One of the heartfelt family pictures and the happiest volunteering project this year.
These are my mother’s village in raising us. At least, four of these people in this picture had once sent me to YPM when I was little. These are ones that survived my teenager years regular crankiness during two years I lived alone in grandma’s house without my family. One of my aunt’s son accompanied me to school in Tebet, from Tomang, before heading to his office in Kelapa Gading, by bus, daily. I was suddenly turned into a spoiled brat while living with them. I can list more but let’s stop here.
When I knew they wanted to perform umrah, but seemed uncertain and unclear about the time and process, I couldn’t help being fussy. To realize any dreams and good intentions, once the money is there, it’s important to execute it asap. Unless, the distraction will always win.
So, I started bugging and nagging telling them I would take care everything and they just had to pay.
This is their very first trip abroad. I enjoyed all the hassles it brings. From registering and sending them for their first passport book, choosing the umrah travel and the package to the smallest detail that cater what they wanted, registering for vaccines and visiting the travel office to do fitting and travel kit pick up, managing payments, to countless whatsapp chats in a dedicated group giving reminders, answering questions, and many more for the past four month. I emptied days in my calendar to accompany them.
Being a shadow agent, the travel agent officer put me in the umroh group chat so I can enjoy the trip too. Couldn’t help being so teary for the past few days looking at all the pictures and videos. One of my aunts called from the hotel in Madinah then we cried together on the phone while laughing happily. She called me again after returning saying how impressed she was with the service during the trip and hoping to return soon.
Being involved and in-charge for my mother’s family umroh plan is truly an honor.
May Allah accept all the worship and prayers, repay all their kindness, and add more blessings to them and their family. Amin.
(When I looked back, a huge part of me become agiver, some credit goes to them).
This year’s noise has been among the most overwhelming. All in personal, national, and global levels. It feels like having overstimulation inside out.
The brain seems to have taken on too many duties and is unable to stop processing a wide range of circumstances that occur in sequence or simultaneously throughout the year.
Keep trying to make sense of things that happened beyond my shallow comprehension. Try to rationalize the behavior that I thought was impossible to perform by a supposed decent human being.
In another lane, witnessing how a 20-year difference can really pass by, and how it’s really possible for one not to move an inch from where they were. But, things are never static. Things that I call not moving, it is actually moving, but, instead of progressing, they are regressing.
Being 20 years older and regressing without realizing it.
It disturbed me more than I realized. I have been talking to myself about what actually bothers me.
I haven’t figured out the answer but found a similarity in all these examples.
“Learned helplessness is a psychological state where you believe you have no control over what happens to you. This occurs after a person has repeatedly experienced stressful, uncontrollable events, leading to a feeling that your actions don’t matter”.
I understand change is hard. But not until this year did I see what life could be like if we really neglect the homework that should be done, skip the training that should be learned, and keep walking without a compass or clear direction. It could bring you literally anywhere before you realize you’re actually lost. Like you have no idea where you are, and it is a point of no return.
What’s worse, even after you realize it, you still don’t know where to go, because you’ve been accustomed to living a life without thinking for many years.
For someone who often suffers because whose brain couldn’t stop and doing too much thinking, it’s perplexing.
One who is regressing is actually asking the same question as one who is progressing: “How do I end up here?” Only with different tones. One with astonishment, while the other with confusion.
I have been searching for the root of learned helplessness other than stress and trauma. Is it possible because of multiple bad decision-making that keeps compounding? One bad decision-making that is not bothered to be fixed?
The level of thinking greatly influences decision-making, and it requires a certain level of intelligence —the higher, the better? Not really. At a certain point, thinking alone is not enough. It won’t bring you results. Doing and executing are the real work of decision-making.
How do we even know whether a decision is good or bad? Before making it, one that feels harder, seems impossible, and stretches the heart and brain to the maximum to execute is usually a good one.
After living it, we will slowly be shown the result. At this point, is it possible to turn a bad decision to be slightly better one? Possible. But, we have to do the homework. Slightly harder than before, but, the sooner it is realized, the easier to fix. This too needs thinking
Doing and excuting need one ingredient that I didn’t realize I have been having growing up due to many unintentional circumstances that push me to keep exercising it : courage.
I think courage is the cure(?) of learned helplessness. Since it’s learned, it can surely be unlearned. But, courage is not given. It’s practiced through continuous execution.
