MEASURE OF SUCCESS

(Graduate from university set the standard for success?)

Are you the kind of person that feel like you have gone so far but actually you have been nowhere? Have you ever felt like your live is just a series of failure? Have you ever felt like you have never achieved something or maybe something that really matters in your life? Or maybe you are the kind of person who moderately thinks that “okay, I have achieved something but it seems nothing compare to what my peers have achieved”? If you are one of them, hold still because I’m about to ask you one important thing, what is success to you?

People often give themselves a hard time thinking that they have done nothing and they need to do more, they need to achieve more. Now, on the one hand this is the kind of achievement motivation necessary to force us to reach the sky. However, this way of thinking can also turn us to be one of those people that never do anything to save our life from this so-called misery. We continue to punish ourselves without even thinking of giving our hard working body and mind a little credit and end up realizing that we are running out of energy to actually do some improvement because we are too busy blaming ourselves. Now, we do not want to be one of those sad people right? How to save ourselves from such situation? Let’s examine some common misunderstandings in the way people measure success.

1. Success is when we achieve what our peers achieved in a certain period of time
This common misunderstanding mostly comes from childhood experience when our parents compare our achievements in school with the achievements of our siblings, our neighbors, or our friends. We are not appreciated with what we achieve but we are measured with what others have. It is good if we are coming first in class not because we have worked hard but because it means that our next door neighbor who went to the same school went second.
We bring this memory to our adulthood and it makes us feel bad if our peers achieve more than us. We never learn to appreciate our talent or our dream. If our friend work as a manager in a company it can make us feel less successful if so far we only publish one book for instance. I mean, how we could compare our friend who works as an accountant to us who work as a writer, for instance. It is totally different right?

2. Success equals wealth
Most people measure success with how much money people have at a certain period of time. It is a serious misunderstanding that will unconsciously force people to do whatever it takes to be rich or at least to look rich. It will make people live in denial.
We know that wealth is not everything. Successful career mostly brings financial success too, but it is not automatically make success equals wealth. Success can also cover successful personal relationship, successful marriage relationship, or great academic achievement. Why don’t we measure our success not with the amount of money that we have but with the number of smile we put on people’s face? I believe this changing way of thinking will solve many problems in this world. Just do it and see what happens, said Mario Teguh, a famous motivator in Indonesia.

3. Success at young age is better than success when we are older
Success is success, no matter how old you are when you achieve it. We often give too much credit on people who achieve success in such a young age, as if success achieved by older people is something natural because they are old. Credit, praise, and appreciation are of course highly important to increase people’s self esteem and raise their motivation. So, why don’t we think that compliment for older people is equally important with compliment addressed to younger people. This way of thinking will help us appreciate other people more and reduce the risk for us to blame ourselves for not achieving a certain stage of success when we are younger.

The following question for us will be what should we do to overcome this misunderstanding that has been keeping on hostage? We should realize that first, some people achieve something with short walk and others achieve something with long run. This does not mean that one group of people are better, smarter, or luckier than the other group. This just means that we have different road in achieving what we want to achieve. People that do it in a relatively short time might enjoy success faster, however, they might lack of failure experiences, an experience important to teach us to stand tall through all the pain and strive. People that go a long way might be rich in experience but they might lack in time and opportunity to reach more because of their age or other factors. Either way, as long as it does not make us stop working, hoping, and achieving it will not cause any problem because in the end, long way of short way, we will get there anyway. We just need to believe and keep moving and do not forget to give ourselves credit for any success or failure along the way.

Second, we also have to realize that the measure of success is not a matter of when, or where, or how much we achieve but on whether or not we make a commitment to make tomorrow better than today. Eventually, we have to think in terms of progress rather than result. Great achievement will not matter if it is not followed with continuous work and more achievements in the future. It is great if one person can make a worldwide hit song in a certain period of his/her life but it is greater if they can continue create hits and non hits throughout their lifetime because it means they are progressing, they are learning, and keep moving. ***
Sakdiyah Ma’ruf, 19 Desember 2009

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Breakaway

Banyak kesempatan lewat hanya karena keraguan.

