In a job interview, it is common that you will be asked about your strong points and weaknesses. For some positions, you will say something nice and sometimes even lying about the answer to sell yourself to them. It is fine, I’m not judging or something, remember that every act has consequence. Back to the thing. To answer the question, it is best that if you know yourself. Be true.

One way to find out about that is using an adjective. In this case, I will limit the number of the attribute. I pick only four that mostly describe myself and then I will compare it to my good friends' adjectives. And this is what I got:

I said: Adventurous, weird, arrogant, coward.

Best friend:
Acit: Weird, tolerant, easy going, listener.
Madu: Jerk, playboy, loyal, weird.
Dinda: Curious, adventurous, cheerful, sincere.

It was astonishing for me, and I’m grateful to get the answers from them. It is crystal clear that I am weird and adventurous. I never knew that I’m a good listener. I knew that I’m cheerful outside, but to be honest, it is like an act. It is my system, so people don’t get worried about me. It is rather sad, but yes, I’m good at it. I can show a happy face, even when I’m about to explode due to anger. It is a bad habit though. I am loyal, but only for them that I respect. And this jerk and playboy things, they aren’t adjectives. They are nouns, but I understand what he means. So far I can remember, yes, it’s true. I’m a jerk, but I never realized that I am a playboy, since I am trying to avoid that facts lol. Thanks to Madu, he explained it all, and I accept it now.

I expand the categories to some extent.

A
Maestro: Caring, daring, loyal, brave.
Rimma: Outgoing, friendly, decisive, confident.
Sina: Silly, weird, loyal, caring.
Natasha: Pleasant, adventurous, tenacious, kind.

B
Ava: Fun, outgoing, sporty, generous.
Bruno: Kind, friendly, fun, generous.
Laura: Kind, wise, smart, lovely.

C
Nico: Cheerful, spiritful, arrogant, annoying.
Ucup: Weird, unique, wise, tenacious.
Goci: Weird, wise, confident, adventurous.

It is enjoyable to know better about myself with the help of other people. And now I see similarities and differences through a different environment. I know better my strength and weakness, how my environment saw me through these small samples. I know what I missed. But there is something big I learned. It is not about the adjectives. Not about the strength and weakness anymore. It is something basic. It is my point of view.

I saw myself through a negative perspective. I saw myself more like a bad person than a good one. It can be the real me, and I accept it. But if I stay to see myself, or the world from this perspective, I wouldn’t survive long. It will drive me crazy and being pessimistic. It is like, I am limiting myself, boxing myself into my weakness. The answers that my friends threw to me showed that I am better than I think. I should keep the positive way of thinking than being pessimistic. Now you see how arrogant am I :D

Through the previous post, now we know how to avoid unnecessary stress. Our life will go further anyway with or without it. But the pressure self, won’t leave our life in peace. It will come as long as you struggle to live because this world is changing so fast before we can adapt to the situation and that attitude will give the pressure. How can we have an excellent resilience to face reality?

A Father that I know gave me a hint. He wanted me to check Book of Psalm chapter 4. It is about God’s protection in the night. I agree that to recover the broken soul, faith is one of the best. But I’m not going to talk something religious here. I’ll try to explain, what I learned after I read and had some thought about these nine verses said. Well, my brain isn’t good enough to discover this alone, but some helps facilitated me to construct the puzzles. It is true that this chapter gives some guidance to face pressure.

First, it said that we have to gain a correct perspective. Look away from the treat, it is better to look at Him. In most of the case, when we under pressure, our mind isn’t working at its best. So, it is okay if we chill up first, don’t late the pressure consume you. Cool your head, cool your mind, and the path will be found more comfortable.
The second part is what I found most interesting. Name the plight and position it. If we aren’t aware of what we face on, it won’t help at all. We have to analyze the problem, know it well, and plan the next move. There is some simple way similar to the previous post that I can describe here. I’m going to name it and give a tip how to handle it.

1. The pressure that enslaves. Leave it.
2. The pressure that strengthens. Overcome it.
3. The pressure that you can do nothing. Satisfy on it.