I also realized how important it is to live with good, honorable, and respectable wants. Not only needs. Not to gain other’s approval, but to respect yourself.
Wants make you think, make you hopeful, make you go out and try, and make you feel alive. While, helplessness is the root of hopelessness. It’s hard to imagine to operate life with such state.
Thinking, doing, and executing is hard. But, the consequences of neglecting them are even harder. Maybe this is why people say life is hard. Neither choice is easy.
Maybe this is also why the Quran keeps repeating certain lines many times :
“Afala ta’kilun?” (don’t you use your intellect?)
“Afala tatafakkarun?”(don’t you think?”)
“Afala yatadabbarun?” (don’t you reflect?”)
The more examples I see, the more I understand how powerful the intellect is.
I have said enough.
One line from Murakami keeps playing inside my head while writing this :
There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training.
Closing this with a line found in Medium :
“Writing is how to make sure your train of thought arrives at the station”.
A recent event gave me another frown and uttered disbelief. It was another thing that I thought could happen in any random social media post I encountered, but to deal with this in reality, I keep questioning myself: What kind of world is this?
That was one of the passages on my previous post.
I don’t know since when, whenever something happens, something that has a direct or indirect impact on my life, something that I still have to deal with in the future, I have this constant annoyance inside to make sense of everything. Recent events on a personal level have been constantly disturbing and need to make sense.
Like Hermione, when in doubt about something, go to the library. I have been through my old reading for days and went through my gallery, where most of the contents are captured from articles I read in the past. I am also typing some questions in the learning machine. I have certain answers that I keep repeating whenever I discuss the problem with someone. But I am still not satisfied enough to stop wondering.
During sit and stare session in tahajud (this again another 4 am post), I suddenly remember one word I wrote in my latest YPM post. Then my mind jumped to another recent writing on the draft about my daughter who starts copying a certain habit of mine and elaboration of how habit and characters formed. There is also certain pinned post on my feed that I keep re-reading regarding this disturbing event because it amplifies the truth of what I wrote there.
From there, I keep connecting some of the recent conversations, looking back at some of my personal experience and some others related to me, and I start feeling a bit settled.
One phrase that could explain the event :
The absence of internalized values.
Previously, I can only make sense the behavior by calling it weak character. But then, what’s behind such weak characters that lead to certain behavior?
It must be something deeper than that. How does characters are built? Through long years of repetitions of habits. Habits can be good or bad.
Then, how does one build good characters? By doing long years of hard things.
How does habit formed? Internally : from genetics. We bring certain instilled preferences in ourself inherited by genetic from our ancestors. Externally : from our environment.
How does environment help to promote habits? Internally : Motivation and willpower Externally : System.
Some habits we carry in our genes flourish because it grows in the right environment while some failed to thrive because it doesn’t meet the right soil to grow.
I learned that we might not carry any genetics of certain habit, but, environment has enough power to perform certain habits.
Anything we have internally doesn’t really work without working on the external factors. Something that we don’t have internally might grow when there is strong pressure externally.
One of the reasons why certain schools are in high-demand because they provide everything to build good characters. The seeds are different, but with the right environment with good system, it makes bad habits have no place to grow.
So, what drives our attitude and behavior at the most basic level? It’s our beliefs and values. Values and character are deeply interconnected, with one forming the foundation and the other serving as its outward expression. Values are the beliefs and principles that guide a person, while character is the consistent demonstration of those values through behavior and habits over time.
Our core values are usually inherited from our closest people. Parents, teachers, or the bigger family. We pick our initial values from our surroundings.
Based on personal experience and seeing some results when someone becomes a fully mature adult by the end of their 30s and 40s, value transmission needs a strong connection and countless repetitions until it can be safely internalized during our formative years that persists through adulthood.
If it doesn’t take place at home, other circle with stronger connection might take the job. Friends, schools, etc.
