Things to Boost Up My Mood (maybe yours too)

Hello there!

Hope everyone is doing well. Actually, I ‘ve made a draft for this post since 3 weeks ago, yet it was hard to find or even make time in the middle of thesis revision and other stuffs. But here I am.

First thing first, I’m feeling sorry for those active writers on Tumblr, because since yesterday, it was banned in my country by our governance because of some serious reports. I’m not actually an active users on Tumblr, but I have already used it since I was in Junior High School, not sure it was when I was in grade 8 or 9. Tumblr was like my alternative page besides Twitter or Blogspot to spit out everything on my mind. Including, those times when I posted none to this page, usually, I made those short poems, posted photos or thoughts on Tumblr, something that was longer to be posted in Twitter or too short to make it as a blogspot posts (for me) or simply I could find someone who would just react to that. Hehe. I’m not saying I don’t find it here, but…. Yeah.

In short, if I could ever ask the governance about Tumblr, could you give us (as users and a writers) times a day or two to grab whatever thoughts or ideas that has been saved but not yet posted or even save our works that we posted before? Hehe. But then again, you know if you insist to open your old Tumblr, you know that thing called “VPN” right? *smirk*

Well, 10 months struggling up with thesis is not easy as it seems. But yeah, as the roller coaster riding down the trail, it will be going up as well. And one of those highlights of doing my thesis is surely about having a good vibe to do it. But now is not the time to talk about how I did my thesis (maybe later in some other post), but how to build up my mood and have that good vibe to through my day.

Caution: these stuffs I do, is literally about me. Since to share is to care, so I hope that it might work for you as well, but if it’s not, well that’s fine.

Caution number two: I’ve through days without these things, and days with these things and compared it. And I feel some of these things I would mention were sooo influencing (at least for me). So, grab your whatever-you-want-to-eat and read. Have fun!

• Being an Early Bird

It’s hard maybe for those who just started it. But it’s always worth it. Get up earlier means you have more time to prepare things. Not only to prepare “things”, but also to prepare your mood. I am a kind of girl who needs some times to lift up my mood, it’s like whatever I’m gonna do, it depends on it (I know it’s wrong, but I need this to enjoy whatever I’m doing). And it felt so different when I woke up at 5.00am while usually I’ve started my day since 3.00am. I’ll be like… demotivated, lazy and my biggest guilty pleasure: procrastinate. By then, I could say I’m screwed.

•  Your business to Allah over your business to human

Now, why the heck I started at 3.00am? Somehow I felt thankful to suffer from insomnia back then (and now) that somehow make my sleeping hours becomes quite short. I could sleep 3/4 hours for the whole 24 hours, and it’s enough for me. That somehow, it forces me to choose either I want to sleep at 9.00pm and wake up at 12.00am/1.00am, or sleep at 12.00am and wake up ant 3.00am. and some other time I’ve heard a wise advice from a friend of mine, she said, if you want your business with your friends, relations or else you name it clear or say success, make sure your business to Allah is already done right before you step out of your house. From that, she mentioned things the duty as a Muslim we got to fulfil before we go out like Tahajud, pray Shubuh (including the Sunnah Rawatib), Dzikr, Tilawah, until Pray Dhuha. And off you go to wherever you want to.

• Morning Coffee

Am I addicted to it? I don’t know. Actually, the caffeine in coffee they said could strike away those sleepy eyes just don’t work for me. But yes, coffee have suggest my brain that today I’m gonna have so much fun. I don’t have any specific coffee to drink every morning. If it’s instant coffee in sachet we usually found, it’s okay. If it’s just simply a cup of kopi tubruk without sugar, I’m gonna be happy. But if it’s a kopi Arabica Gayo or Arabica Bali Kintamani tubruk, without sugar, I’m more than happy! It’s bitter, indeed. But I don’t like sweet. I like the smell of coffee every morning. It always successfully lifts up my mood.

Ngupi apa Ngupi

• Yes to Unfollow!

