Meaningless Toil

Toil is a long hard labor. And this worldly life is only a big toil towards our eternal life, as stated in my religion. And to be able to inhabit Heaven, we have to make our life meaningful — sorry if I’m preaching to the choir.

But one of the things I hate in this life is that it can take only one particular action to render a toil meaningless. For instance, failing to formulate a comprehensive bachelor’s thesis means you’re wasting your 4 years of life at college. Or when someone’s so consumed at work, maybe one failure or depression can lead to suicide, which literally leaving everything you’ve worked so hard for meaningless.

I’m trying not to sound complaining. It’s just that how can only one action can determine someone’s destiny. They say that good intention and hard work lead to culmination of a beautiful results. But I think that sometime, one’s toil can be destroyed with only just one small event. And that is terrifying.

Ordinary Life

Ordinary life sounds boring. Plain and repetitive, even maybe tedious. So many people have said that life is full of beautiful things to be seen, great places to be explored. They say you can enrich your knowledge and experience by living out of ordinary.

But not me.

Ordinary life may seem lifeless, but it somehow is appealing. You don’t have to keep exploring; you already have your own rhythm of life — wake up, go to work, improve, rest, and repeat. You don’t have to risk losing anything; ordinary life is already fine as it seems.

Changing Toward Obscurity

I used to like rain a lot, back when I was in high school. At home, I could shower myself under the rain and enjoy the cold and soothing sensation of rainfalls. It gives me the nostalgic feeling —like all of my past memories are fused into one. But right now, it makes me rather, let’s say incensed.

Last year, almost every day in Bandung was raining. Although I like rainfall, but I think this is abnormal and unusual. It is a common knowledge that Indonesia has 2 seasons and 2 seasons only, wet and dry season. The absence of dry season is making me terrified.

Acceptance of Choice

This is a picture of the arguably one of the most famous college in Indonesia, if it still is. This college is surprisingly small, compared to college like Universitas Indonesia or Universitas Gadjah Mada. But, the circumstances that led me here was rather complicated.

I was accepted for a 4-year scholarship at Universitas Telkom because I was ranked at the third place when they held some kind of acceptance test. I have to admit, it was out of luck and though my parents were so proud of me, I felt hollow. It was —sorry if I’m being too cocky — too easy.

Minimal Effort, Maximum Result

One of the things I constantly hate about the world is the fact that some people work way harder and longer than certain people, yet it’s painful to know that for the rest of their life, they won’t make even 1% of the money that the 10 richest man in the world make in the average 1 hour.

I think they somehow achieve a divine state of what the title said, “Minimal Effort, Maximum Result“. I do realize that they also have substantial effort in changing the world and reaching the states that they’re in now, but it seems that they now can live in peace knowing that they can live without working for at least a year, unlike most people.

What if I Do Not Want to be Labeled?

Recently, I am thinking. Some of us human tend to label — categorize, judge, you name it — other people based on what we’re thinking about them. And unfortunately, no matter how much they’ve changed, or at least tried to, we still decline to accept that they have actually improved their behavior.

And this is what bugs me right now. And this has gone for my entire life — my parents labeled me according to the circumstance applied at the moment. Mostly, they compared me to both of my older sisters and they labeled me lazy or stupid because my GPA is currently way below them all.

Conquer Caffeine Addiction

Picture above is taken from Business Insider is thorough enough. A no-brainer conclusion that can be deducted from above is simply that caffeine brings harm more than good. I was certain that I won’t be addicted to caffeine for the rest of my life. Believe me, I was very naive.

I didn’t think that college life would give me much burden. Yeah, maybe some assignments to do and difficult tests, but nothing I couldn’t handle. In fact, I am addicted to it — or let’s say dependent, if you wish.

Controversy over New Public Riding Policy

I want to keep this short and sweet, so I’ll just elaborate the new public riding controversy in Indonesia.

Some of our public ride drivers — we call it Angkot — held several protests towards our government demanding justice be delivered toward the so-called sharing economy companies, like Uber and Grab as depicted from the picture above.

I didn’t follow the news frequently, but from what I gathered, those protesters wanted those companies to have a system like they do — I’ll explain below.

And guess what, they got it. And more.

I Need a Stroke of Luck

This implies that I expect not to get what I want. But rather, what I need right now. For a college student, that could be anything — great grades, good money, vacant hours. But right now, I need a place for internship.

Massive Universe

The universe is massive.

That’s what I’m thinking until now. Universe is ridiculously massive. There are many galaxies out there; even the galaxy where we are today — Milky Way — mostly still unexplored.

I found out about the universe for the first time when I was in elementary school, particularly in Religion class. You know it — teachers preaching about the divinity of God. One things lead to another, that teacher explained that universe was one of the God’s best creation. Because it is.