Fabulously in Love

This is Christmas and all we need to do is giving love. In Christianity history, Christ came to the world as a perfect example how Father gave the most precious He has; His Son. Christ died, sacrificed Himself for the people salvation. It ain’t simple. Love is the biggest tagline for every Christmas time. It’s not about the religion; it’s all about love.

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Dalai Lama

This year, I have been spending much of my time on the road; shaking soul with some greatest friends (you know who you are). The last time I traveled was for business; Bangkok with P&Gers. Right when I was feeling so excited in the city of Angels, I felt bad that I didn’t come home for quite long time. That’s why I decided to spend time on this Christmas just at home. Home is good, as well as being on the road. I feel being loved in this family, regardless fighting and loud voices I hear everyday.

I hope you guys have blasted days too in this Christmas. I hope you guys being in love. Keep practicing gratitude; it’s the best thing in life to be grateful everyday, even if it’s about all simplest things.

Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', ("This is my message to you-ou-ou:")

Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
"Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

- Bob Marley

Keep being happy, no matter what. Don’t worry too much about you and life; life’s good. Be fabulous and confident; you can conquer the world. Keep telling the person in the mirror, “You’re beautiful!”, even if you need to stand on your toe because you’re too short.

“Walk like you’re hot; shake soul like no more days to live; broadcast
yourself to the world like you have your own radio station.”

Merry Christmas everyone!

Be in love.

A River Moving in You; A Joy

What I like from living attitude of gratitude is that it’s not a complicated rocket science. It’s for everyone to apply everyday to have great life.

Most of the time we can’t live gratefully just because too many distractions in our day! It’s not that we can’t do it; it’s an easy thing to do, it’s more on if we can come out from the distractions, structure our mind and be grateful everyday.

I got some simple things I have been doing lately that help me to live gratefully. That leads to living happily. It’s still not perfect, still many days of being pushed down to the ground because of unfavorable things; at least I try to.

1. Go vacation and shake soul. Vacation is the perfect example on how doing nothing, go slowly and breathe the life. When we’re on vacation, we expect nothing while the whole universe offers everything abundantly; air to breathe, water to drink, wave to ride on, laughter to enjoy and stars to admire. Our soul is shaken like our butt shaken being in the club, dancing.

“There is life beyond deadlines and excel spreadsheet templates”


I am grateful to have surfed Cimaja wave with beloved companions; Boxu, Betty, Wi Wie, Jhon, Mariza, Santi and all the local surfers. Not only had they brought so much joy; they are acute laid-back that I didn’t need to think a lot to make everyone feeling comfortable in a lazy days in Cimaja.

2. Having pets. Having pets can be the source of happiness. When we find unfavorable things in a day, seeing funny faces of our pets can change the whole day! Seriously. I have hamsters named Gratti and Gratte; a perfectly expression of being grateful in life and a reminder to stay on top of things to be thankful for what I have in life. Gratti and Gratte came from ‘grateful’. Though they’re bugging me, screaming at me when there’s no food to eat; I am still grateful to have them in the room. When I’m awake, they’re sleeping; when I’m sleeping in the middle of the night, they’re awake and making noises. It’s a laughter that they’re making after all; how can I kick their ass out from my room?

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy” Rumi


3. Work less. I’m a big fan of procrastination. Human tends to do nothing; it is our economy-based life pushing us to work. At the beginning of the life, people didn’t work. They received anything from the universe. Just because they did something wrong; they needed to work. If I can, I prefer not to work. But most of the time, for most of people, we need to work hard. If we can’t be super-rich people who don’t maybe need to work; work less by simplifying our work processes.

4. Sing a lot, shake butt a lot. Music (and being in the situation that we need to dance) is one of the best ways to relieve our soul. Sing-a-long with friends, sing alone in the room, or playing music in the middle of the night can be the source of your joy.

“The art of living is more like dancing than wrestling”

Happy shaking soul!

F-U-N-ny Days

I have been walking thru my days with my lazy ass every morning, hoping that these busy days will pass easily. WTF, rather than having easy days, I have been feeling that I am not on top of worries and bad feelings everyday. Woman on top did it better than I do.


Even if it’s only about doing the easiest task. I guess it’s because I feel deadlines killed me away. One quote from Paulo Coelho is so kicking-ass, “There is life beyond deadlines and excel template spreadsheets.”

