Stop and Install

Happiness? 

That’s the simple word which is not very simple to be translated into the real world. Many psychology experts have done many experiments to understand the meaning of this word. Is it a destination or a process?  If it is a process, then why many people still chasing for this? You cannot chase the process right? For me, happiness is a process as it always changes from time to time. The things that used to make me happy in past time maybe wouldn’t make me happy now.

So what will drive the happiness?

Based on the Global Happiness Research conducted by Ipsos in 2013, it is driven by living conditions, security, environment, income, health, education and family harmony. The research which was conducted in 21 countries showed that some countries are significantly happier than other countries!

Indonesia?

With the traffic

Big flood

Where do you think Indonesia would be?

We are number 1!  55% of Indonesian respondent said that they were very happy with their current state of life. Because they considered their national economy to be 'good' with last year economy grew by 5.6%. Although the wealth was unevenly spread, with 11.4% of the population living in poverty and least satisfy with the education level. But with the positive answers about time spent with family and neighbors could overcome all of the concerns.  Why? Indonesian could always adapt to the situation.

Big float? Smile!

Traffic? Selfie!

However, this skill could be a double edge sword. As a human, we can adapt to anything, it seems—you can get your dream job, marry a wonderful human—eventually we acclimate and find new things to complain about.

Why? Because our needs are always changes. In his pyramid, Marslow mapped the human needs into 4 different levels. In his theory, the movements should be from the bottom to the upper level. But, based on my experience, it could be the other way round. When I just graduated from University, I could say that I wasn’t really care about money as I thought I had my parents to back up me and I didn’t had to support anybody, so this first two level, I didn’t need this. I could say that I was looking for Self-actualization so that by doing a job which always challenged me and made me smarter that’s my happiness. But then a few years later when I was getting older, the pressure of being independent and not be supported by my parents was getting higher. Then, my need moved into this level, I started to question whether I had been compensated enough? My happiness was decreasing.    

Sometimes, life is like a flappy bird game. In this game: you need to control a funny-looking bird by tapping the screen. You need to manage the force, if it’s too hard; it would jump all over the place, if this this too weak, you would crash.

So, how we could manage the force to have a happier brain? : train our brains to appreciate positive experiences by taking the time to focus on them and install them in the brain. It is different with positive thinking. Dr. Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist, a member of U.C. Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center's advisory board said that the fundamental distinction between activation and installation. In positive thinking, the person is not taking the extra 10, 20 seconds to heighten the installation into neural structure, so it would be wasted on our brain. We’re not taking into account so that it doesn’t learn very well.

If we get back again into my story, I realized that maybe I wasn’t took the extra time to install the positive experience when I did the job e.g. the opportunity to always keep myself actualize. So that when i had to face the negative one, i started to get unhappy.

The happiest people do not necessarily have the best thing, they simply appreciate the thing that they have.  So when life is turning into a Flappy Bird game where the forces pulling us down are just as strong as the ones pulling us up, we need to make sure that we have enough strength to manage the forces so that we wouldn’t crash sooner than we expect. Start by stop complaining and starting to appreciate good thing in our life and installing it repeatedly to grow the inner strength. 

Cheers, 

Raisa

Choices?

Jokowi or Prabowo? Wait for him, or let him go? Stay or move to a new job?

We are always facing choices every  in a relationship or broke up, using taxi or ojek, passion or money, career or love life,  Jokowi or SBY. Actually, my biggest concern on making decision is the opportunity cost, the cost which arises for missing the opportunity. When I was in college, I learn (a lot) about this. Since every decision has consequences. So when I made decision, I usually use three steps.

First, Asking “why” I was making the choice at first place. I used to be a social smoker on my second year in university.  At first, I think there’s no harm being a social smoker as I thought being the passive is more dangerous than the active smoker. Actually, at that time, I had 2 different peer groups, first is the good girl and good boy gang which I usually study with, and second is not really good girl and good boy who I usually not study with. The “good gang” is always mocking me up for being a social smoker and tried to stop this habit by explaining many sophisticated reasons why I have to stop e.g. the risk of cancer or bible told us not to do so. But I have never really listened to their crap as I don’t think the reason is not strong enough. However, when I saw government cigarette advertisement on the bus, It changed my mindset. The ads said “They are becoming richer, when we are dying”. Then I realize that many executives in Cigarette Company are not smoker. The fact that they are making money by selling us the poison which they didn’t even want to consume is like a slap on my face. The feeling by for not being the cash cow for the cigarette company is the “WHY” that I need. Sometimes, you don’t need a sophisticated reason to make a change. Since sometimes the details will cloud our mind to the most fundamental question “WHY”. By looking up this question, it will help us to find our true motivation.

