Learn to say "No"

For all the good kind hearted people who's been facing the difficulties to say "No" 

Learning to say "No" is important especially to the things that don't bring you any good. 

I'm a person who used to struggle to say "No" -- sometimes I feel guilty to say "No" because I feel like I am a bad person because it feels like I don't want to help the person or I feel like I am not a good friend.

So, I used to say "Yes" all the time and sacrifice everything I have (time and resources) to keep the promise and in the end, I become exhausted. Thus, I learned to be more selective and start to say "No" -- and it's not always easy. 

Saying "No" doesn't mean you are a bad person, saying "No" for the right cause and reason could be even better for the other person and foremostly, good for you. It's a self-love exercise. You know that you love yourself enough not to attend to everything other people ask from you. You know when to give help and know when to restrain because at times, you would need help too (and when such times come you would know who you true friends are).

Today, learn to say "No" and love yourself ❤️

What We Want Is Not Always What God Has In Mind

As Christians we can be biased sometimes. We often insist on God doing something that we want. We even claimed that what we want is what God wants. But what if what we want is not what God has in mind no matter how right we think it is?

There was an interesting case in the Bible. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was punished by King Nebuchadnezzar for not following the King’s rules where everyone has to worship His gods. These three men were known to be upright, uncorrupted and good leaders for the people. Their enemies were trying to bring them down but they couldn’t find any flaws, the only flaw was they refused to worship the gods that the King worshipped. Thus, they use it to get them. They accused these three men for violating the law that instructed everyone to worship the gods and brought the case to the King.

The King was very upset and he questioned these men, what did they say?

“16  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. 17  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. 18  But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.” (Daniel 3: 16 -18 – NLT)

Yes, they were sticking up to what they believe. They believe that God can save them but even if He didn’t, they still would not server the King’s gods or worship the gold statue he has set. In the end, they were thrown to the fire and God saved them. Happy Ending.

But what if, God didn’t save them. Would they lose faith in Him? I don’t think so. They have stated it clearly, they knew their lives were at stake and still they choose to believe in Him. God can but if God is doing something else, they still trust Him.

How many of us, praying so hard for God to answer it. We have the faith that God will answer our prayers according to what we want. Having faith is good. Believing that God can answer your prayers is powerful but one thing that we all need to learn is, God sometimes have another thing in His mind that might be different than what we want or what we believe He wants.

When that happens, would we still believe in Him?

On Grief

As I wrote this post I was listening to a song, “How He loves us”, John Mark McMillan wrote the song upon the loss of his best friend, Stephen Coffey. He died in a car accident right after he went home from a prayer meeting where he declared to God that he would give his life to see the youth of the nation change. Such irony that after he said the prayer, the accident happened. 

I believe in God and I believe that in He is good. 

Yet, in such situation, it’s hard to believe that He is good. If He is good, then why did He let the tragedy happened. Having someone so dear to you being taken away without being able to do something or saying goodbye was truly hard.

I can imagine how hard and painful it was. I have lost a good friend too. I lost him unexpectedly. It was hard. It was painful. And it still hurts sometimes when I think of my friend and how much I miss him. 

I only lose a friend, I cannot imagine if you lose your parents, spouse or even children. 

I know that it would be hard for those who are left behind, I am not going to deny that or trying to eliminate the pain. We cannot close our hearts from the emotions, from the memories or from the feelings. But we can all choose to deal with the grief instead of dwelling in the grief. 

Grief is a place where we deal and struggle with God the most. The way we respond to grief will take us to a deeper experience with God. In the hard times when we cannot understand why, when we even feel like we can’t handle it, we can always trust that God loves us and that He will be there in our tears, weeping and crying with us, giving His comfort. 

John Mark McMillan lost his best friend, he struggles with the grief and God, and resulting in the song “How He loves us”, a powerful song that relies on God’s love amidst of everything painful. 

