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Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
~ Unknown

Growing up is a process, not an event.
~ Paul B. Jamison

I had a wonderful lunch with a beautiful lady who is also my mentor and friend. She’s actually one of my mom’s friend, a smart, kind and loving woman who’s already like my own mother. I haven’t seen her for a while and it was good to catch up with her over Italian food. And today, we talked about life and growing up.

She has witnessed my growth in the past few years. She has witnessed my anger, disappointment, insecurities and even immaturity in the past – but today, I told her that I think now I understand what it means to grow up.

Talking to one of the assistants at work, she is so afraid of getting older, of growing up – because she believes that she has more responsibility. She keeps comparing herself to other people, how she is not as successful as others with her age. She has so many dreams and things she wants to accomplish and age is not a good reminder. She’s cute. It makes me think about my experience in “growing up”.

Growing up, for me, means taking full responsibility of your own life. What does it mean by “taking full responsibility”?

• by not blaming others when you’re feeling bad, sad, angry or even disappointed
• by not complaining in whatever situations you are in
• by not taking pity of yourself
• by not comparing yourself with others
• by not being defensive when someone gives you their opinion

but..

• by seeing all adversaries as an opportunity to grow
• by learning from every moment and experiences
• by being able to appreciate and thank all the things that happen in our lives
• by being able to see the beauty behind all the pain
• by challenging yourself to come out of your comfort zone
• by taking charge of your own life
• by loving who you are.

Growing up is being able to say “I create everything that’s going on in my life – may they be good or bad.”

• I create all the pain, disappointments and unhappiness. But I also create all the beauty, joy and love in this life.
• I create all the bad lucks. But I also create all the magic and miracles.

Like what Albert Ellis said, “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”

So, have I grown up? In some ways, yes – because I’ve realized all those, especially that I am the one in control of my own happiness and success. But then, I also know that growth has no limits, so I have every possibility to learn and grow everyday. I don’t think I can ever be a “grown up” because I don’t really know what that means. But I’d like to think that I’ve made the effort to grow everyday – reminding myself each day that the only way I can be truly happy with my life if I can take full responsibility for it so that I continue to have best years.

So, I leave you with this quote by Henri Bergson, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Maybe that’s why my name has the word “Braman” in it – taking from the Hindu God of Creator, so that I can keep creating myself endlessly.

Thank you life, for giving me the opportunity to grow.

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“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself.
But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself.
It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself
because if you live, you will make mistakes – it is inevitable.
But once you do and you see the mistake,
then you forgive yourself and say,
‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all.
So you say to people who you think you may have injured,
‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’
If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror
because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror;
we can’t see what we’re capable of being.
You can ask forgiveness of others,
but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self.
I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves.
Now mind you.
When a larger society sees them as unattractive,
as threats,
as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual,
that’s rough.
But you can overcome that.
The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.
If we don’t have that we never grow,
we never learn,
and sure as hell we should never teach.”
- Maya Angelou

What kind of thoughts and feelings have you had to yourself in 2009? Have you felt good or bad? Have you thought of positive things or negative ones? Have you blamed yourself? Have you felt that you’re not good enough, not worthy enough? Have you felt fear, frustration, anger and rage? Do you feel guilt, sorrow or depression? Have you let complaints and excuses run your life? Or have you lost all your feelings and become numb, apathetic and indifferent? All these things are how you think about yourself. We have become a victim of our own thoughts.

“Something happened and I can’t let it go – I can’t get it out of my head.”
“I’ve got these painful memories and I can’t stop thinking about them.”
“I just want the pain to go away and leave me alone.”

We are only human to feel and experience all these emotions. What we sometimes don’t realize is how having these thoughts and emotions hurt us more than it heal us. It’s what hindering us from our deserved happiness. Read the rest of this entry »

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Everyone has the right and the capacity to live their best life, only if he/she has the courage to create and take responsibility of it.

I used to blame others of my misery, thinking they are the ones who cause me unhappiness, thinking that life is unjust to me. I used to say that nobody understands my situation and wonder why I have such bad lucks. I have blamed my mom, dad, sister, brother, situations, friends, other people.. You name it!

Until one day, I begin to say “I create everything that happens in my life, may it be good or bad.” So, if something unpleasant happens, I’d say.. “Hmm, I must have done something that created or attracted this.” But then, if something magical happens during the day, I’d say the exact same thing too.

If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it.
If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.
- Richard Bach Read the rest of this entry »

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Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Bible – Song of Solomon

It has been a week full of heart aches and heart breaks here in Jakarta. Anger, tears, disappointment, frustration and confusion have filled the air. I’m not sure if it’s because of this uncanny scorching heat, the unexpected hypnotizing full moon and the descent of 9-9-9 that make people do crazy things.

As I witness people I love experiencing pain, I too feel the heaviness in their hearts. Hearts that said to have been broken again and again because of love. Only the people that we truly love that can break our hearts, right?

Is this what love is?
Is love merely an opportunity to have our hearts being broken?
Is love supposed to cause such pain?
Why then, would you fall in love?

As I learn to grow in life – from heart breaks, family fights and friendships – I begin to see love in a new light. Here is what I learned… Read the rest of this entry »

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“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion. “
- The Dalai Lama

Percaya tidak, kalau saya berkata bahwa “Kebahagiaan itu adalah sebuah ketrampilan, bukan sifat.” Memang ini bukan suatu paradigma baru, walaupun saya baru benar-benar menyadarinya belakangan ini. Sampai Dalai Lama pun mengatakan “PRACTICE” – artinya ada yang harus dilatih bukan?

Mari kita bandingkan. Banyak orang yang ingin menjadi seorang pedansa, penyanyi ataupun pembicara yang unggul. Dan, ketika kita bertemu dengan berbagai macam orang, sering kita berkata bahwa seseorang lebih unggul dari yang lain – lebih berbakat. Beberapa orang memang sudah terlahir memiliki bakat untuk menjadi seorang pedansa, penyanyi ataupun pembicara… sementara diri kita lainnya tidak terlalu berbakat. Padahal, saya percaya sama guru dansa saya waktu kecil, bahwa sukses adalah 10% bakat dan 90% kerja keras / ketrampilan.

Nah, menurut saya mendapatkan kebahagiaan sama seperti ingin menjadi seorang pedansa, penyanyi ataupun pembicara yang unggul. Ada beberapa orang yang dari lahirnya sudah sangat bahagia dan tenang… dan banyak dari kita yang sepertinya sangat sulit untuk mendapatkan kebahagiaan tersebut. Read the rest of this entry »

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