Second, List my options by collecting much information and weigh the possible outcome. There’s many tools that can be used to help us to make a choice i.e. OODA method (Observe, Orient, Decide, Action), or cost and benefit table or even a simple yes and no table. When I was in a dilemmatic situation such as  Facing a little kid who looks so skinny, tired and hungry, it really broke my heart that at this young age, this kid has to struggle to make money when the other kid have a great time in playground. Frankly speaking, I prefer to donate my money in a charity foundation regularly as it will be more impactful. For this particular situation, I usually make a quick mental list, yes and no list. Yes because by giving him some money he can buy a meal and survive. It also makes me feel better since my mom used to tell me to always help other. No because, the money, probably, will be used by the parents to buy cigarette or phone credit or even taken by the preman. Also, it feels like I’m supporting them to be a beggar by providing the demand. But, if I didn’t do this, probably, they really can die as I had read in newspaper that there’s a kid who died since he hasn’t eaten anything more than 2 days.  It’s so dilemmatic you know. But when I face a freak beggar who cut himself by using a razor blade without having any bleeding, I will make a very very quick yes and no table in my head. No, because I don’t want to be intimidated by him.  Yes, because he is a debus and I don’t want him to make me as debus as him by cutting my bag or even my hand. So i always go with giving him money!

Third, Using my gut. Even tough, in college I had learned many decision making tools to assist me in making decision, I realize that by the end of the day it’s just a tool. It’s all coming back to me whether I want to listen to their insight or not. I usually will use my gut to help me decide which insight that I want to use. I realize that I have to sharpen my gut so I can be more confident with my decision. I usually do this by having a moment of stillness. Basically, it’s just sit for 60 second and doing nothing. At this situation, I can confronted who really I am and hide nothing but my own truth.

So, in short, based on my experience, the key to make good decisions is understanding the reason ‘WHY’ , listening to our head (the options and possible outcome) and balancing it with following our heart. Because every decision is coming with consequences and we have to commit with that. Remember:  the art of making decision is the commitment. So use your brain and your heart and let’s decide!

Bisous!

Raisa

vingt-et-un jours

Hello! it's been very long time since my last entri.  There's so many thing happened in my life which enriched my point of view to see life. Long story short, now i am working in one of advertising agency in Indonesia. In here, i could say that im quit happy with the workload, working fellas and the environment.

However, the thing that i most remembered from my job here is the pressure to look beautifully in shape. They are frequentlly talked about diets and callories. At first, im not really into that kind of stuff. I know that my body is not really in a good shape, though, i'm still happy with my self. But then, since i frequently hang out with them, i started to be more like them; person who really care about the apperance and the body shape. In addition, they also will talked about your body in a frankly way or mocking you up "raisa, lo gendutan yah?" mennnn. but the thing which is more painful is...EMANG GW GENDUTAN T___T

Then, now, i determine to make a change in my life! i will do my best to lose some weights! how? hmmm..

a few days ago, one of my office colleague told me that if we are doing something for 21 consecutive days, then it would be a habit.

hmmm... i think there's no harm to try this one. So i decided to make to do this kind of routine for the next 21 days :

1. Excersice minimum 30 minutes every morning
2. Eating apple for breakfast and dinner
3. Add some vegetables for lunch
4. No snacking during working hours

My target is to be able to fit on my favorite ZARA dress.

I will keep you posted yaaa dear fellow blogger!

cheers,

Raisa

Take it for granted?

Saya selalu mengklasifikasikan diri sebagai seorang yang seimbang. Seimbang ketika harus ber-juggling ria dengan berbagai role yang saya miliki, sebagai anak, teman, karyawan, murid, dkk. Seimbang ketika harus menjadi seorang yang pragmatis atau menjadi pemikir ulung yang suka overanalysing yah malah bikin ruwet sendiri hahaha.