“Adolescence is considered a critical period for the development of values and identity, when parents serve as important agents of socialization of their children (Alwin, 1984, Smith and Self, 1980, Starrels, 1992). However, parents compete with other socialization agents (e.g., peers, teachers, and media) such that adolescence marks a turning point when parental influence begins to wane (Younnis & Smollar, 1985). Adolescents begin to remove themselves from their parents’ sphere of influence and expand their own identity and values (Hoffman, 1984, Kroger and Haslett, 1988). The process of individuation accelerates as children experience important life transitions such as moving out of their parents’ home, marrying, and having children of their own, which lead to greater divergence from the values of their parents (Bucx, Raaijmakers, & Van Wel, 2010). Because timing appears to a key feature of value socialization, it is important to consider both pre- and post-adult children when studying the transmission of values between generations (Acock and Bengtson, 1980, Bengtson, 2001, Erikson, 1950, Hitlin, 2006).
Children couldn’t learn from someone who they have no connection with. No education could ever take place without connection. No values could be transferred without a strong connection.
Connection needs presence. They say quality is more important than quantity? Only true with adequate quantity first. No quality before quantity. Numbers can’t lie. Low quantity has a higher probability of low connection.
Can children from the same home and parents end up with different values? It’s very much possible. The child’s temperament, birth order, family situation, schools they attend, and things they experience growing up might all contribute to different values adopted.
How do we judge successfully transmitted values?
It’s how people behave when they have full authority over themselves. Things they do when they have all the resources on their hand. Things they do behind supervision and closed door.
The core values will also have an impact on ethics and morals.
Any behaviors an adult displays is the reflection of successful values that he adopted. Whether from home or another environment.
There is one memorable line from the current podcast I listened to from a marriage counselor :
“Value is not taught, it’s caught”.
(Deep breath)
An adult without clear values will never have clear goals in life. It is translated in every aspect of life. Living in confusion, picking up the easiest way to live, driving aimlessly until it crashes into something, the consequences of which must be handled not only by himself, but unfortunately, by others too.
Adults with unclear values even unable to internalize and own their mistake properly and do something to fix it the right way.
I never knew how scary it is before it truly happens before my eyes.
(Deep breath).
It took me few hours to finally finish this writing with countless revisions.
I think I can put my mind on ease a little bit now.
A YPM alumni posted a writing about life in YPM and it triggered more alumni to give their testimony too. I am enjoying YPM’s little reunion on the comment section while keep reflecting and being currently on the down slope of parenting.
Reading those comments make me realize few things.
Not all the students become great/famous pianist. But, all agree in one thing. The result of all the rigorous training done for years are same for everyone :
the good characters stay, Especially for those who reached certain level.
Lower grade in YPM is about building discipline, consistency, resilience, and many kind of internal characters.
Upper grade in YPM (if one is given the chance) is more about displaying years whether those characters have been successfully internalized or not.
Before grade 6, if you don’t pass, you can repeat the year. Starting grade 6, if you don’t pass : out.
The brilliant one goes directly to PK 1. The not so brilliant one (like me) goes to Pra PK. It’s like another second chance of grade 6. If you don’t pass : out.
In PK 1 – PK2, if you don’t pass all or half of the subjects, repeat the year.
PK 3 is the final destination. The end of journey.
They pick 2-3 student to be taken as teacher, if they tick all the list.
Looking back, I think, those who could proceed and survive PK years, are ones who got the characters internalized, more than the skills.
Ones who, in spite being scolded hard weekly, keep coming. Ones who might be not so talented, but keep trying. Ones who keep juggling between task and challenges, they give their all to finish it,no matter the result.
Evening Replass is where we have play in front of others, being criticized openly and bluntly. Twice a week, From 7pm-12 am. It might sound weird, but, I have never seen an empty Repclass room even during school exam, like final test or even UAN. They don’t choose between school or YPM. They embrace both responsabilities equally.
Having/doing/surviving YPM in my formative years, it’s like a ‘shortcut’ to be a functional adult.
The most significant tangible result is nothing written on the paper, but when I look around my peers and realized I was entering 20s fully ready to deal with the most uncertain period of adulthood.
because I am good, but because I have been trained to deal with whatever adult should deal with.
Adults :
Pay their own bills.
Doing multiple roles.
Doing things we don’t like, but we have to.
Having clear goals and know how to achieve it.
Saying no to many things that doesn’t align with the goals, be it job offers or marriage proposals (plurals).
Fully aware that good life comes with price and willing to pay for it.
It’s certainly not because who I am. It’s the works that many people do for me in my formative years and YPM was the huge part of it.
Working and volunteering with the 20s for the past few years, I see it as one way to paying forward for all the hardwork done on me.
