Yes We Can

“Well, I need to go now,” I stood up from my coffee chair
“Where are you going?” my friend, Mr. Perfect, asked
“I have a meeting to attend”
“Oh, you have a meeting with them?” he also knew the people involved in the meeting
“Yes”
“Will that be on time?” he asked again as he had had a lot of bad experiences regarding punctuality with “them”
“Well, yeah, I know they might not be on time, but I just don’t want to be late”
“He he. Believe me, even if you’re 15 mins late, the meeting is still not started,” he smiled cynically
I smiled back. “I know. But, I just want to try to be positive. They may be late, but I want to be on time. It’s okay that the meeting is not started when I’m here. But at least, I’m not late.”
“Good if you have that way of thinking”
“Okay. See you around”
“Bye. Good luck with the meeting”

It was part of my conversation with Mr. Perfect today. We were talking about a group of people we used to be in. We have been dealing with almost the same group for such a long time, say, 3-4 years. We have known each other quite well. Not too well, actually, but well enough to know their general habit.
In our life, we meet many people, with many characteristics and habits. As human is a unique individual, then we might find some differences among the people we meet. Some can be tolerated, but some can not. When we think what other people have is not right, we would give some critics. But then when the bad habit is still there, we got fed up. By that state, we tend to be helpless and don’t care. I do believe you might once have said “Huh, don’t expect him to be on time. He is always like that.” Or “He is not reliable, don’t believe in what he says.” Or… or… the other examples (which are too many to mention). I’m quite sure that at least once in our life we had ever complained about the condition we have, either the environment or the circle of friends and family.

However, if we keep complaining, will those people change? Big NO. I always think that if we don’t get what we are expecting, there are two options. You lower down the standard or you change your expectations. For example, I have a friend, Mr. Aussie, who is always late. When he said he would see me at 7 pm, he would end up meeting me at 8 pm or 9 pm. At first, I was a bit annoyed by this habit. I mean, I was sitting there for 1-2 hours, waiting for him. After a while, I learn to deal with this. First, don’t make appointment on the appointed time. If you want to meet at 7 pm, tell him to meet at 6 pm. Second, try to find out what time he is really available. In this case, Mr. Aussie is working until at least 6 pm. So, try to make appointment at 8 pm. Third (this is the second option I mentioned above), change my own standard. If I have appointment with Mr. Aussie, I don’t expect him to be on time. I tell myself he might be late, so I think of something to do in between the waiting time. So, don’t bother myself with bad feeling within me.
 

Talking about bad feeling, I have another experience. A friend of mine, Cherry, was mad about me not telling her that I move to another town. She was upset and disappointed. The fact is, I didn't tell anybody, not just her, as I didn’t see the point of announcing it to the world – I’m nobody important to begin with. Plus, she was unreachable (she was having a summer course or something out of town) when I was about to move. So, another friend, Mr. Lucifer, who know about her disappointment, asked what I felt about her disappointment on me. Well, actually, I don’t feel bad at all. First, I didn’t think I deliberately wanted to make her upset. Second, it was her who choose to be upset and disappointed. So, if she is still upset now, that’s her choice. I couldn't force her to be upset and disappointed.

Most of the time we complain a lot without making any action to change the annoying condition we have. There is a saying, it’s better to light a candle than to complain about the black out. So, we may not complain? Yes, it’s very normal to complain when we don’t get what want. But, can a complain make the condition change? Another big NO. Whew, what I want to say is, sometimes we are to busy complaining and forget to think of solutions to change the things we don’t like. Or sometimes we are too fed up so that we are helpless and demand too much. For example, a friend tell us to be on time, but then we tell ourselves, “you are always late and then you tell me to be on time???” Most people will require other people to be good first then tell others to be good. If that so, there will be no good thing as nobody is perfect. But let’s change our mind set a little bit. If we know that people are not on time, why don’t we be on time? If we are also late, we are just the same as them, right? If that so, the next question is: when will the group be on time?

I do believe, if we take action, regardless the significance, YES WE CAN MAKE A CHANGE!