If you at work, and got a ton list to do, doesn’t mean you should leave them. The first pressure is more like when you are working hard, and you got no benefit from them, you didn’t even get paid, you merely getting exploited, then you should leave. The second type of pressure is something good, not all of the weight has a harmful impact on us. If your teacher gives you homework, you should finish it, and you gain something back. And if we are sick because of some kind of virus outbreak that has no cure at the moment, we should accept the reality. Or let said you have a favorite mug to drink coffee. You have to prepare yourself that it made of ceramic and if your friend accidentally broke it, you have to accept it. It will give less pain in your emotional state, and that’s the target of pressure type number three.

And now is the last part, it wants us to face the problem. Even if it is harsh and demanding, we have to face the challenge. If you can solve it alone, let people that you trust to guide you. And if you believe in God, you can also pray and hide under His protection. The thing is, ready your heart, to face and solve the problem. Believe in yourself, believe in God, from this, you will get your own magic to defeat the enemy. Uppsss somehow, I remember that dialog from an anime Little Witch Academia. Focus, prepare, and endure yourself to face it.

I’m writing these stuffs, doesn’t mean that I’m mastering it. Hopefully, it will work on me, because I believe that it works on other 😊

Disillusionment in a relationship, family betrayal, treated by an evil organization, or maybe can’t pee due to occupied toilets. This life is full of drama. Well, I don’t know about you, but at least that is what I felt. Some are annoying, some are crazy frustrating and other perhaps ezpz totally piece of cake, but still, they are problems that give us pressure on body or mind.

Recently I got a series of the problem that affects my life. I believed that I have a good enough physic and mental power to face them, but it seems that my resilience just reached its limit. In psychology and pedagogy, resilience means an immune system of our soul. Therefore, I search for some ways to reduce the stress level that consume my emotional energy. Why not try to solve the problems? Yes, I’m working on it, but it won’t go well if I’m in a horrible state.

Then, after some meeting and discussion with my beloved Maestro, I learned about Epictetus and his amazing work, Enchiridion. Epictetus is one of an amazing philosopher. Please check the detail by yourself, you have access of internet anyway. I’ll just explain the short, simple things that affect my life after reading his book. From the first, he said that,

It gives me the idea to short things. First, if the problem is still on my control, I will give my best to clear it. Second is when it is not. Then just leave it. I’ll avoid unnecessary pressure. For example: As a student, you are going to be a breadwinner for the family, because of some situation. Ask yourself, is it under your control? Yes, in most case, the student can work partially, just work to the max, save money, and you will achieve the goal. It would be rough and harsh, but as long as you grab the target, it will increase your level and lessen the pressure. And another example: The earthquake and tsunami accidentally killed your uncle. It is an easy example, it is clear that you have no control over it. So even as a geoscientist, just don’t blame yourself that you aren’t capable of predicting them.

Let’s have another tricky one: You love your girlfriend; your girlfriend also loves you. Your parent doesn’t like your girlfriend because she didn’t believe in God and her friends don’t like you because you have a different race. The problems here involving people around you. But like the first case, it is somehow still in your control. You can guide her until she has faith in God, but it still depends on herself. But how about the second case? You have to analyze the problem carefully. You can say that it is in your hand, just show that you are a good man, you can do things and show your hard work, then everything will be ok. It may be true. But I suggest leaving it. You have no control over your race. Maybe you can convince one person. Like you guide your girlfriend to have faith. But how about seven? They are all unique but have one common problem, your race, not your finance, not your personality, not your love. So, leave it. Just continue loving your girlfriend, the time will come to get the answer if they accept you or not.

There are lots of interesting things from the book. But I think the most important part is this first part. So, it will guide you to have less pressure in life.

“Poor people are to blame for being poor, while successful people, they aren’t originally full with talent. They are just lucky.”

This statements echoed again and again inside of my head recently after I finished reading a history book. A talented boy, treated as a slave just because his parents are slaves. On the other side, a girl just born in luxury as her parents are a ruler of the kingdom. Well, they are really an extreme example, although the case is still happening in our current world. God created human with all equality, but humans, with all their complicated system, with or without intention, created a world with special stratum inside.

Well, I’m not going to discuss that here. I’m just gonna talk about the statements. Because somehow, through them, I know better about myself. How can I realize it? It simple. Just see and remember your past. In my case, I started from my childhood. There you’ll find how you approach this statements.

