First I figured to compile all these thoughts and give them as a
year ender. But then I realized that
there is no opportune moment than now.
In the last 12 months, I have learned so many things; in fact, I prefer
calling this year, my 22nd year in this Earth, “my Epiphanic
year.” I believe it is best if I share
all these ideas with you, as they are begging me to get out of my head and
influence others as well.
Time is not just gold. In
fact, time is more valuable than gold.
Time is your life. Every moment
which you have is a part of you which you can never bring back again. In essence, you give pieces of you to things,
skills, or people, people who know how not to value your time, and people who
know how to value your time. Sometimes,
there are moments when we want to speed time or slow it down. Sometimes, we hate a particular season in our
lives. Sometimes we hate the waiting
time. Sometimes we do not want to spend
our time with a specific person.
Sometimes we hate a person that we are seeing each day.
The bible says that there is a time for everything. This time you say, is your time. Time you spend getting mad or getting angry
at someone is still your time. Time, of
course, is limited. Nobody can tell how
long we are going to be here in Earth.
It is therefore logical to use the time wisely and efficiently. But as I have come to realize, not so many
people know how to do this. I believe
this is actually the key to a good, and joyful life.
Einstein actually knew how to live the moment. I agree.
That is the key. Live at the
present time. Don't live in the future
or in the past. Don't hold that grudge
at that person because of what happened.
Don't hurry to get married, or to graudate, or what have you. Live now.
I cannot stress this enough. Live
in the present, or else, you lose part of yourself, part of your life which you
can never bring back anymore. Enjoy now. If you think you hate what you are doing,
decide to like it, because you are not going to be there forever. Whatever you have now, it will all pass. You wont be studying forever, you wont be working forever. You wont have your child bugging you
forever. You wont stay single
forever. You wont have this job forever. Instead of thinking about how to speed time
up, embrace this moment. Think of what
you can learn at this moment. Think of
how you can spend this moment efficiently and wisely and actually being there
and living it. Hate your brother?
Sister? Mom? Friend? They are not going to be there forever, and you are not
going to be here forever too. Make the
most out of every moment you have. You
cant get it back.
2. Don't hate anyone. It is better to stay in neutral ground and
not be against a person. Be against the
idea, or the attitude, but never against the person. Be at peace with everyone.
If you cant find a reason to like someone, or you really hate this
person, try to think of a common denominator between the two of you. Every person has a good and bad side. Even you have a good and bad side. You learn to oversee the bad attitude of the
person and instead see the positive side of the person. See the common things between the two of you,
or see why he becomes like that. What
does he lack? Maybe he needs a friend
like you.
And also, if the person does not like you, its not your fault. You can never please everyone. But be at peace with that person. Give that person a gift, or a smile. Always do the right thing, because by doing
right, you will never regret anything.
Decide to do what is right and good.
It is the best way to live. Also
try this: if you want to establish a
connection between the two of you, be one with that person. Do not show you are
against him, instead show him you are with him and that there is no need for
him to defend himself for you. Show him
you are honest and that you are not hiding anything from him. Show him you are harmless to him. Show him that you are his friend. You can do this by imitating his body
gestures. It subconsciously gives him an
idea that you are not against him and
there is no need for attack.
3. Dress properly. In the place where I work, I once clothed
myself with jeans and ordinary shirt or something like that. First impressions of people who meet you for
the first time are based heavily on how you look like. Even if you don't admit it, you are also
guilty of that. I do not have a
recommendation on which kind of clothes to wear, it is case by case. But in my case, in the lab, I now wear slacks
instead of jeans and I wear black leather shoes instead of colorful rubber
shoes. I wear quite professional clothes
compared with before. I want to be
presentable all the time especially when I am in my workplace. In the workplace, I try my best to keep a
professional relationship with my coworkers, but still maintaining a level
which I can establish a familiarity or friendship.
4. Which brings me to my
number 4 topic. NETWORK. Network is very important. This is in relation with number 2. People who get promoted, or who gets the
news, or who gets more opportunities are people who have established a good
network. People can help you. You cannot stand alone. There is a saying No man is an island. Like it or not, you needed people before, you
still need people now and you will need people for the rest of your life. The key is to convince the person to WANT to
help you. You must not do it by
blackmail or by force or by money; the easiest and safest way is for you to
convince them that they want to help you.
Make them see and realize why they have to help you. People in general are very kind. They help, but you have to know why they
should help you. You form such a
network, that's why you have to keep at peace with everyone. You never know who can help you in the future. Don't burn your bridges.
5. Know your identity. This is very important in life. I can find an example for this: Before engaging in a relationship, you should
first know yourself. Know who you
are. Know your values. Know your principles. Know what you cannot compromise. Why? Because this is how you can meet your
partner. Everyone cannot be your partner
because some people do not have the same values as you. A relationship which does not have a clear
ground cannot be anchored for long. It
will be tossed by the waves and the winds when the storm comes. Know what you are standing for. Know what you are living for. Enjoy being with yourself. You are very precious. Why would anyone want to be with you if you
cant stand being with yourself? Spend
time thinking and listening to your thoughts.
