• Find your core values and principles, but never see it as something that hold you back. We are free to choose our principles, we consciously choose what we can and cannot do - so this must be our guide rather than our boundaries.
• Always improve and be ready to show your skill set and abilities, because it is the most powerful way to prove to others that our jobs/activities are always of benefit to ourselves and others. Our parents or closest ones could probably react negatively to what we do, but it might be because they just don’t understand what we are doing. Thus, we have to always explain clearly, show and give them concrete proof that what we do is always of benefit to ourselves and others.
• Always remember that freedom goes hand in hand with responsibility. For me personally, as long as what I do causes no harm to me and others, that is enough to prove my responsibility for my own life.
• Respect others. No matter how different we are, we have no right to underestimate something that we have no idea about.

SD: What are you planning to do next? stay in Ubud for a few more years or move somewhere else? what are your future plans?

At least for the next 6-12 months, yes, I am going to live here in Ubud. The closest plan I have for now is going to Kei, a small remote island in South East Maluku, Indonesia, in Oct/Nov - I just won a street photography competition held by an NGO who is currently building a community center there, and we, the 3 winning photographers will be ‘sent’ to that place to cover their program publications through a series of images. Besides, I am currently awaiting reply from another photo exhibition and workshop from Cambodia government. So, what do I do for the next couple of months: improve my professional networking by getting to know more and more new people, dig deeper into street/human interest photography, get involved more in the stock photo website where I join as contributing photographer, and enjoy life in Ubud over a cup of coffee :)

Be inspired by other powerful women stories from my blog Saudi Diva!