Nowadays people seems like they depend their life to social media. Or to make it smoother….they always want to connect to each other via social media that makes them update every-damn-thing to social media. Not smooth enough? Sorry not sorry. Maybe it’s not just them, maybe I, you ever did it in the past. Updating every single thing you found. Well, I trying to quit it, and having my real life here with my friends, even I still work in social media as well. Have you ever asked yourself? How many times you open your Instagram in a day? Is it once? Twice? More than 12 times? And have you ever counted how much posts which bring good impact for you as the audience? Or was it all just a toxic post? I said toxic because somehow, it could make you feel mad, angry, and jealous or even hate. I could say, I open my Instagram account too often I can’t even count how many times, and the only thing I could do to keep my good mood is by unfollowing account that spread hates or “nirfaeda” posts. I feel that is the only way to save myself, from arguing on pointless topics, at least. I think social media now is one of those things that come nearly close to us in daily life, so it’s important to make it “healthy” for your heart and brain.

• Do more of your hobbies

When things get hard, I usually separate myself from the world outside my room. And doing my things. Crocheting or reading, or watching movie or just opening up my Corel Draw and make whatever I want to make. Not all those kind of hobbies I mention were actually my passion. But they’re enough for me to just escape from the real world, take distance, and come back after all.

Not an expert tho, but I like crocheting

• Good playlist good mood

I like old songs. Or pop songs which were out of date. It was my father who first bought that The Vanishing Race Album from Air Supply (when he’s young) that I listened when I was in Junior High School or my mother who liked to listen to Koes Ploes or Rani who sang Gang Kelinci. From that time, I started to listened to The Beatles. Their song that I first listened was Let It Be. And after that I started to like them, until now. Now I listened to them on loop and plus my dearest Frank Sinatra. You might think that those old songs were just boring. But what attracts me is their lyric. It sounds so meaningful and timeless, for me, some of pop songs now just bore me with their meaningless lyric or the shallow definitions of love just by making love or so. Come on. Even not every songs sound so, nowadays we just got to be more “picky” to listen to some songs I guess.

Click Time Machine for playlist! and yes brother and sister, I listened to Senja di Batas Kota  :))

 

• Make a list of gratitude

To write is to remember. The more you write, the more you remember. I was kind of depressed for doing my thesis back then. But then I started to write things I could feel grateful for. And the result is, I just needed to take another point of view to see things. It’s hard at first, but it’s the thing to do, and I believe I’ll get used to it, and as the process went by, I finally feel okay. Feel okay means you could just let it all go, and you let God handle it because you have done your best. And after that, you could focus on the other thing. And the mantra I always keep that in mind “Jangan lupa bahagia”. Don’t forget to be happy. It’s a simple thing, we often forget. The message is clear. It asked us to be happy. Because being happy is a choice. Moreover, being happy means you know and you realize that you’re blessed. Because the ones who don’t were the one who don’t even realize that maybe there are millions other people who crave for their positions.

 That’s all that. These things are the most influencing things to help me to get out of the bad vibes or just lift up my mood after a few trials and errors and even now I still do the errors. Now let me know, what things that could make your mood boost up?

Have a good day!

 

 

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,

 

Thoughts of PDA

Kayak yang saya bilangdi postingan sebelumnya, obrolan di umur 23 ini salah satunya nggak jauh-jauh dari tema pernikahan. Dari yang model nanya kapan nikah, dengan mode terhalus seperti kapan menyegerakan sampai yang mode kasar kayak kapan kawin.

Dan hal ini nggak tau kenapa juga ternyata makin kerasa nggak hanya di ruang-ruang obrolan tatap muka yang bahas-bahas soal pernikahan. Tetapi juga sampai ke ranah media sosial. Oiya, sebelum baca lebih lanjut, saya ingatkan bahwa tulisan ini saya tulis berdasarkan kacamata saya aja, jadi kalau misal nggak bisa diterima waktu tengah-tengah baca mending berhenti aja, dan cari bacaan lain yang mungkin akan menyenangkan hati kamu. Oke lanjut.

