My Blog

It’s no secret that the best thing about a secret is secretly telling someone your secret. Thereby adding another secret to their secret collection… Secretly!

“When you ask for patience, God doesn’t give you patience. He instead gives you an opportunity to be patient.”

-Evan Almighty, God-

Stranded out in the middle of hectic long-weekend-affected Jogja after a not very long conversation to wrap things out, a not very long time to shift someone’s mind across to the opposite side too – for one reason, Easter is celebrated with too many good days – I felt, by all the sudden, compelled to steer away into my favorite Italian franchised café whose real name is less vibrant than its network’s name, Circi. Calling my friends who need to be reminded about the real concept of Jogja’s Finest Day (J-FED) came to the second place as I was thinking of getting strange in the middle of strangers.

J-FED is the better way to call it. It comprises Jogja’s Finest Day which can be mispronounced into Jogja’s Finance Day – my favorite business subject nowadays – while the element of FED itself resembles The Federal Reserve – my day maker and day breaker at the same time. The concept? It’s a little bit of spontaneous thing to lessen the effect of a stressful uncertainty which had swallowed me whole for almost too long that I feel rather chewed. So, it’s no wonder if there’s no kind of short notice to a min… say… a day? It could be as we speak and the next minute I’m in the brown cedar room with black U1 Yamaha upright piano.

This Saturday night is rather a different J-FED from usual. Yes, this isn’t the first J-FED I’ve ever held, only the blog came out this nicely late that there wasn’t much story in the previous events. I came to the café around 20 minutes before the first buddy I called showed up to relieve me. I was thinking to myself this would turn out differently as people started to respond for this more familiar J-FED. Some groups filled the café three hours to midnight and looked very warm and embraced by the ambiance in the café. They started to sing along with the home pianist who recognizes me and was fainting away due to lack of sleep. I covered him up and took the piano seat in comical manner, planned to handle the crowds I had not met before. So the story begins…

It begins with several minutes before I arrived in Circi. Okay.. say.. it’s too private for a blog material but I’ll try to fabricate it. After all, you need a reason why such of spontaneous event could be provoked at the first creation of the idea. Have you ever felt like you know something is not true but you let someone tell you a lie because that’s what she wants you to know? Like pretending to be egghead with a clear thought that being stupid eases things? Feeling tired of something and yet disappointed at how that thing ends? Well, anger, inquisition, and compensation rushed me to Circi after being patient almost seemed like the angelical solution for me.

Circi itself, as I started to feel surrounded by other patrons, seemed like an opportunity to start being patient. I must say – as once been a secular – malt drinks, and sexy dancer and model who offered me her phone number instantly look like how I must compensate with my anger and stop my inquisitive motion once and for all. Voila! What a fine answer! Or.. I can always choose to pass them and be what I said to her under the vow to God, a true man in a true love. Or.. God really wanted to show me the good thing outside my relentless hope that the sea is plenty of fishes. My friends tried to tell me the same thing, God gave me the phone number of that sexy girl without asking. So? Shall I?

You see, the good thing about J-FED is that you don’t need to answer right away. You can go back late after the bar is closed, and watch Evan Baxter talking to God (hanging out, in his script), and write some blog that you’re planning to co-publish with the existing more famous blog address of your friend’s. And the best thing about the whole night in which J-FED is held, you’ll learn a lot (even sometimes not in a good order). Maybe it’s not Genesis 6:14 signs all over the place where my eyes spot, but it’s a great lesson that God does hang out with you.

I still haven’t decided which option I should take up to present. At least what J-FED had done to me is buying me some patience for few hours. Either way, it’s true, you don’t get the answer to your quest as in a result but instead in an opportunity for the result. Happy Easter and see you in the next J-FED!

-Happy Hartono, T.itle.L.E.S.S.-

FAQ

Q: Where and how is Circi?

A: Sing along and stop occupying the bandwidth in Circi’s hotspot that takes people’s attention out of cable broadcast as you find yourself south to Grand Hyatt’s main entrance right after the bridge on the lefthand side if you’re coming from the conical monument of hard raining mayor’s daughter’s wedding.

Q: Is it ‘cheap’?

A: If you sing along then you’d need no quotes around the word cheap, let alone dancing.

*Remarkable thought from a very best friend.

We convince ourselves that life will be better once we are married, have a baby, then another.

Then we get frustrated because our children are not old enough and that all will be well when they are older.

Then we are frustrated because they reach adolescence and we must deal with them. Surely we’ll be happier when they grow out of the teen years.

