Envy

One of the most misunderstood emotion is envy.
People say, envy is bad, don’t envy,
take inspiration, learn from them.
Well the thing is, envy is an emotion.
Have you ever see someone so successful, and think,
“I think I want to envy him.”
Never, right?
It comes automatically.
You see something more than what’s yours, envy blooms.
We are never in control.

The feeling of envy is very human,
It’s embedded deep in our DNA.
It is the fuel for growth.
To compete, to win the battle of survival.
It’s the result of natural selection,
Those that don’t envy, refuses to grow, lost in the gene pool.

After realizing what envy is,
here is what we can do whenever envy arises.
Recognize what you’re feeling.
Emotions are emotions.
They are not a part of you.
It is simply a physical response from the brain.
Let the envy flows, let it thrive, but don’t let it become the part of you.
Envy happens to the body,
and you are just a soul inhabiting a body.

When Meteor Hits Earth

First a small light in the sky, just like a star
Each night grows bigger
They say the end of the world is here
3 more months
It’s funny how people chase things after things
To fulfill what they believe will amount to anything
When in the end, not one thing of us will be left

Everything will be wiped out
Not even your name will be left
No memory will be spared
Everything you worked so hard to build
Everything you convinced will amount to something
No one will know
No witness
All dead
Pure extinction

The blind man and the rich scammer

I know one blind man, who sells crackers, walking door to door. He never asks for pity, he sells with reasonable price. When I stopped him on the road, he just kept silent until I asked the price. Fifteen thousand rupiah, he said. It was a very normal price for a pack of crackers. He didn’t upsell, at all. Usually, out of respect, I gave him more. I am proud of him, and he should be proud of himself.

I also know one rich man. He got rich by scamming a lot of people. First of all, he rented expensive things and claimed those things as his own. He claimed he was able to afford those things after using a method he knows. If someone wanted to learn to be as rich as him, he had to pay certain rupiah to join his class. But actually his class didn’t teach about anything. He got rich by hopeful people paying for his class.

I see more value in the blind man. A sane person would, too.

But this world is full of insane people. They see a person’s value by their wealth. If someone is poor, they won’t even look at him. I am disappointed by how people can worship money that much.

How insane someone is can usually be seen by how they talk about rich people. They talk about rich people like they talk about their God. Praise them by the amount of money they earn. Being proud of them as if their money is their own. Being ecstatic just by talking about them.

I always see money as only a blessing from God. Whether you have it or not is by His grace. But what puts value in human being was his attitude towards other humans. I see obnoxious rich people’s value as lower than my housekeeper’s value, who worked diligently and honestly.

The Next Conversation: Final

It’s final already because I already finished the book.
Only after finishing the book that I realize, we don’t really need to finish a book by reading through all pages thoroughly, especially self-development non-fiction books. Because sometimes there are pages that might not be relevant to us.

For this book specifically, I bought and read this book because I expected that after reading this, then when I had a conversation with someone, mostly strangers or someone I’m not really close with, I can have smooth conversation.

But apparently this book is not about that.

Basically this book tells you how we can have meaningful conversation with someone if we already have the purpose of the interaction, such as we want to tell them about something, we want to have discussion, we want to fire them, etc.

For me, whenever I already know what the interaction’s going to be, I find it easy to have conversation. The hard part is when we don’t really have anything to talk about, but I want to make conversation.

So, the conclusion is that I’ve read this book for nothing. Well not really, there’s a lot of insight I got from this book that I could use when I finally need to have a difficult conversation. The best ones are:
1. Never win an argument, seek to understand.
2. Control the moment: take a breath, do a quick scan, have a small talk to yourself.
3. Control the pace: use pause strategically.
4. Frame your conversation.
5. Always have the positive mindset.
6. Recognize narcissist and deal with them accordingly.

There are also a lot of things I learned by reading this book, that is not only about how to have meaningful conversation. It happened just today.

Just today I talked with my family member about our vice president, Gibran. I told her about the news that he invited fake online drivers to have a talk. And not long after, his fake online drivers representative gave a statement, more or less, “Chicken burglar got sentenced 5 years, Affan’s killer only got special arrest?” I told her that Gibran was dangerous to the president, Prabowo. He tried to appeal with masses, so that Prabowo falls, then he becomes President. She answered, “good.”

Good? What do you mean good? Do you still believe Gibran is one of the good guys? I know you are Jokowi’s fans but how can you be so stupid? I know your opinion doesn’t matter since you are not that smart. All your academic achievements was because you studied diligently, but try your logic. Pretty sure it sucks.

My blood rushed to my head. Those are all I thought in a few seconds. But I kept my silence. Then I asked myself, what made me so angry from her “good” answer. Then I realized, this is what is taught in this book. This is one of my trigger. When she said that, to me it was a threat to my personal identity. My belief is that Gibran is one of the bad guys. By saying that, she basically questioned my judgement that Gibran is a bad guy. By questioning my judgement, subconsciously I perceived that my intelligence was also being questioned. That’s why I was so angry.