Akhir-akhir ini tema pernikahan ini kerasa makin dekat dengan saya. Ya bukan hal yang mengagetkan sih, karena orang-orang yang saya ikuti di media sosial juga orang-orang yang seumuran saya, paling tua juga tiga sampai empat tahun di atas saya, ini di luar seleb-seleb yang saya ikuti di media sosial ya. Dengan umur-umur usia nikah gini jadi wajar banget nggak sih kalo misal teman-teman kita yang kita ikuti di media sosial ini tadi juga mulai bergerak fase hidupnya dari fase melajang ke fase pernikahan. Dan fase itu semua terlihat semua di media sosial, ya gimana nggak ya, disukai atau tidak, diterima atau tidak banyak orang yang menjadikan media sosial sebagai sarana aktualisasi dirinya. Dari yang biasanya posting lagi nongkrong di kafe A sama temen-temennya, atau liburan ke X sama temen-temennya jadi yang tiba-tiba posting pre-wedding, wedding, pos-wedding sampai ke kehidupan sehari-hari setelah menikah macam bagaimana hikmah-hikmah dari mahligai pernikahannya dinarasikan dalam caption panjang sarat akan makna. Saya sejauh ini masih merasa biasa aja sih, paling ketawa-ketawa aja kalo misal liat temen yang dulu kelakuannya kayak apa lagi posting manis-manis sama bininya, tapi ya udah, buat saya posting macam itu lewat begitu saja, saya sebagai netijen hanya menjadi penonton yang urun “like” kalo nemu postingannya, atau ini karena saya nggak punya orientasi untuk nikah secepatnya kali ya, makanya liat pos manis-manis gitu juga masih lempeng-lempeng aja.

Terus beberapa waktu yang lalu waktu lagi ngumpul sama beberapa teman, kita gak sengaja sampai ke topik PDA waktu kami lagi ngobrol. Istilah PDA ini udah saya denger dari jaman SMP, nggak nyangka sekarang PDA jadi topik yang sering diperbincangkan di teman-teman saya hehe. PDA atau Public Display Affection punya artinya kurang lebih intinya mempertontonkan kemesraan di ranah publik, singkatnya pamer kemesraan.

Saya sendiri punya dua kelakuan yang tergolong PDA, sekali lagi menurut saya, kamu boleh sepakat, nggak juga gapapa, belum tentu ngubah pandangan saya juga.

·         Pertama, kalo The Married Couple (TMC) mulai posting kontak fisip di area-area yang sebenernya bisa bangeeet kalo nggak diupload atau dipamerkan ke ranah publik.

·         Kedua, kalo tadi secara fisik, karena kita mainnya sosmed, maka nggak mungkin kalo nggak ada PDA-PDA terselubung lewat verbal. Menurut saya, kalo TMC mulai poating macam panggilan-panggilan khusus gitu nggak perlu sih jadi konsumsi publik, toh tanpa itu pun followersnya udah pada tau kalo bininya adalah miliknya, moreover macam gombalan, rayuan, yang aduh udahlah, rasanya bikin saya pengen bilang “mending kalian pm”, tapi nggak tau kenapa, saya masih bisa sih tolerir pujian. Eh ini kamu yang baca bisa bedain kan mana pujian dan mana rayuan/gombalan?

Dari obrolan sama teman-teman memang ada beberapa yang saya sepakati ada ada juga yang tidak. Seperti misalnya, posting foto atau video lagi makan atau pergi bareng. Kalau menurut saya itu sama sekali bukan PDA. Posting foto anaknya dengan segala perkembangannya, dan ilmu-ilmu yang bisa diambil, apalagi itu, nggak ada PDA-PDAnya, jadi kalo sampe ada yang ngomong “ih postingannya si A masa tentang si B mulu” paling yaudah saya liatin aja, sambil nyinyirin dalam hati. Wkwkwk.