Succesful education can be considered by two characteristics : competency and character.
In YPM, they nailed both.
Closing this with one of the most favorite quotes from a book :
“Teachers (and great education) affect eternity. No one can tell where their influences stops”.
The past few days, life gave me huge lessons about few things. Or maybe show me some test to my character.
It showed me how reactive I am. How quick I was jumping into conclusions.
It showed me how much improvement needed regarding my communication skills.
It showed me no matter much I think I know what to do, at certain point, I will be slipped.
It showed me the complexities of raising a child. No matter how much I think I know about my child, there will be more than I don’t know and teach me those I don’t know through certain circumstance that doesn’t make sense.
I feel humiliated, embarrassed, disappointed, stupid, all level of shame from the lowest to the highest. On the other side, I feel confused, worried, defeated, and extremely exhausted. It has been countless session of talking inside the head and tears flowing suddenly. Even when I am currently writing this.
This is actually the real life test to certain thing that I seem to understand during learnng, so it gives me a chance to see how much I understand when it happens in real life, not through others, but first hand experience.
But, this also one of the moments of confirmation how precise Allah’s timing for everything. While facing this lesson, He let me deal with it ‘alone’ to make sure I am the one who get the lesson.
I wrote to the smallest details at the beginning of the year. It happened again this time. Been wondering why it kept delaying while for the past few months it has been consistently on time. It came at the right time to remove some of obligations while dealing with huge commotion.
Other than the emotions mentioned above, there’s one thing that gives me some light :
The amount of courage that helped me get through this. Years spent training this trait through doing hard things and decision making, turned out to be the most useful while dealing with turbulence in life.
Another thing I realized, we, as human, will never be done with ourself until the end. When we think we have done with ourself, then another layer will be peeled, whether we like it or not. Onion peeling event would always sting in the eye.
After many observations and countless volunteering sessions for the pasr few years, I found one similarity between those who always feel they are entitled to something : they have fixed mindset too.
When I realized this, it explains several things that I don’t think make sense and only consider them as, to say it in my own native language, “ngga tau diri”.
Yesterday, I watched a video about Genius Thinking that explains with one model call The integral AQAL model from Ken Wilbur which explains the reason why some people can get the life they want while some others don’t .
Based on the AQAL model, getting the life that you want is a very complex and complicated process. It requires high level thinking from personal level to society level and it starts from the ability to know how to think.
Writing this rings a bell about many things I read and heard in the past. In the entitlement post, I wrote about my daughter of how I considered her to be entitled due to many privileges she had.
I also remembered her language therapist few years ago once said that she had fixed mindset and one of his therapy goals was to train and improve that. At first, I was quite taken back hearing this from someone else, knowing all the daily routines that we’ve been doing for years, one of the goals is to promote growth mindset. Learning things, making her doing her own chores, doing hard things, etc. But, at certain point, it wasn’t enough (yet).
Now, it feels make sense because being entitled is indeed one of the characteristics of a fixed mindset person.
I see some improvements as years go by, Alhamdulilah. But still, I don’t want to take it for granted. I always think we have still a long way to go (this line alone, without I realize, is the way one with growth mindset thinks).
It also rings another bell about this country. There was once a research regarding the PISA result that said more than half of Indonesian kids had fixed mindset and it showed in their learning result.
Our education relies heavily on result, like exam result, and that is the most fixed mindset thing ever. While the base for growth mindset is process and it is what it takes to instill deep learning so they can employ deep thinking. All questions in PISA test requires that level of thinking.
No wonder we are in 78 out of 81.
It rings another bell too observing people in my surroundings. Those I often consider solely as “ngga tau diri”, turns out it’s not just about that, it is the fixed mindset that translates to many things in real life. Their thinking is limited thus their problem solving. They can only perform linear thinking to every problem. If it’s A, then B. Like there’s only one solution to every problem. They take shortcuts in many things in real life to solve their problem due to lack of understanding and thinking. (I remember writing line in previous post about raising onlies).
Naval said in his famous quote : The only true test of intelligence is not IQ, but if you get what you want out of life. There’s two parts of it. First, getting what you want which means you know how to get it. The second one is: wanting the right things, knowing what to want in the first place.
I now know how hard it is.
