5 Things to Feel Grateful For

Jadi, di tengah huru-hara pengesahan pasal MD3 dan segala jenis religiosity hates ke umat beragama manapun, I’m well aware about all those things, but let’s talk about another topic.

What’s the last thing that could ever happen to you that makes you feel so much grateful for whatever God gave you? When did you feel it? Was it just this morning? Or yesterday? 2 days ago? Or you’ve never felt this way before?

This past few years somehow brought me to another point of life. I knew maybe that’s just not (yet) a lifetime achievement, cause in fact I’m still digging for it. I knew my life would not be just as beautiful or interesting as it seems through Instagram stories, like, as I get up and pray and make my coffee and listen to a mood-boosting songs and through the day with that big white smiles and end the day with a tired happy face to bed. So beautiful it’s naïve. Sometimes, I have to wake up with deadlines, sleep with my watch still in my wrist just to get myself unpleasant sleep so I could wake up earlier, skip lunch just for economizing and drink more coffee. And end the day with an anxious mind to bed.

Social media somehow blur all those struggles. I ever got this statement spoken by my close friend “lo mah, santai banget sih, idupnya main mulu” I was like “hehe, ya kali, tau dari mana?” and she said, “gue liat di story instagram lo”.

Since when social media could really describe what you’ve been through?

Now it became an iceberg, a super serious iceberg. People tend to only see the success without the hard works, the money without the sleepless night, the beauty without the insecurity and the happy smiles of a couple without the fights and the compromises. However, what matters are what come before the good stuff. Things, people think it’s shouldn’t have to be shared. That’s normal, we all tend to share those happy feeling instead of the sad ones, right? That’s why, some people don’t share their sad emotions to social media (of course, unless you’re attention whore or drama queen), and that’s never could conclude that somebody is always having a great time in their entire life.

And from those things that surround me, I found it, “maybe, the hardest thing that we have to do is feeling grateful and husnudzan to God’s plan”. It may seems so simple, but the fact it’s not. Theoretically yes, you just have to focus on the good side and let go, but practically, human’s emotion is way more complicated that makes it somehow…hard. At least for me. But for me, it’s something you can learn and with more and more trainings, you will.

Since, to write is to keep, I’m going to write down a list to sum up of what makes me feel grateful, even I know, He has grant me so many things I could’ve never imagine before that maybe I couldn’t mention them all. So here we go.

• I could still open my eyes after a few hours of sleep. Sleeping is a half way to die, so to wake up in another day means another chance to be better. I feel blessed. Chance to be better. Cause sometimes, things I broke yesterday is something I couldn’t fix tomorrow, so I just go on, and promise to myself to be better and try not to repeat the same mistakes.

• Mother’s prayer. I think I would never be in this point of life, if my mom never spend her times to pray for me. I feel like, all the success or the failure I feel is related to three things; the quality of my prayers to God, my mom’s prayers and of course, my effort to make things happen.

• Friends to Jannah. To be one of those shalih and shalihah who’s invited to be in Jannah is surely Allah’s prerogative rights. And for me, to make friends or have friends who’s also wanting it is one of ikhtiar that I as human can do. Because, it’s quite rare in this moment to have friends who would encourage you to be better, not only to human but also to Allah, in the world full of people saying “urusan ibadah, biar jadi urusan gue dan Tuhan gue”. The most grateful feeling is when you have friends not only in your good or bad times, as how quotation nowadays describe how friendship goals is, but to be mentioned in their prayers in 2.00am in her very private time with Allah, where they could ask for million things about them but still, they mention your name for good in their prayers. That’s friendship goals.

• The blessing in disguise, they said. I could never be bored to repeat this. But the moment when my father passed away was the moment, I though, Allah has wake me up from a unrealistic dream. I remember that day my uncle said “sekarang, anin penggantinya buat kuatin mama” I was like, a highest tree, an arrogant highest tree struck by a lightning. I broke down. But that’s just the moment when all the things actually began. It’s just somehow amazed me how Allah actually taught me, that this life is temporary. I was thinking that I was too young to face this, I was just a junior high schooler. But it’s all set. No one is late. And no one is too early for everything, including death. And that’s just the time that has been set. So I must be ready. Well, the world keeps moving right, whether I think, I’m ready or not.

• Live far away from home, somehow blur the definition of home itself. Have moved to 2 places since high school. From Jakarta-Tangerang to Gunung Kidul (that’s in Yogyakarta) now I’m in Surakarta (Solo). It was hard as a new comer of “anak rantau” in high school, but lately I know that it’s addictive. I spend my life with mostly orang Betawi, orang Jawa, and others, with different cultures, religions and characters and somehow it could widen our point of view to see things. I know I’m a bad talkers in front of someone I just met (unless, we know each other long enough), but I like to observe lol it sounds so psycho, no, somehow by observing, I could analyze thing and know thing. And that’s just the thing I found out I like after living in three different places. I wish for another chance to live in another place, please. Hehe.

A poem by Atticus. Idk either it's related or not to this post. But I kinda like it

Those 5 things, are the basic things I feel grateful for that will be followed up by another million small or big things in my life. I feel grateful for what happened, and can’t wait for what’s more to come. And one of those things I could highlight is,

The struggle is real. The ups and downs. The roller coaster feeling.

And the road is never been easy.

But every milestones you pass, it all will worth the fight.

And yes, it’s only a matter of from where you see a disaster to become a grace.

Have a wonderful day,