 Anyway, apa yang saya maksud dengan pragmatis disini? pragmatis (menurut saya) adalah sebuah sikap yang take it for granted without having a further analysis. Kayak, percaya aja gitu sama "kepercayaan umum"  yang sudah dimiliki sejak jaman dahulu atau misalnya percaya begitu saja sama omongan orang-orang yang saya anggap lebih pintar. Well, fortunately, sikap take-it for granted saya ini sedikit demi sedikit mulai berkurang ketika saya mulai masuk ke dunia pekerjaan professional. Saya dulu memiliki seorang bos saat internship, dia beberapa ratus kali menekankan bahwa jangan menjadi orang yang take it for granted, kita harus memeriksa kembali semua pernyataan atau informasi yang kita terima. Well, karena di sering banget bicara soal itu, yah mau ga mau saya berubah ,sedikit demi sedikit, menjadi orang yang lebih kritis.

Saya mulai sering mempertanyakan beberapa hal yang dulu nya saya terima bulat-bulat. Saya mulai lebih sering membaca buku, browsing di internet,membaca berita, bergosip, bertukar informasi untuk melakukan verifikasi terhadap informasi. Saya pikir, dengan melakukan semua itu, saya akan menjadi orang yang multideminsional, bukan orang datar yang hanya memiliki satu dimensi atau paling tidak, tidak akan dibodohi lagi oleh orang lain.

Namun, semakin kesini, semakin banyak saya bergaul dengan macam-macam tipikal manusia dengan latar belakang yang bermacam-macam, saya menyadari bahwa pengetahuan yang saya miliki itu sempit BANGET. Masih berputar pada ekonomi, manajemen, riset pemasaran,perilaku manusia, pemetaan dan pengklasifikasian manusia, sedikit tentang fashion, sedikit tentang edukasi di Indonesia, dan sangat sedikit mengenai kondisi di Perancis.

No wonder kadang teman saya suka mencandai kedangkalan saya.

Awalnya saya pikir, tidak ada yang salah dengan menjadi deep specialist. You just need to be so good in your field, no need to understand everything.

Namun, kalau ternyata dalam ilmu kemampuan yang sudah terbatas spesifik banget juga ternyata kurang, terus salah , mau gimana?.Selama ini, saya memetakan diri saya dan orang lain dengan mengacu pada teori segitiga maslow. Saya berusaha mengerti tingkat kebutuhan mereka dan apa yang perlu saya lakukan terhadap tipikal manusia tersebut. Tapi yakin maslow bener?

Beberapa hari yang lalu saya sempat mengobrol dengan seorang teman yang sedang mengambil S3 filsafat, tipikal orang yang tidak pernah saya miliki di dalam pertemanan saya. Pemikirannya dia? CUANGGIH!. Dia bisa membuat saya mempertanyakan hal-hal yang selama ini saya terima begitu saja. Contohnya adalah teori segitiga Maslow tersebut.

Ketika saya kuliah, satu pelajaran yang terus mengena di saya adalah segitiga Maslow tersebut. Saya pikir "eh buset, ini sesuai banget ama kehidupan gw cing". Kenapa sesuai? karena beberapa jenis teman saya bisa saya kelompokan berdasarkan jenis-jenis kebutuhan mereka yang ada di Maslow. Saya tidak berusaha mencari lebih lanjut mengenai apakah teori tersebut benar? relevan? pasti tokcer?.

Saya percaya bahwa itu adalah benar.

Sampai saya mengobrol dengan teman saya yang filsuf itu.
Sebenarnya ini semua dimulai dengan perbincangan abal ditengah-tengah jam istirahat les prancis.
Saya (R) : Jadi dengan lo ngambil S2 di HI dan filsafat, terus S3 di filsafat terus lanjut S3 (lago) di prancis itu buat jadi apa sih? professor? guru besar?
Dia (D) : Enggak ah, itu terlalu duniawi
R: Terus apa? self-esteem?
D: Engga juga sik
R : Lah, gw belajar di Maslow tuh kebutuhan manusia ada bla bla (menjelaskan segitga Maslow dengan penuh semangat berapi-api)
D: Yah yang gw pengen gak ada disitu
R: Terus apa? ko bisa gak ada disitu?
D: Yah soalnya lo pake Maslow, yah jelas aja ga ada. Maslow itu kan aneh. Itu tujuannya tuh ke diri.Sedangkan "diri" itu sendiri , dari dulu sampai sekarang, psycology belum bisa menjelaskan apa definisi dari "diri". Jadi gimana Maslow mau ngomongin soal kebutuhan diri, kalau "diri" nya sendiri belum bisa dijelaskan. Makanya si Maslow itu kan sebenarnya ditentang dan gak sesuai.
R : "..."

