A Life’s Note: A Quarter Century

by Bayu Adi Persada

I always remember what Steve Jobs famously said in a commencement speech in Stanford almost eight years ago, “We can only connect the dots by looking backwards.”

Here I am, with 25 years of life God’s allowed me to walk on.
I just celebrated my 25th birthday last week. It’s not too late to give me birthday wishes. Better late than never. Wink.

Consciously, I need to look back for a moment. To see what I’ve done so far in my life. Because death is the biggest mystery human can’t never reveal, we seek the best possible way to end our life graciously.

I once had a friend who just began to have a wonderful life. Later we knew, God loves him more than we did. God wanted to meet him ahead of us and end his journey in the world. After battling restlessly with aneurysm, he passed away. He’s barely 26.

Then, we see many people with great life. They have everything for us to live a perfect life. Proper lux house, promising career, nice cars, fat bank account, you name it. Turns out, many of them don’t have life at all. To hear news when someone who is having ‘that perfect life’ in our perspective, committed suicide is like having a slap on our face. I don’t get it. Maybe I just don’t know human at all.

What I am trying to say is we often take our life for granted. It’s like we’re living in this fleeting world forever and without purpose. We want to enjoy every single sparkling fruity garnish for ourselves.

It’s not a mistake to enjoy every single sparkling fruity garnish but we have to realize that it’s not only ours to savor. The mistake is to think selfishly. Aware about those in need should be the answer. Having more sense, more things we have means we need to share more. Simply because sharing is caring.

Many interesting things in the world are free. Be wise enough to pick which one we should have or leave behind is the key to live a peaceful life. Greed often leads us nowhere where being thoughtful makes us go to the right direction, plenty of times.

Recently, my CIO told me a new term called permanent beta. The philosophy behind it is quite simple. Does not take a rocket science to acknowledge beta is the unfinished version and permanent means timeless.

I guess it would be a good idea to always consider ourselves as a permanent beta. It means we can’t afford to stop learning to walk towards the better us.

Whatever the risks ahead of us, we need to keep going and improving.

Here, the spirit to learn is essential. We live, we learn. Could be the other way around too, we learn then we live. No matter what we do, where we are, or how we respond, we can always learn almost in every situation, except death.

I believe nothingness is state where our mind doesn’t guide us anywhere. Filling up mind with hope and dream is the only solution. To always think about the future and how we cheer up for it in full enthusiasm could make the greatest difference to the one who doesn’t. Hope and dream are our endless fuel.

What’s the different between hope and dream anyway? To answer that question, I need to again look back to my life I’ve been living. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure how to distinguish those two beautiful words. As far as I know, they can’t be separated. If we talk about dream, we need to pepper it with hope too.

Okay, let’s get this straight by talking about mine for a moment.

My dream is to continue pursuing my master study in United Kingdom. My hope is to be worthy enough to get the scholarship. Not quite sure though about the analogy but that’s the best I can tell.

Simply written, dream is the destination and hope is the gate. To be able to open the gate, we need to show that we are the chosen ones. How to be a chosen one takes a long discussion I don’t have the capability to talk. Yes, because I’m currently trying to solve it.

Having been looking backwards several times, I realize I will never be the man I am now without me experiencing ups and downs along the road. I am grateful with my life and will always be. I’ve been given many opportunities the rest doesn’t have the chance at all. Seizing those passionately is the best way I could think of. I know it would be many hurdles along the way. So when the challenge comes, I need to ensure myself to be ready in any circumstances.

I once wrote dream is like a woman. She’s picky. She only chooses the one who has been giving the best to get her. Meanwhile, hope is like a penguin. The first time it’s bound with someone, it will be at his side his entire life.

Sometimes I run, few times I walk, I rest a little in between.
The most important thing, I know where my destination is and how to reach it.

Now, it’s time to rest for a while. I just ran 5 kilometers yesterday. Literally.

 

Sincerely yours,
Bayu