To Be Or Not To Be Lucky

To be or not to be lucky. That’s the question.
In one session of my German language class, we discussed about what the important things for building a career were. We’re divided into two small groups then we had to present the result to the other group.
I was in a group with a Korean flute player, Eun, and an economist from Urkraine. Oh, okay. Too many details. We agree that talent and diligence are two best characters one should have, not only in building a career but also in every aspects of life. Eun believed that one must have a talent, for example in music – because she is a musician. In other words, he/she must be accustomed to music – bars and notes and tunes, good body coordination, sense of music and so on and so forth. It doesn’t mean that people without so-called talent couldn’t be a musician. In fact, music can be learnt, they only need more time, efforts and hard works.
Then it’s time for us to present. The other group agree that hard work and diligence were good characters to have. But, they added something so called LUCK. Hussein from Libya told us a story in his previous office. There was a girl who didn’t study high enough – no bachelor degree, no master degree and other degree required by any offices nowadays. She was promoted because she was lucky, he said. She came in the right time at the right place. Not long after her working, the manager resigned and she was the only candidate to be his successor. So, in a short time, 2-3 years, she was a manager. The others had been working for years but stayed the same or only made a small significance in their careers. In conclusion, Hussein believed that hard work and diligence were important, but the X factor is LUCK.
Trying to think mathematically, here comes the formula
Success = hard work x diligence x luck
Hmm… Looks easy, right? Life is never easy, so forget about the formula.
Talking about luck. What is luck, anyway? Is it man made or it come from nowhere? When can we say that one person is lucky? When not?
When I visited a bookstore in Jakarta, coincidentally my eyes struck on a book discussing about luck. It explained luck from several points of view – ratio, religious, myth and on and on. Don’t really remember the details, but the book try to understand what so-called luck from ratio or logic point of view, especially in marketing (the book was written by a motivator and marketer).
Then, when we say somebody is lucky, is he really lucky or he created the luck? For example, the story of Hussein’s friend. Was she lucky because she was the only candidate to replace her manager? Was she lucky because she could work in a multinational company without having any ‘written’ degree?
Well, a friend of mine once wrote about lucky day. There was a day when we feel lucky. We had a good family, we had a great and caring boss, we got promoted, our projects were successful and many more. Did you know, all of those things didn’t come just right away? I mean, all that good things are the effects/results from our doings in the past. Every single thing we do will create effect(s). We have a good family now because we have been working hard to solve any problems that emerged during our family life. We had a caring boss because we do care about our company or the place we are working on. We got promoted because our supervisor has been recording our accomplishment. The projects were successful because we had been working on it for days, weeks, months or even years. So, everything we have right now is the result from everything we did in the past. If that’s so easy, why are there still people with what so-called bad luck?
There are always stories about people who have been working hard nights and days but it seemed like it was very difficult for them to have a good life/career/family/condition. It sounds sad and ironic. But I do believe, that’s not because of bad luck. I mean, there must be something that is wrong during the process of living a life, building a career or family. But the problem is, not many people want to look that deep. Here is another story from my friend. A friend of her always says and acts clean, no corruption. She reminds everybody to avoid corruption. But, one day, she reminded my friend to send a ‘parcel’ to one of the committee before a tender day. Okay, she might avoid corruption (which is good) but she did bribery (which is bad). People who see her with anti-corruption campaign will think “she has been a good and honest woman, why her career was just so-so?
However, cause and effect (or karma) can’t be really predicted. I mean, we can’t really say that helping an old woman crossing a road will result in winning a jackpot. It could lead to that thing but also there are a lot of possibilities and until now nobody can really ‘see’ that. But one thing for sure, it creates an effect, which will come into our life when the time is right or in Buddhism, we call it ‘ripen’. Like a fruit that ripens at certain time, karma also work at the same concept. We can’t harvest the fruit farm when the time is not right. So does karma.
Okay, let’s have a little break. What I’m trying to say here is, if you want to have something good in your life, start and work on the right process. Besides, for me, what is important is the process to reach the goal, not the goal itself. We may set our target as high as possible, but what should be in our mind is, how am I going to reach my goal/target? Whether or not you can accomplish the target depends on the process, the ways you take, not merely because you are unlucky. You are the one who creates the what so-called LUCK. Wanna be lucky? Start and walk on the right process.

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Music of life

Last week I attended a Viola concert in Erasmus Huis (Dutch Language and Culture Center in Jakarta). The viola (not violin) concert was led by Esther Apituley with 3 supporting violist (Mieke Honingh, Rogier van der Tak, Ernst Grapperhaus), a pianist (Rie Tanaka) and a tap dancer (Peter Kuit). Well, for me the concert was different from what generally-known viola (or violin) concert. Usually, the atmosphere is quite tense and serious, while the Amsterdam Viola Quartet was kind of funny and entertaining. The atmosphere was quite casual yet interactive…

I like attending music concert, especially the contemporary or classical one. Not only that, I don’t think there is a day passed without music. Look around you, set up your ears then music that you hear. Music is everywhere. Music is life. Life is music.

Life is about rhythm and tones. And so it goes. This universe is made of particular sounds. The blowing wind, the waving sea, the singing bird and so many sounds which, I think, are creating music. So, you cannot escape music.