By recognizing this, then I took a breath and controlled myself. Realizing that maybe everyone was exposed to different bubble of information. I could be wrong, too (even though when I’m writing this, I’m sure with myself.) And however smart or stupid she was, it didn’t matter, she was a person that needed to be respected. And a disagreement was just a disagreement, it was not an attack to my intelligence. I kept my composure, my head still ran a little hot, but I told myself it was a physical response of my subconscious self. My conscious self knew better.

After her comment, I just kept silent and basically ignored it since it was a light conversation. I learned that it is best to avoid politic-related topic if you already know the other party has opposing views with what you believe is true. If you don’t know, don’t start. If you know you have the same view, it means it’s safe to talk.

In conclusion, apparently this book is pretty useful.

15 years

I’m super introvert, in case you don’t know it yet.
I’m so introverted at one point in my life, I had a very minimum interaction with people for almost 3 months, and I was totally fine.

I told this to someone I knew, and she commented that even though I’m introverted, my mind was not dark or twisted enough like most introverts. I was disappointed (jk, no really.) Maybe I didn’t give that impression, so I’ll try my dark version by writing a poem. Here it goes.

15 years

It’s been 15 years
Each night an eternity
O’ moon my only friend
I long for your breath, your touch
Your presence whispers home
Home long gone
Now you I thirst
The only comfort I know
Have you known the hell I’m in?
Death don’t fear me no more
For in death I’m forever with you

A Thought About The Next Conversation: I

The 1 in roman was only the precaution in case I decide to have another thought about certain part of this book. I’m currently writing this while listening to Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness, in a FamiCafe nearby while watching a couple in the side of my eye basically cuddling in public.

It was mentioned in this book on chapter 2: the next conversation that when having difficult conversation, we have to decide the goal of that conversation first, and the goal has to be realistic and specific, more or less. He gave an example such as “I want to hear their perspective without getting defensive,” or “I want to listen without interrupting.”

And then he showed some example, basically when having conversations, we have to keep in mind that our goal is to connect with them. All of his example was when we say sorry first and try to listen to their perspective then they will be nice to us back, then we understand each other, and live happily ever after. I just wondered, it was not that ideal in real life. If we have beef with another person, then that person most likely a selfish jerk (or it could be ourselves, we just don’t realize it). We can only wish his response would be something like, “I understand, I’m sorry too.” And what if he closed himself? Conversation can’t happen if one party closed himself. In this book, at least until chapter 2, he hasn’t mentioned how we should have “the next conversation” with these kind of people.

Also, what about some conversations that are better swept under the rug? Because these kind of conversations exist too! I strongly believe not everything has to be talked about. Just like this clip from modern family.

Am I.. a hypocrite? (This chapter is for you, Tini)

This story began 2 months ago when our helper resigned. Her name was Tini. She was short, dark skinned, not exactly fat but her body was big, and her feet were unusually large – I suspected she had “elephant feet syndrome”. If I should guess her age, maybe around 40-something. Nothing special about her appearance, her eyes were big (or belo in Indonesian), her hair was short, and if I imagined her resting expression, I think she always looked a bit worried, as if there’s a debt she kept thinking about. She often wore T-shirt and regular pants, whose length right about knee high.

What was so special about Tini wasn’t her appearance, it’s about her work. As a helper, she was responsible for cleaning our houses, and sometimes he could do other things which is not in the helper’s jobdesc like receiving package and turning off stove at certain time. From her work, you could immediately tell that she was passionate about her job. If not passionate, then she did it with seriousness while packing a lot of experience. She was not as quick as most helpers but she cleaned every corner flawlessly. And there’s also her attention to detail, she could put things where they belong, as if the items were hers. While doing all of that, she was also very considerate with her words. She was polite and she knew what to say and what not to say.

Unfortunately, she had to resign because her daughter had just given birth to a baby, and as a grandmother, she helped taking care of it.

Then not long after she resigned, there is a new helper, her name is Siti, which is our helper now. At her first day, I barely noticed anything, except that she was unusually chatty and loud. But I put no mind to it since I perceived it as normal. After all, she was new and no wonder she wanted to know more about the work to be done in our place.