BANG! It's like a big slap on my face. 
Men, i have been fooled AGAIN? 
havent i already read hundreds book? why i didnt know that? why i am still stupid? 

Ketika saya me-rekonfirmasi mengenai kontroversi dari Maslow , ternyata ada banyak link yang menunjukkan pencerahan dari hal ini.

CYIN, kemane aje ngana dari kemaren?

Makanya kalo nge-net jangan cuma ngecek email, facebook-an, twitter-an, path-an, instagram-an,ngecek sinopsis TV series kesayangan, atau nyari novel e-book bajakan. Coba cari hal-hal berguna yang berkaitan dengan interest yang dimiliki saat ini dan mulai mempertanyakan hal-hal yang selama ini hanya dimengerti di permukaan saja.

Saya jadi teringat kalimat dari salah seorang dosen Perekonomian Indonesia saya, dia berkata "Coba ya kalian itu kalo di facebook atau twitter, jangan bertemennya sama temen-temen kalian lagi. Coba follow tuh George Soros, yang berguna gitu buat nambah-nambah informasi kalian. Ngapain sih kamu udah ketemu di kampus tiap hari, masih aja mention-mention an di twitter".

Okay bu, noted bu! Mulai hari ini saya akan berusaha menjadi netizen yang lebih berguna! Karena pada saat ini, informasi sudah ada di ujung jari kita! tinggal majuin telunjuk ke layar smartphone ato tab, taraaang! dapat deh informasinya.

Jadi sekarang, gak ada yang namanya take it for granted. gak ada yang dont know.
Yang ada hanya havent known it YET!

Cheers,

Raisa 

Facing the Darkness

Have you ever been in the situation when you face many choices and you are just stuck and afraid of taking decision?

Well, I have.

After I graduated from college, I found myself stuck on the intersection. I don’t know what way which I should take for my future. I didn’t know which industries that fit with my passion. Should I go to FMCG? Banking? Fashion? Media? Or oil and gas which will give me better salaries to pay my bill? At that time, I
felt I just lost and scared about my future. In bahasa we called it “galau”. I am afraid that if I make a wrong decision now, it will affect my whole future life and waste my time. It’s getting worse by seeing my peer group who already found their passion and started to chase it for example working in prestigious company, taking certain certification etc.

I was starting to lose my confidence and questioning my ability to success. I wasn’t sure whether I have good enough skill and achievement to be offered. Then, I have to face the people who like to judge me as I haven’t found any “proper job”. One of my family member even said “why would you graduate as cum laud in 3, 5 years, if you haven’t worked yet?” At that time I stunted and shocked that there is aperson who’s really that rude which made me feel worse.

In the darkness, fortunately i bumped in with a great gentleman whom I respect to. He is a president director in one of biggest multinational company in Indonesia. He asked me to explain myself and told him about my dream, and what I want to be in the future. Hence he told me “Raisa, I think you are really great. You have positive attitude, smart brain, fast learner and high adaptability. I believe that you will be a successful woman.” He remained me the positive sides of me and made me believe that there’s positive thing in me. It boosts up my self-confidence. Then, I started to leave negative people who only drag me down and surround myself with someone who could support me
.
After that, I usually compare myself with my great friends whom I usually hangout with and doing stupid thing together. During college, many of them were participating in competition or being delegates from Indonesia for international competition. However, after graduation, everything changed. While I was still figured out about what I was going to do with my life, my friends started to chase their passions by working in prestigious investment bank or business consultant, or continue their study abroad. Compare to them, my achievements were almost nothing. I felt my life was empty and worthless. Then, I shared my feeling, my emptiness, to one of my good friend. She just smile and said “Eh Raisa, Many people are dying to be in your shoes. if you said that your life is empty, what about mine? Garbage? Your life is full of color and very dynamic if you compare it with mine. Let alone to win like you, I have never been participated on any competition during college. My GPA is lower than you, also with my family’s financial condition. Is it makes me down? No! Because I knew that every person is unique and has their own strength and weakness. The thing is you need to stop comparing yourself with others and starting to be happy with your own”. And that’s what I did.

