Authentic

“Bumi Pasundan lahir ketika Tuhan sedang tersenyum” – Brouwer

Bandung (Bumi Pasundan) breathtaking view

Just about last month, I took a way back home from internship using one of the online transportation. Along the way, the driver always said that he doesn’t like Indonesia, especially the people. I could only nod. He seems a bit weird, so I kept silent.

When we went through a narrow street,
a motorcycle accidentally hit the driver’s rearview spion,
but the person in motorcycle didn’t apologize at all.
My driver tried to pull out his safety belt, opened the car’s door,
and he wanted to chase the motorcycle – in anger -, but the traffic light already Green.
I felt afraid of him, I thought he would be mad to me,
so I said to him, “I’m really sorry, sir. He hit your rearview spion because we took that narrow road.”

He replied,
“No, no. Don’t be afraid, ms. I’m really upset with that person, he didn’t say sorry at all. If he can’t fix it, at least please say sorry, then I wouldn’t be mad of him.”
He continued,
“You know, ms. Bandung is someah (really friendly) in the past. Just when the outsiders come here, Bandung has became very different since 4 years ago.”

He’s not totally wrong.
Bandung, where I born and live,
well, already different since I was 13.
The air is not as crisp as 10 years ago everytime I woke up at 5 A.M.
My housing area is not as dead as 10 years ago, where there were no coffee shop, no restaurant, no minimarket, no doctor, and even only 1 school.

But different doesn’t always mean bad.
I saw Bandung has been growing lately,
especially since Ridwan Kamil titled as the Mayor.
He’s really good at urban planning, I can see it from the decorations around the place where KTT ASEAN held in 2015.
He also built places for millenials to be creative,
to collaborate, and to explore themselves.
As Bandung growing, the ousiders starting to look at Bandung,
they interested to have businesses here, they interested in investing,
they also interested on exploring cultures and arts.

Well, Bandung is still Bandung for me 🙂
where Chinese and Sundanese meet together here,
friendliness everywhere,
tourists come here every week,
where I could find many breathtaking views,
and it’s a blessing to feel every bit of Bandung side.
Even though many things change,
but many are good too.
Change is meant for a better Bandung,
so I think I don’t have any reason to not loving Bandung.

 

Pic source: author’s private collection

MATTER

“…Human do have limits…”

‘that looks good on her’, ‘should I buy that too?’, ‘she could do it? i can do it too, even better’…

Those are just little things that matter to somebody most of us. But, why?
Why are those things really matter to us?
The answer is: our human nature.

Since we’re a child,
we really want to be like somebody, we want to try everything,
we’re Curious.

As we grew older, some of us treated (in our family) to always be the best
or at least be a better one.
We’re ensured that we are not different from others, because
we were born in the same country, we’re eating the same kind of food, we’re raised in the same school.
It made us think…
What’s the difference?

 

That’s why social media is a powerful tool to change people, to feed our curiosity, to feed our ego, the child part of us.

Now, many of us when opening the social media and uploading the post or stories or status, feel like we have to get like more than the most popular friends,
or even some of us feel like we have to upload stories whenever and wherever we are
to STATED that we are doing something (busy), that
we are not alone, we are popular, we are kind.
ok.

Have you ever think for a second?
What is all that for?
If it’s just for popularity, just sit down in your room, deep thinking, and ask yourself
What is the purpose of your life?

It’s not easy to answer that question, and many of us really don’t know our life goal(s).

Second, not only in social media, I often found even my surroundings have a ‘greedy’ side. Greedy is

having or showing an intense and selfish desire for something
(Oxford Dictionary)

Let’s make it clear,
greedy and ambition are different, everyone may have ambition in their own fields;
for example you have a high willingness to learn from anything anywhere anytime, that’s called an ambition.
But it turns out to be a greed when you have a high willingness to learn
but only keep it for yourself and
you don’t like to see anybody who’s have a high willingness to learn too, you just don’t like it.
You feel like that you have and must be the one that know everything so well.
That’s greed, my friend.

Ambition is good, because

intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

When you feed your greed routinely, it will grow, into much much greed.
Careful, know your limit.
Sometimes, it is ok to admit that the other person might do something like you, or even better than you, because you’re not the smartest person in the world,
you’re not GOD.
you’re HUMAN.
And human do have limits.
But the universe don’t, so we need companions to lift up each others.

When you’ve admitted that you have limits, you could swept away the greedy side, so when you open the social media, you’ll be like…

she’s pretty, i’m blessed to have a friend like her,
that place looks like good, maybe i should ask her to go together,

At that point, that is where you could be the ‘I DON’T MIND’ people.
You don’t mind not because you can’t do it,
but because you know everybody could do it,
and you keep telling yourself that YOU ARE YOU,
that don’t need any evidence to proof everybody.

So, yeah, human have something called ‘human nature’, and it is just happens like that,
but human also have freedom to choose everything, even to not following our human nature.

Last, I’m going to tell you, that I’m blessed to be one of the ‘i don’t mind’ people since a kid. I always believe in myself that I don’t need to proof anybody who am I. I will let people judge me by their own experience with me, that’s why I’m not denying if there are some people don’t like me, scared, or even love me so much. Those people illustrating who am I, and it’s really diverse.

For you, the one that struggles with this problem, you can try my suggestion above, or even try to read this book: Mark Manson – The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, they said it’s great.

It's not the world that is too demanding,
it's you that are not loving yourself.

 

pic: Google.