Spend some time alone. Go on a
dinner with yourself. Talk to yourself. Know who you are. Know your principles in this life. These are the ones which will guide you in
all the decisions you will have to make, even the toughest decisions. When you know your principles, you will know
what to do. When you know your
principles,
6. Happiness is always a
CHOICE. You can choose to be happy even
when you cannot find a reason to be happy.
That is not being crazy at all.
To be happy, you should choose to be happy.
7. For the high school
student: don't know what course to take
up for your higher education? For the
people who are choosing a job: don't
know what job you will take? Get
guidance from people you trust, for example: your parents. If your parents recommend a certain college
course to you, consider what they are trying to tell you. If you are convinced that what they want for
you is good, (which in most cases is what parents want) please follow them. And don't worry about not loving the subject
because similar to happiness, loving something, or someone for that matter, is
also a choice. Most of the people in this
world do not know what they want. I
mean, in one occasion, you want ice cream, and when you finally got the ice
cream you want a burger. The grass is
always greener on the other side. You
never know what you want. Not liking
your current status and imagining what life is like if you chose…? That's nonsense. I tell you, if ever you chose that other
path, you will have some things that you will not like in that path. In fact, wherever you go, you will find
something in your way to rant about. If
you cant find that its either your life is so peaceful, or it is completely
boring. In every good movie, there’s
always the antagonist, right? There is
always a problem we have to solve. You
will always wonder , “what if this… or what if that…” You know they key to that? The key to that is to CHOOSE TO LOVE what you
are doing. Choose to love your status
now. Choose to see the best things you
have because others are trying to see what if they were in your position. To love something, you should choose to love
it.
8. Imagine. Visualize.
Visualize what you want to happen.
Imagine that is is happening now.
See that it is so real, in fact, so real that you almost thought it is
real. Imagine clearly it is happening
now and say it aloud. Einstein once said
that the true indication of genius is not knowledge but imagination. I agree.
9. READ people. I learned to read people this year. I learned to read how they are, their
personality, their character. I know how
to make them my friend. I read them by
their actions, their facial expression.
I read them by their words. I have
come to realize that reading a person is very helpful all the time in all
cases.
10. I learned to love my
country. Not that I didn't love my
country before. But I learned to see it
in a new light. I learned to look at it
from a different angle. I learned how
lucky I am because I realized how much my country needs me. I have formed my mind to go back after
finishing my studies abroad. I have
formed in my mind the help that my country needs. And I will not disappoint my country. It would be too unfair of me if I just go
away when my country needs me the most.
I will do my best.
11. God. This year, I had a
lot of questions about God. I believe in
God. Actually, no, I am SURE there is a
God. But it is his nature which I could
not understand. There is a God, and
there is an afterlife. But what lies
ahead I do not know. I have a lot of
questions about how to be saved, or about Gods will. I am quite
pleased that I am thinking about this.
But sometimes I get so confused.
It seems that it is impossible to understand all these things. Sometimes, there seems to be no answers at
all. I hope I could find satisfaction with the things I will think about
regarding this. I might have a post on this.
12. Always do the right
thing. If you are sure you are right and
you love what you do, FIGHT for it. Protect
your dream. Never give it up.
13. There is no such thing as
FAILURE. Life is filled with second
chances. I see life like an experiment
in the laboratory. If you fail to get
your target compound in the first time, try again. But this time, change something. You cannot expect a different result if you
do the same thing again. If in the
second time, you changed something and still didn't get your target, change
another parameter. Maybe the one you
changed was not the thing you were supposed to change. The good thing is, in life, you can try as
much as you want. Change what you are
doing until you get to where you want to be.
14. If you want people to follow
you, or follow a certain law, the environment must be conducive so that the
people will naturally do it. For
example, if you want people to stop jaywalking, you should put the pedestrian
crossing lines in areas where it is easy and quite natural for the people to
cross. Otherwise they will find other
areas to cross which is the most convenient.
People always try to make their lives convenient. So if you want them to follow a certain law,
make it convenient for them to follow. Make the environment conducive to
following that rule you want to impose.
It also applies with other areas.
15.
Education is important. If a
person gets truly educated, he should want to be educated more. If he truly learned something, he will be
even more curious and ask more as if the thirst for knowledge and search for
truth cannot be quenched by asking only a few questions. I think this is the mistake in today’s
education system. Today in my university
here, We get an average of three exams per semester and one final exam and that’s
it. It is as if learning is anchored
only to those three paper exams. But
learning is more than just paper. It is
imagination. It is critical
thinking. It is like waking up and
finding more and more that you are in love with your craft. When I become a professor, I don’t want my
students to get three exams. I only want
one exam per semester, and the rest of the time I want to implement some
experiments or exercises where I can evaluate whether they really learned
something or not. I could not exactly
yet pinpoint what kind of exercises these are but I will think about them.
Happy 2013! :)
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