I keep telling myself that even when I am at the busiest days in my life; I still need to have fun. I still need to celebrate life by enjoying simplest things in life – starring at hamsters making love, joining friends talking about 2012 and maybe, enjoying video made by one of the couchsurfers dancing like Rihanna to win her heart to (finally) come to Jakarta. Even tweets, tweeting and re-tweet from friends about #tebakfilmtranslate and #tebakbandtranslate can be fun too (do you know that there’s international singer which in Indonesian is ‘wanita Sardin’, but in English it becomes ‘Lady Gaga’? Or, a movie with Indonesian translation of “Gila, dalem banget masuknya!” which turns out to be “Deep Impact”).

So, by having a feeling and being pessimistic about the start of the day, we can ruin the days by our self. We don’t even need friends complaining about raining days, traffic jam, or failure to get 2012 movie tickets, just to ruin our days. We can just ruin the days at the blink of an eye in the morning when we wake up.

So, you and I just need to tell to ourselves, “Just relax, I won’t worry my life!” I need you to say it to remind me how good the life is.

Meanwhile, enjoy this clip and it’s good to see how one’s energy transformed into a big fun party! Maybe the fun you enjoy today will be resonated into greater fun for 7 generations to come?

Life is Good: "Go Easy With Yourself", "Off from Technology" and "Being Mindful"

There are many books telling us how to be happy. They push us to say, 'life is good' while it doesn't seem easy to say so. We say 'life is a bitch' instead.

In this post, I don't want to say that these principles are the best for living a good life. I find it is a very personal thing to walk on our own way and find the perfect rhythm that suits us the best. Sometimes it's annoying when people tell you to do this and that.

What I have been learning on how to have good life.
1. Keep it simple and quick.
2. Reduce options.
3. Stop over-reacting and live gratefully.
4. Eliminate the drain people.
5. Don't be to hard to yourself.
6. Off from technology.
7. Being mindful and live in present.

This is the last post; on how to treat ourself as a king in our own, nurturing and treating ourself fairly.

5. Go easy with yourself. Sometimes we push our self too hard on things. We think being 30 is hard age. We think our job is not cool. We think we're not at the right crowd of people. We think we're ugly. We think we're less in everything.

Don't push our self too much, really. We're just different in our way. When we start thinking negative about things, about our self even worse, people can see it. Worry is the story we tell our self to avoid us moving forward. So, enjoy your life no matter what!

picture taken by Andri Prihutomo; a friend, photographer, traveler and devoted life enjoyer

6. Off from technology.

I bought this idea of living in solitude 6 months ago. The rationale is really simple, paradox of technology: instead of making life simpler, it adds complexity. It increases number of interaction with everything in life. Having said that life is abundant with unlimited components inside it, the complexity increases exponentially.

Blackberry, laptop, messenger, facebook, twitter, any social networking site. The key is you know when to stop, when your body and mind really need to live in solitude.

If being off from technology is too extreme for you because you really need it, there are many things you can do: put appear-off-line/unavailable status in your messenger, stop notification email of your networking site, use filter for your email account, leave irrelevant groups in your email account.

7. Being mindful and live in present.

Doing one thing at a time. Multitasking may be good way to do things, but it's not the best one. I believe that the best thought is the result of being mindful in one thing. The power of less. Doing less is fulfilling because it makes us feel relaxed and we have confidence to finish things.

picture taken by Faisal Reza; a friend, photographer, traveler and a fulltime-proscatinator

Doing thing slowly. Doing things slowly will bring out the best solution, as a result of being thoughtful, for all involved - our self, business partner, family. Vacation! No best moment to enjoy life and practicing mindful life but vacation. We can move slowly without any pressure. We eat slowly. We walk slowly. No deadline. We don't push our self to hard. There is life beyond deadlines and excel spreadsheet templates.

Life is Good: "Live Gratefully" and "Eliminate Drain People"

There are many books telling us how to be happy. They push us to say, 'life is good' while it doesn't seem easy to say so. We say 'life is a bitch' instead.

In this post, I don't want to say that these principles are the best for living a good life. I find it is a very personal thing to walk on our own way and find the perfect rhythm that suits us the best. Sometimes it's annoying when people tell you to do this and that.

What I have been learning on how to have good life.
1. Keep it simple and quick.
2. Reduce options.
3. Stop over-reacting and live gratefully.
4. Eliminate the drain people.
5. Don't be to hard to yourself.
6. Off from technology.
7. Being mindful and live in present.

This post is about on how to deal with mental fight and how to handle people who drag us down. On the last post, on now to treat ourself as a king in our own, nurturing and treating ourself fairly.

