Self-Love

Rain’s falling outside, dripping hard. Jakarta is cold and windy. I’m feeling warm and blessed. So many things to learn in these previous years, especially these past three years. Living after college is different. Being adult is different and it demands another form of mentality. Accepting and dealing with reality is a real challenge at first, but can be very liberating. To fully aware of your heart needs, what makes your heart happy and contented. I’m now fully equipped to hug life again and thrive.

Finally, happiness is always on your side. You just have to accept and cherish it. Easier said than done, but it all starts with self-love. Learning how to be happy and secured from within, not because of A, B, or C. I used to hate birthdays, because birthdays come with a lot of expectations, and expectations sometimes overkill. Today, I decide to leave all expectations behind. I let love flow in its strange, beautiful, enchanting ways. One sincere pray from my best friend that I find so comforting, is to me finding my own, deep innate happiness. I realize that I never lack of love from others, but I lack of love for myself that I can not see what others have given me and I cannot pour what I have inside.

So my wish and hope for this year, is to feel the love of life again. To be a kinder person for my surroundings. To reunite with my true self that’s been long drifted apart because of doubts and fears. To go for my dreams, drop all my fears of uncertainty, and may this heart always be in ease, soft, and loving so it can pour to fill others’.

Thank you Lord for your endless kindness, for the overflowing love, protection, health, for my healthy loving parents, friends, and lover. Thank you thank you thank you. When life gives you a lot of things, embrace them; embrace them all with love.

FPL

You and Things You Buy

Yesterday I went to have a lunch with my best friend who happened to befriend with my boyfriend’s coworker. A warm, lovely lunch filled with light jokes also talks about interesting stocks to buy this following week. After that, I decided to hop into F21 to pick great-but-cheap hairbands, it turned out they ran out of it yet they had sale, pay 2 get 1 free for all stuffs so I grabbed some earrings and necklace, under 5 bucks for 3 items. Then I strolled down to H&M to get their hairbands, though it was not as good as F21’s.

It’s been quite sometime for me to go into those two places since leaving grad school. Lifestyle shifts, they say. I bumped into group of college gurls, gurls dragging their parents to the cashier, and I can’t help remembering myself back then, when I don’t have any money but I was more satisfied with my life.  When I was looking forward to go there with mum. When happiness had got something to do with money, but not so much. I enjoyed cheap thrills. I went a date on junk food stall. I only got my frappe once a month after mum sent me my monthly allowance to live in Depok. Life pretty much made more sense.

Sometimes bottomless pit makes everything seems pointless. Too many cups of latte make you forget how warming it can be. Too many expensive shoes and purses do not give you joy you always long for. Too much of everything makes everything loses its meaning.  And yes, you will never feel enough if you don’t stop and realize that you are all blessed in every step and choice you take.

Maybe I’m not achieving enough financial freedom to say this, but really, sometimes you need to get everything you want first to realize, it’s never about getting everything you want.

I smiled a lot after that. Of course back then, there were days when I wished I had got more money, I wished I could afford A, B, C and so on. I relieved to know that first, you might be able to get things you really want to, but the second, they won’t make you happy unless you yourself decide that it can make you happy.

The key is to be grateful. But really, I’m considering to live like a grad student again and save more in 2017.