Berada di zona nyaman karier memang menyenangkan. Kita hidup dalam stabilitas. Dalam masa krisis, siapa yang tidak merindukan stabilitas, kan?

Stabilitas karier dan penghasilan biasanya datang bersamaan dengan stabilitas keahlian. Kita menjadi sangat tahu dan sangat bisa mengerjakan apa yang kita kerjakan saat ini. Makin stabil karier kita, makin kita merasa bahwa kita memang baik di bidang yang saat ini kita tekuni. Kalau begini, siapa yang butuh lompatan? Lompatan membutuhkan tenaga ekstra, kerja keras, dan semangat belajar yang tinggi. Kita tentu menyadari bahwa lompatan karier akan meningkatkan penghasilan, menambah pengalaman, dan yang utama meningkatkan rasa harga diri dan kepuasan batin. Tapi bisakah kita melakukan lompatan itu?

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KEBERUNTUNGAN PEMULA DAN JALAN PANJANG TAKDIR

Hari ini aku merasa mimpiku tidak lagi jauh. Mimpiku kini mendekat dan mampu kuraih. Hari ini aku mencicipi keberuntungan pemulaku. Tulisanku, Bahagia Sekarang Juga, dimuat di majalah CHIC edisi No. 32, 11-25 Maret 2009.

Aku membaca The Alchemist, novel masterpiece karya Paulo Coelho saat aku sedang jatuh. Kalimat-kalimat dalam buku itu sangat jernih terbaca dan membantuku bangkit. Dari buku itu aku mempelajari apa yang banyak dikutip orang pada berbagai kesempatan: ” Dan saat engkau menginginkan sesuatu, seluruh jagat raya bersatu padu untuk membantumu meraihnya.” Bagaimana jagat raya membantu kita meraih takdir kita? Pada halaman selanjutnya Cuelho menulis, ”Orang yang pertama kali main kartu hampir selalu menang. Keberuntungan pemula. Kenapa begitu? Sebab ada daya yang menghendaki engkau mewujudkan takdirmu; kau dibiarkan mencicipi sukses, untuk menambah semangatmu.”

Hari ini aku mencicipi keberuntungan pemulaku…..

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Rindu Menulis 1

Kalau tulisan ini selesai dan layak dipublikasikan di blog maka tulisan ini adalah tulisan pertama saya setelah hampir 2 bulan tidak menulis. Sudah lama saya membayangkan saat ini. Saya rindu menulis.

Menulis ternyata tidak mudah seperti dikatakan beberapa buku tentang menulis. Buku-buku tersebut menggoda penulis angin-anginan sepertiku ini dengan judul-judul seperti; menulis itu gampang, menulis cerpen itu mudah, cara mudah menulis novel, atau cara mudah menjadi penulis skenario terkenal. Lalu bertanyalah saya, segampang itukah menulis novel? Kalau sebegitu gampangnya, kenapa Virginia Wolf atau Ernest Hemingway memilih bunuh diri ketika mereka sudah merasa tidak mampu lagi menghasilkan karya yang lebih indah dari karya mereka terdahulu?

Itulah masalah saya dan mungkin kalian juga, menulis tidak mungkin gampang. Tidak mungkin. Mana mungkin membuat karya seindah The Old Man and The Sea disebut gampang? Well, gampang buat otak Hemingway tapi tidak untuk otak Sakdiyah. Apakah ini yang membuat saya berhenti atau paling tidak malas menulis? Apakah kita akan berhenti begitu saja hanya dengan alasan kita bukan Hemingway atau Gunawan Muhamad? Jelas kita bukan mereka dan tidak akan jadi mereka kalau kita masih jadi penulis angin-anginan. Penulis yang hanya berangan menjadi besar tanpa sungguh-sungguh berusaha. Bagaimana caranya agar kita bergairah menulis? Sebelum bicara obat, tentu kita harus bicara penyakitnya dulu.
Mengapa menulis begitu sulit?

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I FIND MY ANSWER IN FDR’S SPEECH

These past few weeks I have been struggling to overcome the so-called crisis in my personal life. I have been dealing with a major change in my life this past three months and it turns out that as much as change is necessary and promising, it is also challenging. It has been giving a hard time and driving me to my conscious of my personal existence in this world.

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