It explains why those people I consider entitled, their life stays the same and shows no signficant improvements throughout the years. The scary part, if I look back, who they are when they are little and young , they carry it until they get older. Close to no change at all, they are getting older with a bigger problem to deal with.
I currently deal with something that shows the cost of not teaching thinking properly when one is young is too big to pay when they’re old. Literally and figuratively.
This writing alone makes me really reflect on how I raise my daughter.
Am I on the right track?
Do I bark on the wrong tree?
May Allah make it easy and guide us through all the way.
Amin.
(This is also another 4am post that is finished two hours later and triggered by recent certain circumstances that made me realize I have a lot of biases inside of me. But, I still couldn’t help saying, in my native language, “masa gitu aja ga ngerti sih?” while dealing with this kind of people).
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After publishing the writing, I searched few readings in my library and journal. Found an interesting Journal about the correlation between Psychology Entitlement (PE) and luxury brands consumption and fixed mindset. Whoa!
This post and recent events also made me looking back my old post that said :
Cut half of my income and spend only the other half since I was a first jobber in 18.
Number one and two I followed the example set at home. Home matters. May Allah keeps showering the rewards of all the good teaching from and for my mother . Amiin.
Number three, I didn’t really remember how I started but, having clear goals and three big dreams in my 20s helped me giving clarity and purpose what the money earned for.
I also learn that if you can’t be clear about your own goals, it’s likely to be harder to be clear when it comes to other people.
Doing all the those three since my 20s turned out to be a huge advantage in my 40s. Getting older is unavoidable, but what I just realized getting older comfortably needs more hard work when you’re younger. You’ll get what you pay in your 20s for your 40s. Good things compound, so does bad ones. All the habits done daily and regularly over the years during my 20s suddenly feel easy when I turn 40.
I am often being hard on myself because I know myself too well. I am basically and naturally lazy. But I want to live comfortably. If I keep validating my laziness, it will make life harder for me, so there’s no other way to do the opposite.
This also becomes my stand on raising my daughter. I want my daughter have what I have in this part. Although her life is not mine to live, but I wish her well being, physically and mentally in her adulthood, which means the preparation should start early.
Enjoying my 20s thanks to years of training done since my childhood and teenager years, again credit goes to my mother and for some part, my father.
Now, in my 40s, it isn’t time for relax and easy. It means another preparation should be done for the next two decades. May Allah make it easy, may the mind and heart keep being on the track to live peacefully in this world and hereafter. Amiin.
Last child lives a soft childhood, the prince or princess of the family, especially when they’re different gender from the older siblings. They have more attention and compassion from the surroundings.
Thus, They’re generally entitled. Maybe because they are here when everything is ready. They mostly don’t go through the lower end of the family history.
They’re more close-minded than the other siblings. I think this is related to the entitlement they carry.
They grow to be an adult who thinks it’s all about them and their problem solving skills are mostly one way thinking.
Disclaimer 2 : back to disclaimer 1
While, the first child syndrome, they are the warrior of the family. The second parent to the siblings, one who carries the most burden, expectations, and responsibility. They mostly have ‘rough and hard’ childhood.
In the other hand, they become an adult who is strong, self-reliant, capable, and emotionally more intelligent than other siblings. They’re real life ready since early. They’re mostly the most ‘successful’ in the family, and it’s not only about material things. First child tends to have solutions to every problems.
But, there’s always price to pay. What doesn’t kill you indeed makes you stronger. But, at what cost? The successful fist child seen from the outside paid with the most innerchild wound inside.
Onlies tend to be the combination of last and first child. As a parent of one, balancing between the two has been the homeworks that I have been working on. Raising the little girl with sufficient amount of last child comfortable life for the basics (although what considered basics in her period is way totally different than one in our period). But, in the other side, treat and push her towards the mentality of first child through the daily activities, regular experience, and setting the right expectations.
As a first child, it’s not really hard to train of what I am and have been through. The most difficult part is to understand something that I am not and I didn’t have growing up. Putting some new perspective inside the mind and consider it as nice thing to have too.
Acknowledged that she doesn’t have to go through what I had been going through to become a functional adult. But, not so much too lenient until she became more of dysfunctional last child who can only deal with anything comfortable.
