Something To Run For

Having a clear set of purpose really gives you a whole new perspective on the way you work, the way you live.

Something great happened to me yesterday. I got reminded of my purpose. And the impact of it on my day : amazing. I used my working time better (cause I didn’t want any wasted when I could be doing something toward reaching my goal), I felt happier (and believe me, I’m already a happy person normally), also more motivated and excited to embrace what’s in store for me in the future.

When I was in college, I was fed a lot of talk on how important it is to have a vision, to have a set of goals that you want to achieve in life. And yes, I had an idea of what I wanted to be, of the life I wanted to lead, but I never let myself wanted it too much. I guess somewhere in the web of my life, I caught the wrong message from the wrong circumstances and the wrong people, and I started to think I was doing the right thing denying myself what I really wanted.

The result of it? A pretty painting of life with no particular pattern or sense, I guess. I worked, I performed well, I did all sorts of things happily, but even when I achieve excellent performance, or people praise me for what I did, I couldn’t appreciate myself. What’s the point? I didn’t know where I wanted all those things to take me to.

Now, though. Now. The past year, I’ve been reminded again of what I really want in my life, and I’ve been surrounded by passionate people who encourage me to pursue my dreams. And yesterday I got reminded about the notion of having a clear vision statement and really, really running towards it. As my problem used to be not letting myself wanting something so much, I found a quote that really spoke to me : “Don’t be afraid to give yourself everything you’ve ever wanted in life.”

When you know what you want, don’t hesitate to ask for it and work for it. I ponder on what the sentence represents to me, and it kind of summarizes some of the decisions I have made in my life that initially made people frown. I often had to leave my comfort zone. But I had figured out what I wanted. So I took my risks anyway and grabbed my chances. Now, I just have to apply the same thing toward reaching my dreams.

If you feel like you still have no idea where your passion lies, find it. Borrowing Pastor Brian Houston’s words, it’s amazing to have a reason to run toward and for something that is far more important than ourselves. It makes a lot of difference. Good difference.

- cheers to all -

First Attempt at Carrot Cake! (Recipe)

One of the things I like about holidays is that I have a lot of extra time to cook. I don’t like being rushed when I cook, and I don’t really like the idea of cooking just for the sake of having something to put in my mouth. (You know how some think that when you’re cooking for yourself only, you don’t really need to care that much about its taste and presentation? I can’t buy that.) Anyway, cooking during the busy days of the semester is rare for me unless I’m doing it together with a friend, so having the time this week to actually cook and bake stuff feels so good.

This week I wanted to make banana bread, but couldn’t find the most important ingredient : banana, since most places are closed due to Chinese New Year celebration. I figured since I had carrots in the dorm’s fridge, it might be interesting to try out making carrot cake. I went through recipes on the internet, and finally adapted one from here.

Here’s how I did it (with measurements already converted to grams, to make it easier for everybody) :

170 ml vegetable oil
200 grams brown sugar
2 eggs
240 grams flour
1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract (You may prefer to swap this with cinammon. I didn’t have any, so I used vanilla)
1 big carrot, grated

I mixed the oil and the sugar first until they blended. I added the eggs one by one, each time beating the mixture ’til blended well. Afterwards, I slowly added the flour, which had been mixed with baking powder, salt and vanilla extract.
After the dough is nicely mixed together, I stirred in the grated carrots.

Baking took around 20-30 minutes for me. I used a 7-3/8 x 3-5/8 x 2 inch pan, so you might want to double or triple the amount of ingredients according to the size of the cake you want to make.

I love this recipe. I love that the cake has carrot in it but still tastes really good. The friends who tasted it also told me they liked it.

Will definitely make this again, probably with cinammon and the addition of chopped nuts.

- cheers to all -

Everybody Has A Story

Dramatic, witty, sad or happy. I’m a firm believer that everybody’s got a story, a part of their life that may inspire people around them. And so it’s always a pleasure to have someone willing to share a piece of what they have, with the hope that it may move someone somewhere in a way or another.

In tonight’s post I’m sharing a story from Fery Abdul Choliq, one of the many Indonesians currently studying in Taiwan. In this video produced by Lentera Ide PPI Taiwan, he recounts what he research he currently works on, and the businesses he runs as he pursues his study.

Kindly watch it, and perhaps also tell me what you think about it?  Hope it moves you in some way!

- cheers to all -

So How Does Planning Life Work For You?

It’s been one exhausting week for me personally. Not because I’ve been doing a lot of physical work, but because the reality of what this year is about has slowly settled in my mind. I’m (hopefully) graduating soon, and with every graduation, comes the question ‘what next?’. Ugh. Isn’t it bad enough already that I have to deal with not seeing my friends anymore after this? Now I have to come up with an answer to ‘what next?’, as if I have power over what’s next.

Here’s the thing. I have no plan. Why? Because I’ve given up on making any. When I make one, I basically fill the entire space in my heart with it, become inseparable with it, and then bam~! Life takes on a different direction.

Look. I go to the last page of books I read to make sure no one dies at the end. Watching movies used to be a torture to me because I can’t skip to the last minute to see if everything turns out to be the way I expected them to. I’m that kind of person. I just want to be prepared.

It’s not that I don’t try, though. I figured, since God’s the main writer of my life, I might as well ask Him for spoilers. It would be easier to know what God wants me to do, and plan my life accordingly. Right? Right? So I prayed for Him to show me what I should do, whom I’m going to marry (come on, we’re talking about energy-saving and heartbreak-preventing here), etcetera, etcetera. Whenever someone asks me what prayer requests I have, I’d say : “For God to tell me what He wants me to do in my life.” 

Do I have my answers now? Yes and no. As usual, life gave me something different. =)) I can assure you though, that even though I always get something different from what I asked for, I never get something worse.

Earlier this week, just as my friend told me that my problem is that I expect things too specifically, I stumbled upon this article. The title is “God’s Plan Isn’t a Roadmap”. The article basically shows me that I’ve been worrying about the less important things. The key point is not what specific job I do, or which specific company I work for in which specific country. Yes, they are important (as in, I shouldn’t be going for a job as a corruptor – in my home country, you can apparently make a living by being one), but the most important thing is what kind of person I become throughout the course of my life.

Maybe God cares about who we are becoming more than what we are specifically doing.

There goes. I now know what I should do with my life.

So here’s to making plans again~! (And making sure I don’t attach myself too much to any of them, cause yeah~ )

P.S. now that I have to make plans, my mind and heart are even more exhausted than before. Haha.

- cheers to all -

(especially those facing the same dilemma as mine right now )