We tell ourselves our life will be better when our spouse gets his/her act together, when we have a nicer car, when we can take a vacation, when we finally retire.

The truth is that there is no better time to be happy than right now. If not, then when?

Your life will always be full of challenges. It is better to admit as much and to decide to be happy in spite of it all.

For the longest time, it seemed that life was about to start real life.
But there was always some obstacle along the way, an ordeal to get through, some work to be finished, some time to be given, and a bill to be paid. Then life would start.

I finally came to understand that those obstacles were life.

That point of view helped me see that there isn’t any road to happiness.
Happiness IS the road.

So, enjoy every moment.
Stop waiting for school to end, for a return to school, to lose ten pounds, to gain ten pounds, for work to begin, to get married, for Friday evening, for Sunday morning, waiting for a new car, for your mortgage to be paid off, for spring, for summer, for fall, for winter, for the first or the fifteenth of the month, for your song to be played on the radio, to die, to be reborn… before deciding to be happy.

Happiness is a voyage, not a destination.

There is no better time to be happy than… NOW!
Live and enjoy the moment.

-Author unknown-

Now, think and try to answer these questions:
1 – Name the 5 richest people in the world.
2 – Name the last 5 Miss Universe winners.
3 – Name the last 10 Nobel Prize winners.
4 – Name the last 10 winners of the Best Actor Oscar.

Can’t do it? Rather difficult, isn’t it?
Don’t worry, nobody remembers that.

Applause dies away!
Trophies gather dust!
Winners are soon forgotten!

Now answer these questions:
1 – Name 3 teachers who contributed to your education.
2 – Name 3 friends who helped you in your hour of need.
3 – Think of a few people who made you feel special.
4 – Name 5 people that you like to spend time with.

More manageable? It’s easier, isn’t it?
The people who mean something to your life are not rated “the best”, don’t have the most money, haven’t won the greatest prizes…
They are the ones who care about you, take care of you, those who, no matter what, stay close by.

Think about it for a moment.
Life is very short!
And you, in which list are you? Don’t know?

Let me give you a hand.
You are not among the most “famous”, but among those to whom I remember to send this message…

Some time ago, at the Seattle Olympics, nine athletes, all mentally or physically challenged, were standing on the start line for the 100 m race.
The gun fired and the race began. Not everyone was running, but everyone wanted to participate and win. 

They ran in threes, a boy tripped and fell, did a few somersaults and started crying.
The other eight heard him crying.
They slowed down and looked behind them.
They stopped and came back… All of them…

A girl with Down’s Syndrome sat down next to him, hugged him and asked, “Feeling better now?” Then, all nine walked shoulder to shoulder to the finish line.

The whole crowd stood up and applauded. And the applause lasted a very long time…

People who witnessed this still talk about it. Why?

Because deep down inside us, we all know that the most important thing in life is much more than winning for ourselves.

The most important thing in this life is to help others to win. Even if that means slowing down and changing our own race.

If you send this email, perhaps we will succeed in changing our heart, perhaps someone else’s heart, as well…

A candle loses nothing if it is used to light another one.”

So, what have you decided? Trash this or send it?

I decided to engrave it down here.

Very possibly God’s love is even greater for us at the point where we do fail to follow God’s Word and way.

God’s love for me, for each and all of us, is not based on my or our performance, but on the revealed nature of the heart of God.

Another way of saying this is in a one-liner I often use: "God Does not love me because I am good, but because God is Good"

God help me when I am in the midst of depression

When I am in the middle of severe clinical depression, it is difficult, even impossible, to experience God’s reality, let alone God’s help. At least, that is the way it has been for me.

But, at the same time, I have found myself in the middle of depression crying out for mercy with some of the most earnest prayers I have ever prayed.

Only later, in the light of day, am I able to understand that God walked with me in that darkness even though I could not feel God’s presence at the time

Over you
I guess I never will be over you
I have tried but it’s so hard to do
I’m surrounded by the memories
No, I never will be over you
Time goes by and I’m still holding on
Waiting for the day when you come home
If you ever change your mind again
I will greet you like a long lost friend
In my heart we’ve never reached the end
And I never will be over you
I will love you ‘til the end of time
Even though I know that you’re not mine
Just as long as there’s a chance that I
Guess I never will be over you
Life’s like walking down a lonely street
I see you in everyone I meet
How I long to see your smiling face
Oh, my love for you I can’t erase
No one else could ever take your place
And I never will be over you
Over you