Life Tales

Living a life is not easy, never been easy

You try and try and try to make it perfect, yet it will never be perfect

People, conditions, destiny will fail your expectation

You are brain-washed to let go expectation and perfection and to live in the now

Forget the future, don’t worry about tomorrow, enjoy now!

You try to get along with the rhythm of second by second and you live day by day

And..boom! They say you are living in a comfort zone, that you are wasting your time and talent.

You work hard again, you start to dream, you fail and rise and you plan for tomorrow

Yet tomorrow always demand more from you, you are exhausted, trying to go back to now but the voice in your head hated you so much because you can’t made up your mind.

Do you want tomorrow or now? 

There is a price of everything and there is nothing free and there is nothing perfect. 

You just simply cannot have it all.

A Birthday Note - Start Practicing Self Love.

Will it be too weird if I write a birthday note after a post about plans before dying?
(well I am weird and random..)

It is several minutes passing my birth day.
My pondering moment come easily the whole day. I try to stop it but it flows profusely.

I was kinda reviewing myself, I was trying to look to myself deeper and ask those long boring questions:
 "Who Am I? What Am I Doing in This World? Why Am I Here? What Am I Meant to Be? Had I Give the Best Shot for My Life? What Am I Afraid Of?" etc etc etc

In the middle of me answering questions from the other part of me, I stuck at one point where I realize I am not being honest with myself.

I thought I am at the point where I don't care about what other people think about me.
I thought I am at the point where I don't need to be perfect and can accept myself with that.
And I thought I have loved myself as much as I need me to love me.
But the more I asked myself about the very last thought, the more I doubt about it.

I honestly never really feel anything about myself.
I raised myself to be a strong woman, a truly strong independent, confident one.
(for the last adjective, I build it from my thousands unconfident experiences) ;
the all above adjectives made me think I am at point where I love myself enough.

And yet, still, the more I think about it, the more I doubt it.
This is not about me hating myself, definitely no.. but I just realize that I don't love myself enough.
I always told myself the TOO wordings: Too fat, too skinny, too lazy, too harsh, too hardworker, too ..., too..., too...., too..., too... and a lot other too.. things.

I come to a realization, that I have not enough given a chance to say to myself: enough effort, enough sleep, enough willingness...

So I thought self-loving is easy, but no, it is not.

Today is my first day on my new age, so I guess I need to practice a lot about self loving.
Yet, I am grateful to be able to realize this in such a young age, because the topic of self-loving will need to be learned in a lifetime.
Today I give myself a praise to myself on these hard realization (well it's not easy..)
I have a year homework to work on the 'enough' part :)

I love candle as a symbol of reflection

 

Last, let me blow the candle for myself :)

 

What is Your Plan Before Dying?

The title sounds creepy for some people. But not for me..
Unlike any other person generally, I'd like to know my time limit.
I'd like to know how much time left for me.

The biggest mistake most people made, they assume their time is unlimited. The second biggest mistake people made, they stick to only one plan and refuse to adjust to other plan.

I make a plan and the backup plan for my life..

If tomorrow, suddenly things happen and I am gone, I'll be happy and content - I have done so much more than I ever planned before.
If tomorrow, doctors suddenly said I only have 24 weeks left, I'll be happy too - I will quit my job as soon as I can, I will plan a good crematory, joining some insurance plan for the family, and travelling around the world before the time is coming.

If somehow I still have 3-4 years left, I will go back to school and do more travelling.
If it is ten years, I'll make sure I can afford live somewhere near the beach where I can feel the ocean breeze and staring on every waves on the beach every single days.
If it is twenty-thirty years from now, I'll make sure I raise a good kid and give him/her the knowledge and wisdom of life as much as I can.
And I think, I don't wish to live more than fifty years from today. I have lived enough life to be happy, to be content, to plan anything and to stop expecting from tomorrow.

See, don't you think it is easier if you just make a timeframe for your life? So whatever may come tomorrow to your life, you feel more ready on prioritizing what is more important for you.

The Time is not Unlimited

Family (Part 2): Education is my Culture!

Today is 20 February 2015, still in Chinese New Year Season.

While many families wearing red, feel happy to visit other family member, I feel nothing. I don't feel excited at all.

Yes, I born amongst Chinese family, but I born in Indonesia and never leave the country ever since (except for 7 months in 2012). I speak Bahasa, even Sundanese, I don't speak Chinese, and I don't recall that I celebrate Chinese New Year since I was a kid.

I tried to recall, did I even celebrate any festive season when I was a kid..

Did I celebrate Christmas?
No, I never have anything called Xmas dinner nor have Xmas tree on the living room.

Did I celebrate Idul Fitri?
No, I never bake any cake or going to fam's house to ask for any forgiveness.

Did I celebrate Chinese New Year?
No, obviously I never wear any red stuff or eat any famous moon cakes or receive thing called Ang Pao.

Did I celebrate New Year Eve?
Kinda, I remembered bought paper trumpet . That's it.

So it seems I do not celebrate any festive season, I often feel hard to relate to any cultures.
They say family build your culture of festive season, in my case, I don't think so.
The only culture that I really had since I was a kid is working hard and survival mode, if you do good at school you will become better person.

I Googled things, and I found this about my predecessor:

Taken from: http://history-of-culture.blogspot.com/2011/10/entry-of-chinese-people-tionghoa.html

So I accidentally happen to know that my Grandpa of my Grandpa (Lauw O Teng) is actually one of the founder for one of the very first school in Indonesia, which triggered other people in Indonesia at that time to build other school.

I am super proud of the fact.
I have been living for more than 20 years with weird feeling for not having any rooted culture
I finally can say, the culture we trust in the family is education, and not the other.

I ponder the fact, and I totally can relate with this "new culture I found"
I ask myself the question "If I have everything in the world already, what I wanna do?" - my answer is I'd like to go to medicine school, to neuroscience and philosophy school - not to work or have any career but to learn for the rest of my life.
I also would like to be a writer so that I can share the knowledge I have with world.
(this blog is actually one of my way to practice my writing skill)

So, to close the paragraphs, when you meet me somewhere, don't call me Chinese! call me an educated person :p

A Note on Valentine's Day

Every time I remember you, I remember the father that I never had.
Even though I never have you as mine, you replace him, you give me a sense of security and confident.
You obviously never say yes to everything I wish for, but you are biggest piece of my sane life.

Every time I remember you, I feel I was in kindergarten.
I surrounded by innocent laughter.
I remember we explore every crazy thoughts we have and we fulfill each other curiosities.

Every time I remember you, I feel you are my old best friend.
We rarely spend time together yet I feel you close to my heart.
Every time we meet, we will pour out our thoughts and we share each other stories.

So, Happy Valentine's Day, dear you in Rome!

5 to 6

Chasing happiness is a grand theme all people talking about lately.

Some said you should be married to be happy
Some said you should be famous to be happy
Some said you should be powerful and secure to be happy
Some said you should go to party to be happy

Can you find what is wrong with my sentences above?
No, it is not because it is repetitive and boring..
It is because we just put too much prerequisites to be happy.

One of my tricks of happiness is actually simple, yet for me, pricey.
Well one said that there is nothing such as free lunch.

I always have this magical happy feeling when I am able to wake up naturally at 5AM errr... or 5.15 AM (I am not a morning person, rarely wake up as early as 5AM), and if I could spend that magical hours looking at the changes of the color of the sky.
There is a burst of hope when the dark faded into lights, and that hope rides me into a peace state of mind which make me feel happy enough to continue my life.