Where’s the middle child syndrome? I don’t really have so much encounters with middle child. But, one thing that I observe from few families with middle child :
Strong parents usually produce the typical first child. While not so strong parents usually raise a strong middle child. Middle child who try to fulfill the absence of traits that are usually own by the first child.
This is aligned with what my psychologist told me. Unconsciously, every child will take some role in the family they’re born into. So, in some scenarios, if the first child doesn’t take the role of the typical, then other child will take that role, in this case the middle child.
Well, this is a personal ranting, not an empirical study. So, feel free to disagree.
New year usually comes with new arrangements. In designing the days spent, it’s not only about plotting clasess/activities in empty schedule.
Choosing a schedule is not only about choosing the time, it’s about choosing priorities and managing the flow and energy from one activity from another.
One of the most rewarding things from this mothering job, it really employs and exercises my lateral thinking skills. Before deciding something, I get to see and consider the things from many angles, not only for her but also many things that has important influence to her. Including and consulting the principal is compulsory, but, as someone who is doing daily operations, I need to operate based on the reality of the situation, but among all, I always stick on the priorities as much as I can.
Learning new things is compulsory, but for the little girl and me. But, at what cost? The class is interesting but, it’s conflicting with prayer time. The class and time are matched, but it is on my fasting day. The class has good advantages, but it is on the day of our regular weekly Quran night. The class fits everything, but, it’s conflicting with my other schedule or vice versa.
In deciding which activities to participate, other than money spent, the more important thing is to consider what we will lose in gaining the knowledge. Opportunity cost is talking here.
Classes and activities may come and go, but certain priorities will always be on the first row. There should be certain things that are non-negotiable. When you know what’s yours, it will give a clear answer to the question. It also makes you easier to say more no than yes.
Based on experiences in few areas of life, when you get your priorities straight, everything else will fall into place.
The month of another year getting older always feels bittersweet.
Over the last few years, I have felt like I have a compounding understanding of many things, especially about myself: why I am who I am, why I do what I do, why things happen the way they do, and more.
I finally found some answers to my question from my 20s. I wrote this particular question constantly in my diary when I was dealing with something emotionally draining for a long period of time. I didn’t have any idea how to have a complete closure and move on because such things kept coming back for more.
Such a question is equally draining since you have to wait to get to the answer—until time tells you.
It’s difficult sometimes to distinguish between “Is this a hard thing I’m supposed to work through?” or “Is it hard because it’s the wrong thing and I need to let go?”.
This is a question that applies to many confusion in my 20s.
Fast forward to 20 years later, here I am, after specific experiences and statistics of results, safely said I found the answer : It’s more about the former than the latter.
The wrong one usually will find its exit way much sooner than later. No matter how much you hold on to them, it will slip away.
While the right one will persist and stay, no matter how hard you try to shoo it away, it always finds its way to return.
Most of the time, everything right is unusually hard and tough. Since such thing is destined to be yours, although you’ll never know how long it will be yours, you have to do the work. You have to overcome whatever hardship until it will be safely arrived on your hand.
This perfectly fits the concept of sustenance in Islam. It says that when your heart desires something, Allah gives it to you for some reason. But, you have to do the work to get it, and trust that you’ll get it in the end. When and how, it’s not yours to decide.
The more beautiful thing about this : there’s no such things as NO as an answer. It will be always a YES, with three different situations :
Yes, exactly like you want and you don’t have to wait long for that.
Yes, but you have to wait for a quiet long time.
Yes, not exactly what you want, but it will be replaced with something much better than what you want.
It takes getting older for me to understand this. I watch to see how my prayers and dreams come true one by one. That’s why I call it a privilege to be getting older.
It also makes me realize another thing :
It’s impossible to keep up with all Allah’s blessings, which have been running at an exponential curve while I am still returning them at my slow walking pace in a simple, irregular (more downs than ups) curve.
In the end, doing your best is the only way to go.
Again, it’s stated in one of the most beautiful verse in Quran :
“Allah does not require of any soul more than what it can afford. All good will be for its own benefit, and all evil will be to its own loss”.
Among the many privileges of getting older that Allah has been lending to me, being a Moslem and being among the true believers (Mu’min), which I hope and keep trying to climb the ladder to be the Muhsin and Muttaqin, is indeed the biggest and the most important privilege that I won’t trade for anything else.
May Allah make it easier for what my heart desires.
A Penny for My Pensieve 