Failures can be fun

A while ago I kept posting things like these on my Facebook wall:

[Achievement Unlocked] Biking in the rain.

[Achievement Unlocked] Biked from Bornsesteeg to Ede (7.4 km) with a medium-sized rice cooker and textbooks. 

[Achievement Unlocked] Let go of your left/right hand off the bike handle for 15 seconds while riding the bike without losing balance.

Some of my friends told me that these posts make my learning-how-to-bike days something you'd see on your smartphone games. It's not entirely wrong. Compare this:

"Today was really shitty because it rained and I had to bike 7.4 km from home to school :("

to

"[Achievement Unlocked] Biking in the rain"

Both of them tell you the same event, but from different angles. You can make your days feel rough, but you can also make your day seem better because you achieved something new. I actually look forward to improving myself because I can post new things like "biking while texting on my phone" or something like that.

Earlier today someone asked me how long did it take for me to learn how to bike, and I said 2 hours. And she was amazed. But what happened within those two hours was:

I fell every 5 seconds I was on the bike, stood up, brought my bike up on the slope, went down the slope, fell, stood up again, and repeated everything until I got the hang of it. I stepped over a pile of dog poo. I broke my bike's bell. Nasty bugs stung my arms. I was drenched in sweat and I smelled like fermented shit. My legs were severely bruised (my mom couldn't stop worrying after seeing a palm-sized bruise on my leg).

That sounded like a complain. Truth to be told, it was not the most pleasant experience ever, but I can make a good story out of it. I got a lot of mixed reaction from people:

"That's cool! You finally managed to ride a bike!"
"What? You only learned how to bike at this age?"
"Well,  there's an easier way to learn this."
"Congratulations, you made it!"

and a conversation started. It's fun to talk about it, and every time I remember those two hellish hour, I become increasingly motivated to challenge more absurd things that I have to face.

Something that doesn't kill you makes you stronger, as people say :)

When you face failure, I'm sure you feel terrible (or at the very least, you are not too happy about it). But once you get over a failure, and if you positively think about it in future, it can turn into something fun. This is what I tell myself over and over again, and this is why I can keep smiling in times of adversities.

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Something to contemplate about

Within this one week, I had a lot of things to ponder.

Actually I had been thinking about this idea since about 2-3 years ago. One branded bag (LV, for example) can save a lot of people living in poverty. It was amazing to see how wealthy people can be blind about such crisis going on in this world, wasting so much on unnecessary things for the sake of pride.

The pride in which they are not supposed to be proud of. What I'm talking about is when kids spend their parents' money when they're not earning a single cent.

It's not that I have a particular grudge against rich, pampered people, nor I am jealous of their capability to use money to control people. As a matter of fact, I could be capable of turning myself into a lazy-assed princess who can only lift my fingers to get things done. But if I do that, I feel that I'm throwing my self dignity away. The time when I don't know how to wash dishes, that's when I die.

When I think like this, I think I'm just not suited to become a millionaire. I fear the thought that someday I might lose my heart just because I have enough money to buy power and control over the others.

Not all rich people are heartless. But what amazes me is that how they can turn utterly ridiculous.

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Forgotten Dream

At time passes, I left behind my dreams that used to be one of my biggest prides in my life.

I had forgotten how it feels to be above the clouds. My self-imposed modesty keeps me low for quite some time. No matter how I look at it, I always feel that there are always people who are far beyond me in terms of natural capability to excel.

To me who doesn't really like comparing myself to others, gauging the standard is a difficult thing to do. The biggest reason why I keep saying "I don't know" when people ask me about my friends' grades is because I hate to ask what their grades are. Knowing that I have done my best matters to me more than being above the others.

But does my opinion matter when the majority of the world thinks that people should be judged by comparison?

In any case, one that I thought of dearly reminded me once again of my forgotten dream. I was once again reminded for the reason of choosing the current path that I am taking right now, and once again my self confidence builds up. I know I can do it.

I have people who believe in me.

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Prove Myself

Yesterday I asked my roommate to help me think of my ESL final paper topic, since it was left to be an open topic. She started suggesting a lot of stuffs, but I bet such topics are somehow unsuitable to the "taste" of ESL - it has to be an academic paper.

Well, there was a really interesting topic about proving my existence. She was talking about Descrates and his famous "I think, therefore I am".

I tried to read his philosophical ideas online, and guess what? I'm fumbled up! I don't understand a single thing he talked about! And I told this to my roommate. She then replied that I should come up with my own points.

I thought about it again, and it seems so impossible for me. At least, I probably need more than one year to complete a paragraph about it. The deadline for the outline is this Saturday, and coming up with an essay outline about proving my existence is just impossible.

But as a side dish, I guess it won't hurt if I start thinking about it. I mean, I want to know how I can prove that I exist.

I can't imagine if we are really living inside The Matrix. And someday perhaps I would wake up, finding myself being put into a deep sleep inside a machine, and I would discover that everything that happened was just an illusion or a dream.

Just like how sometimes a cut on your skin is not painful till the time you look at the wound, it is possible that the laptop keyboard that I'm typing on is just a hallucination. What if in reality, what I'm doing is just moving my fingers in the air? What if all the letters that appeared on the screen as I typed this blog is just my mind's play?

Scary, huh? That would make me schizophrenic.

Let's see if I can prove that I exist within the next couple of months. Not by mathematical method, though. Hahaha :P

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