I lost my friend. I grieved as well, I ask God why, I struggle with Him and although it hurts, I know He loves me, I know He loves my friend. And that gave me the comfort that I need. 

My friend cannot be replaced. He will never be replaceable. He would always be a loss. There would still be a gap in the pictures where he could be. There would be something missing in the moments where he could be. That still aches sometimes. I’m not going to lie on the pain just to make you feel better. It will still be painful, but we can always have control in the way we are responding to the pain. 

When we lose someone. The person would never be replaceable, but we can always cherish the memories, we can always be grateful that at some point in our lives we were honoured to have met, to have grown, to be friends with, to be partnered with, to have married with, to have given birth to, to have known him or her. We could always celebrate his / her life instead of mourning over his / her death. 

Yes it’s hard. Yes it’s painful. But, God is closest to the broken-hearted and He gives comfort to them. Take time with Him, reason with Him, talk to Him, get mad at Him, yell at Him, but don’t close your heart to Him so He can mend your broken heart. 

I can’t guarantee you that it would be easy. 

Yes there will be a lot of “WHYs” floating around in your mind, there will be those sleepless nights, there will be tears and swollen eyes, there will be a painful broken heart, there will a missing part that will stay for quite some time, there will be anger, sadness, guilt and every mixed feelings you can possibly feel. 

People say that time will heal and you will feel like strangling them because they seem not to understand how much you are hurting (been there, done that). 

Yet you need to keep going on with life. You need to continue to live. Give grief a good time and then keep going, get hold of yourself, pick all the broken pieces and go on. If there is guilt, let it go, forgive yourself, learn from the mistake and move on. 

Celebrate the life of the one who has passed by living your life to the fullest, by being the better version of you. I believe that’s what they want you to do. 

There will be times where you would miss them, and there was this particular dialogue from Eat, Pray and Love that I would always remember every time I miss my friend.

Liz Gilbert : I did love you, Stephen. 

Stephen : I know. But I still love you. 

Liz Gilbert : So, love me. 

Stephen : But I miss you.

Liz Gilbert : So, miss me. Send me love and light every time you think of me... Then drop it. It won't last forever. Nothing does.

Yes, when you miss them. It’s okay to take time to miss them and to remember them, then drop it and go on with your life. 

You will be fine. You are stronger now and God is with you.

you give power to what you believe in

Few weeks ago in the morning, I was listening to the radio where the hosts were talking about ghost since it was going to be Halloween and one of the host said this, “Don’t be afraid of ghosts because they are just the reflections of our fear” – hmm, interesting.

Either we realise it or not, what we believe is reflected in our lives. When you believe in something, it becomes real for you.

For example, if I believe in God then God is real for me and I can see His power is working in my life. But, for those who don’t believe in God, God is not real and for them, He has no power in their lives. Why? Because you give power to what you believe in.

I watched Doctor Strange last night and the movie spoke exactly the same message. What is in your mind, forms your reality meaning you give power to what you believe. If you believe that you can do something then you can do it, no matter what other people might say to you.  

As I thought of this, I was reminded by a verse in the Bible that said, “And so he (Jesus) did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:58, NLT) - The background story was: Jesus hung out in his hometown, but since nobody believed that the son of a carpenter could perform miracles, He couldn’t do much because they don’t believe in Him.

If someone don’t believe in you, then no matter what you do, it won’t change their mind if they have set it that way. Thus, whatever you do will be useless because they cannot see it. And it also applies for yourself, if you don’t believe in yourself then you will never know that you could actually do more than you are now.

Remember that you give power to what you believe in.

If you believe in yourself, then you will give power to yourself to do things that you may not know that you can do it. If you believe in your dreams, then you will give them power to become true. If you believe that you can’t do something then you will never be able to do it. If you believe that you are a failure then you will fail in everything you do. If you believe that you are nothing then people will see you as nothing.

Thus, believe in the right things.

Believe in kindness then you will be surrounded by kindness, believe in courage then you will be brave, believe in integrity then you will gain trust, believe in perseverance then you will see the result, believe in yourself then you will do things you don’t know before that you can do it.  

