The Art of Having Absolutely No Idea What You're Doing

One thing you should know about me is that my life has never followed a straight line. Some people seem to know exactly what they want to do from a young age. They have a plan, a vision, and a five-year roadmap.

I was not one of those people.

In fact, some of my biggest life decisions were made with surprisingly little thought. For example, after completing my Diploma in IT, I decided to pursue a degree in Geology.

Why Geology? Because it sounded cool. That was genuinely the thought process.

Young Nabilah heard the word "Geology" and thought, "Wow. Rocks. Mountains. Science. Main character energy." What young Nabilah failed to consider was whether she actually wanted to spend years studying it. As it turns out, there is a significant difference between something sounding cool and something being right for you. Who knew?

University became challenging, but in the middle of all that, I somehow found myself becoming the Head of Media for my university's student body. Out of all the responsibilities I had at the time, those were some of my favourite memories.

The events.

The content.

The media work.

The creative chaos.

Looking back, I think that was one of the first places where I genuinely felt like myself.

Eventually, university became overwhelming, and I had to take a semester break.

At the time, it felt like a setback. Looking back now, it was probably one of the most important turning points in my life. Because during that break, I started selling cosmetics.

And while I enjoyed the business side of things, what I really loved was everything surrounding it.

Creating posters.

Filming videos.

Designing promotional materials.

Coming up with content ideas.

Building a brand.

Without realizing it, I was spending hours doing things that felt less like work and more like fun.

That should have been my first clue.

Eventually, I returned to university and switched my major to Geography. This time, I promised myself I would choose something because I genuinely enjoyed it, not because it sounded impressive. Thankfully, it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. And in a plot twist I still find funny today, I ended up earning enough credits from my previous Geology studies that the university officially recognized it as my minor. So despite all my efforts to escape Geology, it somehow followed me to graduation anyway.

Life has a strange sense of humour sometimes.

While studying Geography, I completed my internship at Borneo Futures. Initially, I was tasked with helping establish their Instagram presence. Simple enough. Except somehow I ended up designing brochures, business cards, posters, report visuals, and even contributing to website design. When my internship ended, they asked me to stay on as a Project Assistant. At the time, I simply thought, "Cool!"

Looking back, maybe that was another clue.

Not long after, I volunteered with La Vida Berhad, where I had the opportunity to support community initiatives, administrative work, and media-related projects. Again, I found myself gravitating towards the creative side of things and taking the media responsibilities

Then came Artcholic. A place where I spent much of my time creating social media content, graphics, videos, and learning through experimentation.

By this point, the pattern was becoming difficult to ignore.

After graduating, I joined a local government agency as a Logistics Officer under the Perantis programme. Now, if you've been keeping track, this is probably where the story takes another unexpected turn. Because logistics and content creation don't exactly sound like they belong in the same sentence.

But even then, I somehow found my way back to creating outside of work.

I started making mini vlogs on my stories.

Documenting experiences.

Taking photos.

Editing videos.

Because apparently, I can't go very long without making something.

The funny thing is that every chapter of my life seemed unrelated at the time.

But when I look back now, they all seem connected by one thing:

No matter where I was, I always found an excuse to create something. Honestly, I think that's kind of beautiful. Because it means that sometimes you don't need to have everything figured out.

Sometimes life leaves clues.

You just need enough time to recognize them. And I suppose that's what this portfolio is.

Not a complete record of everything I've ever created, but a collection of the projects, experiences, and ideas that best represent my journey so far. What you'll find here is a curated selection. The polished versions. The projects that made the final cut. The ones that I felt best reflected my interests, growth, and creative direction. What you won't see are the countless social media posts, graphics, videos, edits, captions, random content experiments, and half-finished ideas quietly living in my archives. Trust me, there are a lot of them.

Some of them aren't particularly polished.

Some were created simply because I felt like making something.

Some were made at 2 a.m. with questionable design decisions.

And some were never intended to be seen by anyone other than myself.

But I don't consider those projects failures or wasted effort. If anything, they're the reason this portfolio exists in the first place. Because every poster, every video, every graphic, every caption, and every piece of content taught me something. They helped me experiment, improve and discover what I enjoy creating. Most importantly, they helped me build the skills that eventually led me here.

So while this portfolio may only showcase a small portion of my work, it's built upon years of curiosity, experimentation, and an ongoing habit of creating things simply because I wanted to.

This portfolio isn't the final product. It's simply the chapter I'm currently in.

There are still skills I want to learn, projects I want to create, stories I want to tell, and ideas sitting in my notes app waiting for their turn.

New projects, new experiments, and probably a few unexpected plot twists will be added along the way.

So consider this a work in progress!