Then, I read many articles about successful figure i.e. Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, Thomas Alfaedison .
Many of them had been failed for thousand times, million times, before they could taste the success.
The thing is they never give up and they realize when they faced the failure, they have to step up their
game. It is okay to make mistake. It’s not wasting our time. Failure will give us learning how to be a
better person.

After passed all of things,  I felt more relax and comfortable with my situation. I am more open to opportunities in my life. Then, I took the opportunity to work in marketing research industry as researcher. Well, we never know, maybe, I could be the best market researcher in Indonesia.

In life, we may are in the position where everything is dark. Where we are not sure about where to go and afraid of the darkness of the uncertainty. Based on my experience, we may want to take these steps for facing the darkness. First, have in faith in ourselves that we are able to be success and we have enough to be offered. Second, stop looking up and comparing ourselves with others. We need to realize that we are unique in our own way. Third, accept our own humanity. Accept that sometimes human are making mistakes and that’s okay. Because we are only human who’s not perfect. We need realize that there’s no such thing as certainty, the only certainty is uncertainty. So, just keep on going and trust ourselves.

Hello Goodbye!

Ada sebuah episode dari Ugly Betty yang cukup memorable untuk saya. Episode tersebut adalah episode dimana Betty harus putus dengan pacarnya tersebut karena sang pacar ingin menjadi volunteer ke Afrika untuk mencari hal yang menjadi passionnya. Sang pacar pada awalnya digambarkan sebagai spoilt rich boy yang tidak pernah terlalu berusaha untuk melakukan atau mencapai sesuatu hal. Oleh karena itu, menjadi seorang volunteer adalah sebuah momen yang dapat mendewasakan sang pacar which means it such a good opportunity for him eventhough it cost their relationship.

But the thing which i remembered most is when Betty's said

 "I've had to say goodbye more times than i would have liked, but everyone can say that. And no matter how many times we do it, even when it's fot the greater good, it still stings. And though we'll never forget what we've given up, we owe it to ourselves to keep moving forward. What we can't do , is live our lifes always afraid of the next goodbye. Because chances are, they're not going to stop. The trick is to recognize when a goodbye can be a good thing. When it's a chance to start again." 

Dari situ saya belajar bahwa meskipun kita tahu bahwa "goodbye" tersebut akan membawa hal yang lebih baik untuk orang tersebut, namun rasa sakit tersebut tetap ada. Tapi kadang kita tidak menyadari bahwa perpisahan tersebut adalah untuk hal yang lebih baik. Hal ini dapat menutup diri kita dari segala kesempatan yang datang. Penting bagi kita untuk menyadari kapan saat untuk memulai semua kembali dan mengucap Hello! kepada apa saja yang datang ke dalam hidup kita.

Seperti pada entri saya sebelumnya, bahwa setiap manusia memiliki "tahap" dalam kehidupannya. Setiap perpindahan tahap tersebut tentunya kita harus mengucapkan selamat tinggal kepada beberapa hal yang berkaitan dengan tahap hidup kita tersebut. Well, gak totally goodbye juga sih. Kita masih bisa teteup in touch tapi gak bakal se intens dulu. Pertemuan biasa, obrolan biasa yang biasanya kita lakukan setiap harinya akan berubah menjadi sebuah momen spesial atau dinantikan karena itu sudah tidak biasa dengan satu sama lain.

Perpindahan tahap kehidupan ini juga diperberat dengan adanya ketidakyakinan terhadap masa depan. Jujur saja, saya tuh tipikal anak yang ketika lulus kuliah tidak tahu mau jadi apa ketika lulus kuliah. Saya tuh tahunya cuma belajar, dapat nilai bagus, main, dandan, mabuk-mabukan. Ketika saya sudah lulus dan melihat hidup teman-teman saya yang sudah terstruktur, saya semakin takut dengan ketidakjelasan hidup saya. Saya bahkan pernah sampai disatu titik dimana saya takut untuk mengambil langkah. Takut salah langkah.