Believe in the right things and you will give power to the right things to happen in your life.

We Just Don't Know Each Other Yet.

I was walking into the gym last night when someone called my name and apparently it was my colleague. I was so surprised to see her there. We talked for a while and I found out that she's been a member of the same gym for 4 years but I told her that I've never seen her before, she laughed and said, "Well, it's because we don't know each other before and now we do." - it's true, I just knew her this past one year and before, we might have been passing each other in the gym without even realising and noticing each other.

Now that we know each other, we are more aware of each other's presence and we understand each other better. Now I know that her husband also joined the same gym as well and where they lived and now she knows that I am having a personal trainer session in the gym.

Everyone we know now was once a stranger to us too and only when we are willing to know them, we start to understand them better. There are a lot of things that we might not understand about someone simply because we simply don't know each other yet. 

I always love a quote thay was claimed to be said by Plato, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." -- we can never judge people only by what they do or say before first understanding why they do or say it, thus be kind, because we don't know that maybe in other time and condition we would need the same kindness too.

When Diving : Keep Calm and Don't Panic.

QThere was a video of a panic diver that went viral a while ago. The video was terrifying as we watched the panic diver suddenly took off her mask, trying to ascend fast and somehow losing her regulator. Questions were raised and comments were made. Some blaming the diver for panicking, some blaming the dive master and questioned why he couldn't detect the panic signals earlier.

Well, I am not a diving expert nor a diving instructor so I could not give any professional opinion or comments on the event, but it made me feel like sharing my own experience.

I took my diving license in 2012 and went to my first diving trip experience in the same year. I got my license in Jakarta, so the closest place I knew was Pulau Seribu. 

The first time I went to the sea, I went with my instructor and fellow students. There was nothing scary, I felt safe since there was my instructor and there was my friend (my instructor’s apprentice). There was only excitement.

Then later in the same year, a friend offered me to join a dive trip to Banda Neira, east Indonesia. Still with the excitement, I decided to join the trip along with someone I knew from my first dive trip to Pulau Seribu. So we went to the trip and met other two participants, B and D. I was the only rookie diver who has just got her license.

To make a long story short, as it was my first real diving experience, it was quite scary for me. I was so nervous, I was still having a hard time with my buoyancy and I had no clue what I could expect to face. On the first dive, just like any other anxious and nervous newbie, I had a hard time maintaining my buoyancy. It was a total yo-yo diving.

My first panic attack was when we needed to dive against the current a bit to get into a hole in a wall. It was my first time experiencing diving agaisnt the current and I had to admit that my first pair of diving fins weren’t really proper for diving, they were more proper for snorkelling thus they didn’t give much effect in such situation – it’s totally exhausting!

(side note: choosing your first diving gears is very important, take your instructor or someone more experienced in diving to help you with that, also bear in mind that diving gears can be very personalised.)

Once we got past the current, I ran out of breath and was panicking a lot, it felt like I wanted to give up and ascending as soon as possible to get some air (trust me, when you’re down there and something is wrong, the first instinctive thing you would feel like doing is going up to the surface as fast as you can to get some air -- this is when things usually get ugly). My breathing was very fast, it felt suffocating.

Good thing that I still remember what was taught, to be calm and not to panic. I gave a “trouble” signal to the divemaster and she attended to me, she found a spot where I could kneel down, she told me to breathe slowly and stayed on my side until I finally managed to breathe normally. It was scary. But once I could breathe normally, I forgot about the incident already and the excitement took over :p

Since the incident, I noticed that B, who was in our group was being attentive to me. He somehow managed to always dive on my side and took care of me. He often reminded me not to use my inflator often and to learn how to manage my breathing underwater. Whenever I went “too fast”, he would catch up to me and stayed by my side. I was glad that he was there with me at that time.  