3. Stop over-reacting and live gratefully. I find that complaining whores are the best actors and actresses on the stage of good life! Some people keep complaining about things, even when the air-cond is just a little bit hotter than usual. It's good to complain, because we know things don't meet our expectation. Things are just not okay. But if that's too much, that's impacting us, our mood and happiness. Fact of life: billions of reasons everyday to complain if we want to: traffic jam, waiting time, air pollution, raining, your best friend having lunch with others, your ex forgets you, your shoes are too tight, many more. You name it and it can be a complaint, at the same blink of an eye.

Why would complain on simplest things when we have great life, great family, great food to eat everyday, air to breathe, one more day to live? For me, key is focusing on big great things to eliminate small unfavorable things.

Live gratefully, whores! Life is just as simple as shaking butt.


4. Eliminate the drain people. This is hard and not easy, but if we do, we eliminate heavy weight. We think relationship and friendship in general are given, so we try to hard, in a nice way, to keep them up even when we find that those relationships have been dragging down us too much. Some relationships cannot be eliminated, while some others are to-do-list. Some say it's anti-social, but it's not.

Complainers, victims, needy, angry, drama queen are the best ones to complete your days with bad mood. We can help them; I always do try keeping them up, keep the interaction with them, talk to them and entertain them. But spending the whole day with those kinds of people is not a good idea, unless we're a super-positive person. My humannes always says I can't handle spending hours with drain people, even when I try so hard to be positive.

My best way to keep myself up dealing with these people are knowing when to stop, instead of removing them from life. Spend time less with them. Manage expectation with them. Communication is the key, as well, so they will understand why they should not drag down everyone, including us.

Life is Good: "Keep it Simple" and "Reduce Options"

There are many books telling us how to be happy. They push us to say, 'life is good' while it doesn't seem easy to say so. We say 'life is a bitch' instead.

In this post, I don't want to say that these principles are the best for living a good life. I find it is a very personal thing to walk on our own way and find the perfect rhythm that suits us the best. Sometimes it's annoying when people tell you to do this and that.

What I have been learning on how to have good life.
1. Keep it simple and quick.
2. Reduce options.
3. Stop over-reacting and live gratefully.
4. Eliminate the drain people.
5. Don't be to hard to yourself.
6. Off from technology.
7. Being mindful and live in present.

In this post, it's all about simplicity, the first two. On the second post, on how to deal with mental fight and how to handle people who drag us down. On the last post, on now to treat ourself as a king in our own, nurturing and treating ourself fairly.


1. Keep it simple and quick. I don't want to say this, but it's true. We tend to complicate things, particularly me. Along the way, I find happiness lies in the simplest things in life.

We automatically add non-added value things into our daily lives and work. We want to look cool because we can think in a complicated way. We think it is smart. If we want to go from one point to another, just take a straight line. That's the simplest. Life and everything is this world is abundant with unlimited options, so it is really impossible to consider all things.

2. Reduce options. Having said that this universe is abundant, we can't take all options. We have options everyday and sometimes we over-commit to take all options just because we're afraid of loosing opportunity. We are afraid of saying no. No is just a no, why complicates a simple no? It just is. Too many options will kill us.

I have been trying lately to say no easily when I don't want to. I have been living for years being so over-considerate, but it kills me. My best learning on taking decision (it can be a yes, as well) is that I spent to much time to ponder the decision. Too many what-ifs.

Don't know what movie to watch? Pick the first one that attracts you. Don't know what dress to use? Choose the ugliest one - what a heck. If you're okay with that. But if you don't, pick randomly. Don't like your job? Quit.

Enjoy Life at 30!

For those who have been feeling too old to enjoy life, regardless how old you are, do enjoy life!

Some people really think that being above 30 is hard age! Going to the clubbing for us is 'not for me' statement now, because we think that the place is just full of fucking playful teenagers. We think we are not into it. In our daily life, we worry about what people think about our wrinkles, our hair loss, our big belly, our white hair, our loosing interest of things and many more. You name it.

Worry is the story we tell to our self. We over-reacted it as a drama just to express how bad our life is. The other times we use it to get sympathy. And many times we do it just because we can't control our mind; we unconsciously say that shit over and over again, as a result of years of habit.

And our economy-based life makes it worse. Is my job cool boring? Do I look good feel tortured in a party? Do I take the cool fucking boring subject in university just like my parents and others want me to take? Do I use the wardrobe normally so people can accept my normal yet common boring look? Do I have a sexy butt just like my favorite porn star has?