Gini ya, logikanya adalah, saat sebelumnya si A belum menikah, media sosial memang digunakan oleh si A, siapapun itu, untuk memposting hal-hal yang ada di dalam hidupnya, yang berkaitan dengan dirinya, jadi pertanyaannya, apa itu juga menjadi suatu hal yang aneh jika suatu saat si A baru menikah dan memposting sesuatu yang berkaitan dengan dirinya seumur hidup yang dalam kasus ini adalah bininya? Jadi kalau misal ada orang yang sebelum menikah hobi makan, ke mana-mana foodgram foto makanan, eh setelah menikah posting lagi makanan-makanan tapi sama bininya, ya itu bukan PDA lah, foodgram adalah habitnya dia di masa lampau sampai sekarang, kemudian ditemukan dengan orang baru yang mana adalah bininya dan ditemukan dengan kebiasannya itu. Selesai di situ. Menurut saya itu hal yang wajar, karena setiap orang punya tendensi buat menunjukkan apa-apa yang dia suka, ya kalau dalam kasus tadi berarti membagikan makanan dalam foto di Instagram (misal) dan bininya adalah hal yang disuka. Selesai di situ sih sebenernya. Ditambah kita idup di jaman yang kadang kuota aja rasnya bisa lebih murah dari pada harga cabe, karena kebutuhan untuk mainan media sosial emang setinggi itu, sarana untuk aktualisasi diri makin gampang diakses, kecenderungan untuk menunjukkan apa yang disukai juga makin tinggi. Tapi, ya ini cuma saya yang fakir ilmu dengan segala analogi keledai.

Karena saya yakin, untuk tidak menunjukkan kesukaan kita itu sulit nona dan tuan, ya coba aja dilihat lagi, apa kesukaan kita yang sering kita publikasikan saat ini, saat nanti tiba masanya giliran kita, saat hal-hal yang kita suka itu ada dalam satu bingkai kamera dan biasa dipublikaskan (di luar dua poin tadi yang saya sebutkan) kemudian bergabung dengan hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan bini kita nanti. Entah yang suka share nongki di mana, besok jadi posting sama bininya, yang suka masak besok jadi suka posting bekal buat bininya atau masakan sehari-hari. Mungkin kita juga bilang “entar captionku nggak yang menye-menye gitu”, mungkin juga pada saat itu kita juga ingin membagikan hikmah-hikmah dalam bentuk narasi-narasi panjang di caption yang lanjut di komentar, tapi ya mungkin juga nanti akan muncul juga orang-orang yang walaupun kita udah usaha buat posting sebiasa mungkin, kita tetap dibilang PDA. Well, the ugly truth is, we can’t please everyone, even a clown has bunch of people who have phobia of him.

Definisi-definisi soal PDA berdasarkan tadi jadi tak lebih dari sebuah kecemburuan saja untuk segera ingin ada di titik yang sama. Menurut saya, jika TMC belum melanggar dua hal yang tadi saya sebutkan, saya masih bisa terima. Lagi pula, kadang menurut saya, bukan mereka yang sudah biasa-biasa banget ini yang harus mengubah postingan hanya karena ada konten bermuatan bini-bininya, tetapi netijen budiman yang memang harus lebih bijak lagi dalam menghadapi postingan. Tetapi saya juga berpikir, ini salah satu efek dari pertemuan nilai baru dan nilai lama, dari sebuah kebiasaan yang dimasuki nilai baru. Awalnya pasti ada ketidak cocokan, tapi lama-lama juga bisa menyatu. Fakta dari salah satu teman yang tadinya belum menikah dengan segala kesehariannya, kemudian menikah dan punya rutinitas baru. Jadilah followers merasa bertumbukkan dengan nilai baru juga. Tapi tak apalah, kan kata Tan Malaka, terbentur, terbentur, terbentur, terbentuk. Tetapi kalau masih tidak kuat, cukup unfollow saja. Selesai.

(mencoba) menjadi netijen budiman.