Hal ini terjadi cukup lama. Setelah banyak berdoa dan nonton TV (apa hubungannya?). Saya menyadari bahwa pada usia segini adalah usia yang tepat untuk mencoba berbagai hal. Adalah usia yang tepat untuk melakukan kesalahan. Yang terpenting adalah kita harus sadar kapan harus melepaskan masa lalu kita,berusaha untuk terus membuka diri terhadap segala kesempatan yang ada dan belajar dari setiap kesalahan yang kita lakukan. Karena lebih baik membuat kesalahan sekarang daripada nanti ketika kita sudah tua, kemudian kita menyadari bahwa hidup yang kita jalani ini adalah sebuah  kesalahan.

Entri ini saya tutup dengan quote dari Steve Jobs yang menurut saya oke banget!

"You cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future"

Have a good thursday night everybody!

Raisa

Pit Guy and Potatoes

"Each of the friends somewhat admit that they have who they consider a "pit guy": someone who,if they had the power, would throw into a pit in their basement to banish forever, much like in The silence of the Lambs"

Itu adalah penggalan dari "pembenaran" Ted mengenai obsesinya terhadap dosen arsitekturnya ketika di universitas. Disitu dijelaskan bahwa "dendam" terhadap sang dosen kepadanya merupakan salah satu dorongan terbesar nya untuk menjadi arsitek handal. Dia selalu memimpikan hari dimana dia akan datang kembali ke sang dosen dan membuat dosen tersebut menyesal karena pernah mengatakan bahwa dia tidak akan pernah berhasil menjadi seorang arsitek handal. 

Diakhir episode tersebut, Ted mengatakan bahwa "By the end of the day, you realize that the guy who is in a pit is yourself. And the one who can help you to get out is yourself".

Intinya? 

Dari episode tersebut, saya merasa "tersentil". Karena jujur saja, saya memiliki seorang teman yang ingin sekali saya masukkan kedalam "lubang" yang sangat dalam dan saya kubur sedemikian sehingga saya tidak perlu bertemu dan berurusan kembali dengannya. Pendendam? engga juga sih. Saya hanya tidak ingin berurusan dengan orang itu lagi. Saya adalah tipikal orang yang percaya bahwa hidup itu seperti film. Dimana kita bisa memiliki sad or even bad ending. Jadi ada keadaan dimana ketika kita memiliki masalah atau rasa tidak suka kepada seseorang, kita tidak perlu harus "memperbaiki"nya dengan meminta maaf atau berteman kembali. Tapi setelah saya menonton episode HIMYM tersebut, saya menyadari bahwa sebenarnya orang yang masuk ke dalam lubang kesebalan itu adalah diri saya sendiri. Saya berubah menjadi orang yang small minded dan merasa bahwa kekurangan saya itu adalah hal yang harus diterima oleh orang lain. Bila tidak mau menerima kekurangan saya, yasudah tidak usah berteman saja. Arogan? BANGET! hahahaa.

Saya teringat bahwa beberapa waktu yang lalu saya sempat mengobrol dengan kolega saya, dia mengumpamakan orang yang menyimpan dendam seperti orang yang menggotong sekantong kentang dipunggungnya. Dimana ketika dendamnya semakin besar, maka kantong kentang tersebut akan semakin besar dan berat. Ketika dia menyimpan dendam (diumpamakan sebagai kentang), maka itu akan menjadi busuk dan mengganggu orang tersebut untuk melanjutkan hidupnya atau kalau bahasa anak jaman sekarang move on. 

Dari obrolan singkat tersebut dan quote Ted Mosby dalam episode tersebut, saya menyadari bahwa dendam  atau keinginan untuk membalaskan dendam hanya akan memasukkan diri saya ke dalam "lubang" kebencian dan menghambat diri saya untuk melanjutkan hidup ke tahap selanjutnya. Dari sana saya mulai belajar untuk melepaskan "kentang-kentang" didalam kantong saya, (mencoba) memaafkan para "Pit Guy" dan melanjutkan hidup saya. 

I realize that i dont need their apology to forgive them. I forgive them because i am ready to move my "potatoes and Pit Guy" go and live my life with much lighter steps for achieving my dream life. 

So what about you? Who is your Pit Guy?Are you ready to let the potatoes go?

Cheers, 

Raisa