Life is empty and meaningless. If no one lives, it's empty. If billions of humans live in this world without effort to make it meaningful, it's still empty. It's us who put meaning in life- otherwise it's still empty and meaningless. And having meaningful life is nothing to do with our years of life. Instead of seeing our self as 30 years old doing nothing, just try to see us having 50 years afterward with endless, countless possibility for our self.

Nothing is wrong in this world unless you tell yourself it is wrong. So, enjoy your life at 30. Tell everyone that it is awesome hard age, playful boring and let's see how life changes afterward.

For woman with wrinkle, we love the maturity wrinkle you bring to life!

Happiness in Your Work

A man comes toward to two people working for a skyscraper and they are building the foundation of it. He asks, "What are you doing?"

The first one sarcastically says, "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm just moving the material over and over everyday. Boring"

The second one enthusiastically says, "I'm doing the most important thing of building a skyscraper and saving many lives in the future."

So, many people complaining about work and rather than focusing on contribution they are giving to bosses or company, they are focusing on small bad things. There are billions of reasons that we can come up with about the things we don't like about our job. To be fair, there are exactly the same billions of reasons we can come up with about things we're excited with our job. It's just about perception.

So, if you don't like your job, just quit - that's the best. Otherwise, find those billions of exciting things in your job: boss shaking butt or sexy co-worker whose eyes always try to seduce you.

Live high!

Vietnam & Cambodia Journal Sept 09

Getting notification from AirAsia about new route to Saigon was just like a blast in my heart, so it beat so fast I couldn't believe that in just 15 minutes I got email in my inbox, "You should go to Saigon on Sept the 18th!" The quickest decision of travel plan I ever made.

A month before departing to Saigon was one of the confusing time in my life. Being stagnant in my mind, I was struggling with what I really wanted in life. Taking risk was as hard as standing myself on my surfing board, really couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. While I realized it happened many times in my life, it was one of the worst. I sluggishly lived my days. Everytime I woke up a day after a sleep, I would have expected I had something new in the morning.

And booking the ticket in a blink of an eye was just an unplanned decision I made. Looking back to 9 days I had in Vietnam and Cambodia, I felt relieved. I believe there was always light and joyous celebration at the end of the tunnel. Always.

Being traveled 1500 miles away from home, I forgot how unplanned the travel plan was. But it was just like any other traveler who could always find their ways back home. It's been 27 years living life, I still found it was great to have got the lesson of the roadtrip dad had taught me before, 18 years back on the tiring road from Palembang to Jakarta. Before departing to Saigon, my heart was always being joyful from the first time getting message from Natasha which led my feet into the whopping big boat party with completely more than 60 strangers. Being drunk was just the small part on the opera of celebrating life.

The smile of sweet couple, Alex and Anju, was delightful, even much better than being drunk itself. It was just damn good to meet someone when I felt like a stranger in the city. They are just brother and sister I met, 1000 years ago in previous life. Smiles in Saigon would never be enough without them as well: Adam and Steve, Austin, Kat and other 60 people I met there!

Being far from home, it was always awesome to meet Indonesian, Bill and Yani, that I could talk without being stupid pronouncing English. I was so lucky having difficulty filling my arrival card that I had chance to start conversation with them. Again, from completely strangers to friends that I would always be comfortable to spend the time with.

Packing anything in just 10 minutes and sleeping just 1 hour after boat party to take another journey afterward were just easy to do - faith that in just one hour my eyes would see another beauty in life. I did. Faith that there would always be place to sleep, just like what in Saigon, where Viet graciously offered place to stay in his nice apartment. I did hope to have missed my day tour to Mekong Delta, expecting I still had more days to enjoy Saigon and meet nicest people in there. But I needed to let go.

I joked myself to walk alone in the middle of the night in Phnom Penh and it was the silliest joke the universe ever heard, I guess. THAT laughed so hard. It was just a coincidence that I could walk without being robbed in the downtown of the city. I wasted no time in the city to see how genocide could do that such a worst thing in life, killing hundreds of thousands people without appreciating how joyful a life should be for everyone. How meaningful the time killed people might have spent with loved ones. How precious for a mother to spend the day with her one-month baby, even it was just for couple of minutes.

At least the beauty and charm of two Germans, Birthe and Jana, have changed the whole depressing things in the city into the awesomeness of traveling together for a week. I threw away the hesitation of how awkward the feeling would be being with strangers. They are sisters from far-away land. The awesomeness of Angkor beer was just incomplete without the genuine smile of Putu Resi, an Indonesian girl who had spent time with me planning the trip.