But then strangeness after strangeness emerged. First, the print on my clothes were cracking. I wasn’t mad at all, shocked? yes because it never happened before. Then I suspected that maybe when ironing, she put the iron directly on the print.
I came to her, “mbak, my clothes were cracking, can you avoid the print when ironing next time?”
She said, “No! It was not me, I always avoid ironing the print, maybe it’s the washing machine.” then she showed me how she ironed the shirts while avoiding the print.
I thought, oh! she already avoided ironing the print, maybe it’s indeed the washing machine. Maybe she used another setting that caused the print to crack.
“Okay mbak” and I was then in pursuit of solving the problem, I wanted to know what really caused this and prevented it from happening again to my other clothes.
Then I called my household expert, my mom, “Mom, the print on my clothes were cracked, it’s never happened before, do you know the possible cause of this?” My mom then knew exactly what caused this and it was indeed the iron! She then told me she would taught Siti how to iron correctly. And since then, all my clothes are now safe. I just wondered, why did she avoid accountability before?

And then while working, sometimes she would stop doing what she did, and asked a very unimportant question to me, such as when I weigh my weight, she would stop sweeping, raise her head a little, like she wanted to peek at the number, and asked me what my weight was. And then this is so weird, when, for example, I went to the kitchen to take some glass and water, she, who was in another room, could stop whatever she was doing, and asked me with her loud voice, “ko, are you looking for glass?” Keep in mind it happened so many times and it annoyed me. Because:
1. She stopped working only to ask something that’s really not related to her work.
2. I had to answer a really unimportant question. Otherwise, it’s rude. To be honest, I ignored her a few times when I was not in the mood.

But I didn’t hate her. Siti was not exactly the perfect helper, but despite her insensitiveness, she had a good heart. Just sometimes (by sometimes I mean, often) what she did annoyed me. To give you more context, Siti introduced another helper for my sister, and this other helper confessed that she couldn’t have conversation with Siti because she often talked nonsense.

Sometimes when I looked at Siti (cielah), I imagined my old self trying to fit in with other people. I was very insensitive, my world and their world were different. What considered okay in where I grew up could be considered rude by them. And of course I would sometimes say the wrong things. Am I a hypocrite if I am annoyed by Siti for her insensitiveness? Am I allowed to be annoyed?

Just before I wrote this in a Starbucks cafe nearby, while riding a motorcycle I passed her riding her bicycle. She smiled at me widely, greeting me, “Koh” and I gave her a smile back, “halo mbak.”

The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More

When I first encountered this book, I thought this book is about how we can make a meaningful conversation with some strangers or someone we already know. I just realized I was wrong after a few pages into this book. The author specifically explained that this book answer 3 questions:
1. How do I talk to someone who’s defensive?
2. What do I say when someone belittles me?
3. How do I assert my boundaries?
and here are the answers to these questions: say it with control, confidence, and to connect.
Okay… not exactly what I’m looking for.
But maybe it can be useful when for example in business setting, I encounter a difficult person. Instead of my usual resort -let them be, just focus on the objective- maybe this time being friendly to them can be a good strategy. To be honest I haven’t finished chapter 1 yet, but so far I think his method only works if the person we encounter is inherently good. If the person we talk to is hostile to us, then there’s no way we can have meaningful conversation with them. Moreover, it’s pointless if we try to change his opinion about us.

Maybe there’s more to this book than what I imagined. I will finish reading it and give the review later.

But why is it always us who see through the keyhole into people’s world? I also want people to see my hole (pun intended).

Overthinking: blessing or curse?

If you know me and read my blog, I’m guessing you can kinda see what kind of a person I am in terms of thinking. I think about a lot of things-thus my goofythinker name. I have been this way since I can remember. I don’t think the people around me during my childhood, overthink as much as I do.

Because of this excessive thinking, sometimes I could be too sensitive.
Like for example, if I was driving a car, and I passed another car, I could be thinking, “what if the person inside that car cursed at me?” Multiple scenarios happened in my head. I imagined I explained to the cursing man what actually happened. He kept being angry. I explained. The thought that someone saw me as a bad person worried me unnecessarily.
Second example, my sister said bad things about me? I 100% had to correct them because if not, her perception would become reality. I couldn’t let go and we would fight. Compared to now I can totally ignore her.
That’s how severe it was. It led me to emotional instability during my teenage years especially in the family because no one seemed to understand me.

But today I saw this as a blessing. I’ve overcome the anxiety that comes with excessive thinking. I’ve learned mostly through the people I’ve met in my life, and I thanked them for it. For example during my university years, there’s someone who often blurted, “bodo amat” whenever he would do something stupid. I secretly copied his approach to life and to be honest in life sometimes we have to “bodo amat” at things. And there are many other things in life that shaped me to become who I am today.
– to English readers, “bodo amat” means who cares.

And for my excessive thinking, I’ve now taken advantage of it. Since now I am able to control it, I can now direct my thinking to the things that matter. I can write with so much thought because of it. I understand philosophy better because of it. I can be thoughtful about other people because of it. I am now wiser because of it. I navigate through life with less drama because of it.

And this is the quote that best describes how I now wear my overthinking as.

and to conclude, I think the answer to the title was: it’s a blessing. Since I am born as a package with overthinking tendencies, what better way than to treat it as a blessing?