A great tips about planning your life from Ajahn Brahm :
‘You don’t have to plan for things. It’s a lot of fear and mistrust. You don’t trust yourself enough. So if you trust it will all work out ok, people are good people, and if you make a mistake, it’s a great joke. And when you make a joke, you make a fool of yourself, you make people happy.’
When people share their deepest insecurity with you, suddenly you find that all of their ‘weird’ attitude is understandable.
Then after that you’ll realize that everyone built a high brick wall in order to protect their ownselves. Yes, everyone… even the most confident person.
Maybe if we have a bigger heart to understand people, not to judge them so fast, we would love our life more.
After all, I think ‘letting go’ is one of the most beautiful Buddha’s teaching.
‘It’s enough. Let it go because it’s not worth keeping. Let it go because you don’t have interest on it anymore’ -Ajahn Brahm-
And this quotes really resonates with me :
“To let go isn’t to forget, not to think about, or ignore. It doesn’t leave feelings of anger, jealousy, or regret.
Letting go isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not about pride and it’s not about how you appear, and it’s not obsessing or dwelling on the past.
Letting go isn’t blocking memories or thinking sad thoughts, and doesn’t leave emptiness, hurt, or sadness. It’s not about giving in or giving up.
Letting go isn’t about loss and it’s not about defeat.
To let go is to cherish the memories, but to overcome and move on. It is having an open mind confidence in the future.
Letting go is learning and experiencing and growing.
To let go is to be thankful for the experiences that made you laugh, made you cry, and made you grow.
It’s about all that you have, all that you had, and all that you will soon gain.
Letting go is having the courage to accept change, and the strength to keep moving.
Letting go is growing up.”
It’s one week past new year.. I feel I’m ready to let some things go..
Hold on because we only lose in life if we don’t love ourselves and don’t appreciate how wonderful life can be on the other side of what we’re going through.
I asked a friend,
“When a tree falls in a forest,
and no one is there to hear it,
does it make a sound?”
He replied,
“There was a sound
when I was thinking of the question.”
I replied,
“I just said there is no one there to hear it,
why did you put yourself there?”
Sound is defined by the hearer.
It is the vibration of air in your ear,
that gives rise to your ear consciousness.
Reality is “defined” by the realiser.
It is how the universe affects you.
__._,_.___
It was Friday night when I first met this lady few months ago, worn a bright blue dress delivering a third-project prepared speech about how a smart phone makes us ignoring the person who is sitting in front of us. It’s not about the speech that make me interest, but it’s how she delivered the speech. Full of confidence in a fluent English.
I was surprise when I knew that she is Indonesian. She’s one of the best English-speaking Indonesian I ever met here. After the session that night, we have a gathering at the nearby coffee shop, having chit chat while sipping our drink. There are about 15 people, and we all sat in a long white table. She sat in front of me. There I know that she studied at NTU in scholarship programme, working in banking industry now, and have been staying in Singapore more than 10 years.
When we were talking, I could feel the confidence she had towards herself. From what I observe, she must be smart and having a good career. But after talked for an hour, one thing I also realize, there is arrogance that makes me feel inconvenient. The kind of arrogance that she feel that she is much better than a lot of people out there. I ended up feel don’t like her.
I never met her again after that day.
Then, last month my flatmate went for a three-day retreat. I happened to know that the lady is one of the committee of the retreat. So, I asked him whether my flatmate met her.
He said yes, she’s the only one Singapore’s representative. He said that she is that type of leader, full of confidence and charisma. I agree, but then I told him about my story and what I feel about her.
Surprisingly, he (and a few friends who were listening to our conversation) said “Of course! A leader type of person must be having that kind of arrogance. It’s normal. “. Their comments made me startled.
Is it?
Is confidence have to walk concurrently with arrogance? Is knowing and doing our best also means boosting up our ego?
Well, I can’t deny that me myself sometimes also tend to be like that (not unto that extreme stage hopefully :p). I tried not to and I know it brings no good to anybody including my own self, but sometimes the thought is just popped up itself that we didn’t realize ego is waving her winning flag.
Maybe it’s about guarding your own thought to keep humble.Maybe it’s about growing up and believing that everybody else is the same as us. Or maybe it’s about what my colleague told me her motto ” the best is yet to be, keep stand on the ground”.
What do you think?
My friend lend me these three books that I managed to finish all of them in 1 week! Yeah, I love books! Hoho..
1. Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother
I often heard that in China, a lot of baby girls being aborted. This fact might make us frowned. How could a mother have the nerve to do that? But this book explained the reasons.
It’s scary when I read the first few part of the book. But I feel that the mother doesn’t have any choice than to let her baby died.
There are 3 reasons why Chinese people wants a baby boy so badly :
* Most of Chinese are farmers. There is a system about subdivision of land that is still working up to date. It was started during Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BC). Every boys who are aged 15 years old get 1/16 ha of land and girls get half of it. During Tang Dynasty, girls even don’t get any land.
* The fact that man is physically stronger, so they are more workable as a farmer compare to woman.
* The one-child law that was made on Dec 1979, because the population is growing too fast. In June 1953, China population are 600 million, and in June 1957 the population become 700 million. The economic and cultural growth can catch up with the population growth. That’s why the one-child law was made.
These backgrounds start the story about a mother who choked her own daughter to death the moment she was born, a baby who was being left in the toilet for hours during the winter, and a very kind and loving father who just left his three-year-old daughter in the train station. One of the similarity of all the story are indeed all the mothers are feel a lot of pain when they saw their own daughter have no chance to live just because they are born as a girl.
Not all of the girls are dead, some mothers silently let their daughters alive and left them to the orphanage. In the end of 2007, there are 120.000 babies are adopted around the world.
The babies become little girls who are asking their adoptive parents, “why my mother don’t want me?”
This book actually is being written for them, the adopted daughter. It’s an explanation about their mother situation that force them to give away their own daughter. It’s also a message from their biological mother, that it’s not because Mom doesn’t love you, but it’s because of the rough situation.
2. Negeri 5 Menara
“Man Jadda Wajadda” - He who does things wholeheartedly, he will success.
When I flip the first few pages of this novel, it reminds me of Harry Potter book. It’s about a boy named Alif who has a great dream to become a scientist like BJ Habibie, but then the dream has to be vanished because his mother asked him to go to Madrasah to learn religion.
So, he goes to one of the most popular Madrasah in Jawa. There are 3000 students with a strict schedule everyday, starts from 4 am to 22.30 pm. The school provide a lot of activities to cater student’s interest : sports, art, book, debate, and Al’Quran of course. All of the students are expected to speak in either English or Arabic. Indonesian or dialect are prohibited. So, there Alif starts his adventure.
My comment : The idea is interesting, the character is quite strong, there are a lot of moral stories we can picked up, and the plot is humble and straightforward. But I find that the story line is a bit too fast. And it would be amazing if there are more details on the story.
3. Nobody’s Boy
I remember there is a movie in RCTI that I always watching when I was in Primary School called Remi. A small boy wearing a red vest and blue pants, with a fur on his hat. In my memory, he was a cheerful boy who have a lot of friends, going around the world in a circus group. I even still remember the soundtrack :
“Selamat pagi gunungku, selamat pagi pohonku, selamat pagi teman2 semua. Aku kan pergi jauh, demi cita-citaku, Remi mohon doa restu darimu. Selamat berpisah semuanya, aku kan pergi untuk mengembara. Jangan sedih karna kepergianku, sebab pasti kita akan bertemu.”
I didn’t really remember about the story line actually when I borrow this book. But it happens that the book is very addictive. I always had a hard time to close the book eventhough it’s time to sleep already. I finally managed to finish the book in 2-3 days..
The story is about a little boy who are being sold to a street performer. They are heading to Paris. Along the way, they pass through a lot of villages and cities, performing some acts, together with 3 dogs and 1 monkey. Sometimes he do acting, the other times he plays harmonica and the dogs would dance following the rhythm of the song.
My comment : The book told us about the situation and culture in Europe last time. Good story line. Worth to read!
After a failed and disappointing 2nd trial, I eliminate chicken from the ingredients. And since my blender is spoiled, I used a small grater for the onion. My colleague intro me with this grater, and it works very well.. :) The mixture of the siomay is actually the same as batagor. The different is only the final cook method.
Based on my flatmate opinion, the smell is the same as the one we usually eat at Jakarta. But it’s just the texture a bit different. My one is a bit crisp instead of soft. Maybe because I used tapioka instead of sagoo. Can’t find sagoo in the market near my house.
Anyway, overall I’m quite satisfied, gonna do another trial soon. This time I won’t put leek and add in one egg to the mixture. Hopefully it become nicer. ^^
ps : Hmm.. I think I need to buy a nicer white plate, the flowery one looked horrible in the photo..