Undoubtedly I walked down the street in Siem Reap with faith that being in the biggest religious place in the world was just incomplete without having a laid-back conversation with monk. Being good to all people was just the confirmation of what I had been practicing over the past 6 months. Karma was just logical thing I started to believe the first time in my life. I started believing that the coolest people in life wasn't Jason Mraz, but monks.

One morning after being so drunk in Siem Reap, I celebrated life quietly at the corner of Angkor Wat, alone with songbird, grass field and warm sunlight in one morning. I clapped hands rejoicing how great life I had, how great life people had.

"For you, there will be no crying
For you, the sun will always be shining
For you, the songbird will keep singing like no more days

For you, there will always be morning
For you, there will always be sweetness to taste
For you, there will always be air to breathe
For you, there will always be smile to keep you up
For you, there will always be moment to cherish

Food to eat
Places to see
Lips to kiss
Beard to shave
Luna and darkness to make you sleep
Past to forget
Future to embrace

Best friend to be with
Laughter to lift your bad mood
Problems to solve
Song to sing

For you, universe will be always loves you"

The 216 smiling faces in Bayon, the 2 days of being in sacred place, the thousands of people from all over the world witnessing how magnificent humankind's creature could be have brought countless blessing in 3 days in Siem Reap.

And it was just as big as countless smile and laughter of the 3 people I met in siem Reap: Ben, Love and Matthias. Cheek to cheek, shoulder to shoulder, ass to ass and hugs were the best way to warm ourselves in the midst of raining, in the middle of the night whilst driving two wheels of moving object in the downtown of the city. Hand to hand, heart to heart, beer to beer. Shaking butt was the coolest thing we did in the city whilst speaking the same language of love. Be in love. 'Poooop' sound created by a bottle of Angkor beer and chopstick was the best way to describe how playful our nights in Siem Reap were. We playfully changed our mind.

I could always find home, back to Jakarta. I hope we can find our way to meet again someday, brothers and sisters! And there will always be a start for traveler.

Happy celebrating life!

The past is always something to remember

Hopeless faces. Cut-throat of prisoners. The classroom with fully-blooded dead body. Ghostly room with steel bed. The quietness of white-painted wall. The past of Tuol Sleng museum is written on the wall. My one day trip in Phnom Penh is a highlight because of Tuol Sleng museum, a used-to-be school building which lately Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) used for interrogating, torturing and killing people who against communism revolution.

It was back to April 17, 1975, the first time when CPK initiated revolution of the government, which formerly led by Sihanouk king, and brought the entire country into sufferings and sadness. Their principle is to build their own country without help from outside and apply communism idealism to revive from its disability. Anyone against, or suspected to be traitor of the government, will be kidnapped and moved to Tuol Sleng, or S21, to be interrogated, tortured and finally brought to Killing Field of Choeung Ek to be executed.

Most of Cambodians, who had been in S21 before, were executed and died in Killing Field.

From 1975 to 1979, more or less 20 thousand of people have died, killed brutally in the killing field. Phnom Penh was once like a ghost city when Cambodians went out from the city after Khmer Rouge propaganda that USA would destroy PP just like Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The mass movement of all its population created famine and disease, whilst people moved out to the village.

No education. No social status. No religion. No religious symbol. No currency. No human rights. Well-educated people were killed because of the threat against the government. No enough food for all people. No right to choose. No right to speak in freedom. No peaceful. What existed was sadness, suffering and cries.

When Vietnamese troops invaded PP in 1979, they found many killed people in S21 and killing field. The city was just like a ghost. That was the time Khmer Rouge surrendered to Vietnamese.

That is the description how depressing the museum is. Very depressing that no one talked loudly or put smile on their face whilst touring around the museum. Since it happened just 30 years ago, the pictures of people just minutes before executed just looked so present. Many more pictures of people died with cut throat, without head, broken face and blooded-body.

If I have only 1 hour in PP, then Tuol Sleng is the best option. It's a story from the past that everybody can learn - that freedom to talk, to choose, to live freely and to choose whatever religion, idealism to believe. It is the highest state of being a human.

Other places to see in PP are Royal Palace, Killing Field of Choeung Ek, Wat Phnom and National Museum. And it's just great to travel around the city with friends: Birthe and Jana from Germany. We ended up the day by having nice dinner at Riverside Bistro resto, which was quite expensive but very nice place. Later on, Puput, CS from Semarang came over to join us.Finished the dinner, I joined Nial, Jess and Micky, local couchsurfers to drink awesomely cheap beers, 50c for a big glass! I got three glasses of awesomeness.

OFF to bed now