Up until now, few people said that I’m so smart and talented. Actually, compared to other “talented” man, I am absolutely nothing. I am truly no one in this world, just a common random people in the community. Oh yea, why I wrote talented with an inverted comma? Because I simply want to show that I am denying talent. Yes, you can say that I am more hardworking than talented man. But normally people didn’t see the process, and they just think that I am a talented person.

I would not deny about hard working. Due to many events since my childhood, I see hardworking as a savior from poorness. My parents were the first to show me that. They show me their best, to make a good living in this cruel world. They try to give me a better future, a good start. They give me an idea about what is the important thing in this world in order to survive. If I simplify it into some attributes, they would be strength/constitution, intelligence/wisdom, and agility/dexterity. But they aren’t complete without this last attribute, the Godly attribute. It is luck.

So, in a way, I’m not against the statements. They are quite true. My family and friends know about my hard work side. But what they really acknowledge is my true trait, luck. I’m not smart enough, but when I picked the answer randomly, the percentage of the answer being true is high. Or, I can win some lottery. Because of my effort, increasing the value of other attributes, the power of luck sometimes gives me greater effect. So I believe the combination all of this attributes can give us the ‘successful’ title. But don’t depend on luck. I was there, at ‘almost successful’ stage, but I was dozed, and stop improving myself and hoping that the fortune still playing on my hand. But yeash, here I am, starting again from the scratch.

So, guys, it’s all only my opinion. Don't push your luck. Just grind yourself to the max level, so you can avoid depending on your luck. And yeash, feel free to think, and answer: how you approach these statements? :)

This question is part of my journey for self-exploration and after some deep thought about my life that full of regrettable moments, I finally have the answer. It was really a difficult task to do, picking only one most regret from this 30 years of life. It took more than 72 hours to find one. What interesting is, on my way to find it, I have my memory recalled and I saw beautiful moments, friends, and family also how silly I am, simply everything, yea everything. I just remembered them and sometimes made my emotion not stable. I can suddenly cry, smile and laugh, or made my jaw fell to the floor till someone fixed me. It's not a surprise that my flatmate worried about me and thought that I went crazy due to some stress.

Enough unnecessary introduction. Let's directly go to the answer. It is "me, spending time for MMORPG". What is MMORPG? Well it is an online game, something super fun for me, addicting, and cost my real life time sooo much and in the end, most of the cases, it was for nothing. I got only dopamine rations for the moments. I can imagine, if I didn't spend on it, maybe I'm rich as fuck, make the money rain, I'm strong and fit, being a scholar, have lots donating acts, girls worship me and so on and so on. Why I'm dreaming like that? Because I spend money and my time playing around in this virtual world. I tossed aside everything important for my future, such as study, friends, family, and my precious time to self-improvement. I did it for years, like maybe 8 years. What a mess.

I'm not telling that playing video games is bad. It has its own advantages. I wouldn't smart and diligent like this without video games. In a way, it can widen your horizon and give you some friends. Even I earned about equal to 4000€ just because of video games. I will discuss gaming later perhaps. I only want to tell that gaming isn't neither good nor bad. Just keep some balance in your life, and you will not regret it as much as I am today. Well, actually I'm still amazed at my self during that era. I somehow manage to study, did my band pieces of stuff, active at the campus, did mountaineering, diving, cycling, learn Indonesian traditional dances and music instrument, while spending minimal 5 hours gaming per day. I remembered, there was a week full of activities. In this week I slept average 2 hours a day. So unhealthy life I had that time. No wonder, I was a totally raw-boned man with super messy hair. Looks like a junkie compared to me right now.

In conclusion, not making a good use of my time is my most regret. I'm still doing it though, I believe, we all do. This is just a small reminder for all of us so we wouldn't regret it anymore since we already know that time is the only thing in this world that can't be replaced. Like I mentioned before, I have many regrets: such as letting the girl I loved the most gone, lie to my parents, did crazy kinds of stuff, risking of my own life, etc. All of them were regrettable, and for example, I'll talk a little about the relationship for comparison, while it is also took up the time. I spent my life with a girl for years, we had a nice house, did everything at best in the name of love and in the end we ended our special relationship, we left our home, selling some stuff. It cost time and money too. But compared to playing MMORPG, I gained more positive impact on this challenging relationship than playing MMORPG.

“We have so many regrets because we have to make so many big decisions in our lives before we can have anything like adequate knowledge.”