Later he told me that he actually noticed that I was nervous. He told me that we can tell if someone is nervous or panic by their gestures. They might move around a lot, suddenly becomes very chatty or even very silent and “You can always tell by the look in their eyes,” He said – I guess he’s right.

B was a more experienced diver (meaning he’s been diving for a while), he was a rescue certified diver at that time and I was so glad that he was willing to take care of a newbie like me. I think it feels very nice to have someone more experienced to watch over you. So if you’ve been diving for a while and there’s someone new to diving in your dive group be kind to her/him, they might be feeling nervous and a little encouragement would mean a lot plus an experience sharing from you would be very valuable.

From the experience, for every dive trip (especially for first timers) I think it is best to know first where you are going, the condition and the possible challenges that you might have to face, it would make you feel better if you know where you are going and what can you expect to encounter. Look for dive stories or sharing from other people who has been there before.

Second, before going for a dive trip, make sure that your dive gears are working well. If you are using new gears, make sure you tested them before your trip so you can get familiar with their functions. If you are renting diving gears at the local dive centre, make sure that before jumping into the water, those gears were working properly and make sure that you know how to use them because sometimes each dive centre will use different dive gears.

Third, if you are feeling nervous, tell someone in your dive group. Tell your buddy or dive leader / guide to get their attention. It is okay to feel nervous, just don’t let it overwhelms you. Make sure that when something is wrong, keep calm, don’t panic and let your buddy know what’s going on. That’s what your buddy is for ☺ -- and if you don’t feel well, don’t force yourself to dive. I know that you might be very excited but trust me, it is better to take some time to rest because when you are not fit you will be less aware of the things around you and that can cause a negative effect.

Fourth, practice makes perfect, if you are still not confident with your buoyancy, practice a lot in the pool. Practice over and over again the basic skills that you learned when you take your license such as mask clearing, regulator retrieval, SMB deployment etc. those basic skills can help you in times of need. Also learn from other experienced divers, this is my favourite things to do, I love having conversations with more experienced divers or dive instructors. We can always learn from their experience and that would add into our knowledge when we’re dealing with problems underwater.

And for me personally, I would be more comfortable to dive with people that I know or have dived with. Why? Because then I already know their diving habit and vice versa; so I can rely on them. I know they will watch over me as much as I will watch over them. But then again, it's a personal preference, you can still have fun anywhere and with anyone as long as you keep safe and comfortable during your dive.

If you are a newbie, don't worry, keep diving! experience will add to your diving skills and if you are just recently thinking of taking a diving license, take your time to know the dive instructors of your preferred dive education organisations before finally choosing a dive instructor, as for me, I'd look for a strict dive instructor who emphasize more on the quality of the diver instead of just qualify them. Because no matter how fun diving is, the activity also has risks and as a beginner you would need someone to lay the right diving foundation and teach you well about safety and proper diving ethics so you can dive safe, comfortable and also friendly to the ocean :)

Taking Back Control.

Anyone here using Microsoft Lync for communicating or maybe Skype For Business? If you are using one then you will notice that they have this feature that enables you to share your screen to the other person you are chatting with.


In the feature you can give control to the other person to fully do things in your computer like editing your presentation files, fixing the excel formula and other things. Once you want them to stop you can simply take back the control from them or they can give back the control to you once they are done. That person of course, doesn't have a physical access to your computer, your computer will be fully yours and they can only do things in your computer only if you give them the control.
It's pretty much the same with life.

You life is yours to begin with, but you can allow who has the control over it. You can allow the wrong people to take control in your life by letting their negative comments sinking into your heart and mind, by letting them treat you less that you deserve or even by letting them hurt you and you hold onto that pain.
 
When you start other people to control over your life, you will stop growing, you will stop living and you will waste the potential within you because you are stuck with what they've done or said to you. Let it go, take over the control over your life and come out as a winner, come out courageous and brave. Be forgiving, forgive those who have hurt you so they no longer have any impact in your life. Rise from the ashes and believe in yourself.