I think, the most ancient communication way is through music. Through sounds and vibrations. Let’s track back to the long, long time ago. Many ancient tribes who has their offering songs or folk songs or ceremonial songs. That was how they communicate with this universe.

If we try to see deeper, music is actually made of certain waves and so this life (and the universe). When two or more waves with the same frequency meet each other, they will synchronize. A simple example, go to a pond or find a place where you can see water surface. Try to throw something (or simply put your finger on it) to create ripples on several spots. At the first, probably you will see many different waves but in the end there will be some waves which synchronize each other.

This is actually, an analogy of what is happening in our life. Every action (to think is an action, too) we make will create such kind of wave. And when a wave meet another similar wave, it will synchronize. In this case, that is faith. You meet a friend not by a coincident, but you must be having something in common. If you believe in cause-and-effect law (a.k.a karma), then every thing that we undergo now is a result(effect) of what we caused in the past (1 millisecond ago is considered past).

Many people would likely to blame the environment for many bad things happen on them. I failed because the jury was unfair, I could not be an architect because my family is poor, and so on and so forth. If we want to see further, there must be something we had done which resulted in our failure or our condition now. What we can do is try to be as objective as we can to evaluate and try change the main cause.

So, as the conclusion, never blame the others (or the environment) for every (usually bad things) happen in our life. We are the one who control our life. Think wisely before acting!

Let’s listen to the music of the universe…

What lies behind the Aha!

Everyday, we are faced with so much information. Every single little thing that sensed by our senses is processed by the most sophisticated processor ever: Brain. Well, actually, every living thing has a brain, too. Even though the forms and shapes are different, the function is the same: central processing unit a.k.a CPU., range from the simplest creature, such as bacteria till the most complicated creature, mammals. Then, here comes another question, what makes Human (-according to Darwinian, is classified as mammals) different from other creature????

Physically, you can find many features that makes human is not a mammal. I am not a biologist, but at least, have learnt some. There is one documentary film that, I think has a very funny way of differentiating human from other animal, let’s say pig, or tomatoes (it happens in the film). Human has a special brain (cephalon or something like that) and the opposable thumbs!

Ough, forget about the brain thing. In one blog, my friend said that human is a learning creature. He has a better explanation on how many nerves working in our brain, how our brain sends the data and electrical waves so that any information can be process in a surprisingly quick way. This blog is not meant to talk more about biological things of human, but more about human ability as a mankind.

Human has a skill to receive, store, analyze and process any stimulus he gets. Human develop a complicated language. Human has the ability to perceive, and the process of decision making is superbly quick. We learn from our surrounding and always curious and will never stop to satisfy the curiosity. Another thing is, human has the ability to invent and develop, in terms of intelligence and civilization.

Another great thing human possesses is the INSIGHT, the ability to recognize his own mind, to give meaning to every experience, to make improvement and to have a new understanding.

I myself am also a learner (which indicates that I am still a human). I learn from many things (read: media). Maybe, when I talk about learning, most people will think of going to school or university, reading textbooks and doing assignments. Well, that is what we called formal learning system, isn’t it? Again, thank to human who has ability to create such a system so that all people can learn. But, what about non-formal learning? Look around you, everything you see can teach you a lesson or two. Go to cinema and watch a film, you have just learnt something. Go to book store and read, you have learnt something. Listen to your favorite song, you have learnt something. Start browsing something on your internet browser, you have learnt something. Read a blog or two and you have learnt something.

Rene Decartes said “I think, therefore I am”. When you stop learning, you stop thinking then in the end, you stop living. Life will be flat and purposeless, or quoting Frankl “meaningless”. Therefore, never stop learning and thinking.

If you happened to pay attention on the title of this blog, you will see the word AHA. Actually, not only do human have insight. In fact, the word “aha” was spoken by a guinea pig Chimpanzee during the experiment on the insight. Even though, Chimpanzee is regarded as to have the closest feature with human, this fact is a bit ironical. Well, during the experiment, a Chimpanzee was put in a cage. Hanging on the ceiling was banana, high enough not to be reached by its hand. Near the Chimps, laid an extendable stick, but was set at its shortest form. As the hunger come, the Chimps intended to eat. With the stick, it tried hard to hit the banana. However, the stick was not long enough. After several tiring tries, the Chimps became frustrated. It throwed the stick at the right angle so that it extended. Happy with this finding, the Chimps reflectively shouted “AHA”.

Whew, what long introduction! Actually, this is a background of the creation of this blog: to give an AHA to the readers. Some of you may think, why bother to give such a long prolog. Well, for me, it is another way of learning.