For me, two thousand seventeen was a year of total mixed feeling, a year of incomprehensible chaos, a year of unpredictable events, full of surprises, yet also a year of new hopes and possibilities. It was the year where religious intolerance rising into new height in Indonesia, a year where global politic seemed to be spiraling into dangerous turns, a year where mighty fast moving consumer goods’ growth put into a slowdown, or a break, or even a breakdown. On the other hand, for some others – like the tiny boutique agency that Riri and her partners started five year ago -- 2017 marked an unprecedented successful result. On a much smaller scale, after so many years of wanting, I was finally able to visit and savor slowly two of my most favorite cities of the world: Istanbul and New York in 2017. Plus another 2,000+ kilometers crisscrossing Down Under with the family on year end. To top it all, I manage to close the year by landing a satisfying deal to kick start 2018. Both the trips and the new start are to my own sweet surprise.
Personally it was also a year of change: change of responsibility and change of how I should better juggle the balls of life in my hands. It was a year of me questioning so many things about my future directions. What I have gained so far, and in return, what cost I have to pay. It is a year of facing my own fear and being critical to my attachments. It is a year of letting go, and at the same time, a year of opening up. This was also the year of reconnecting to kindred spirits and revisiting some elements of myself I have been neglecting for few years till 2017.
It was the year that beckoned me to be more reflective and receptive at the same time. The year that made me paused more often to formulate my thinking, to clarify my belief, and to jot down my conclusions and aha moments.
These are some of my conclusions triggered by personal events and my special encounter with 2017. Hope to never forget those lessons I learnt from that one of a kind year, which all in all, a truly happy year! :)
What about you? What are your 2017’s lessons? These are mines.
ON RESPONDING TO CHANGE and CHALLENGE and on MOVING ON
- When you let go, you create space to better things to happen to your life (Buddha)
- Change leads to discoveries
- The new law of the conservation of energy: when one door closes, another opens
- Always remember: we are free man by action, often time held captive by our own belief
- Relax. Nothing is ever under control. Clear your mind. Respond gracefully.
- Pay attention to the cracks. Because there is where the lights get in (Leonard Cohen)
- Playing it safe is dangerous (Found it somewhere on the net, I don’t know who wrote this)
- If you hit the wrong notes, it’s the next notes that makes it good or bad (Miles Davis)
- Success is the function of the numbers of experiments you have done.
- Keep throwing darts to the dartboard. Never Stop. It's that simple!
- Challenges are sources of energy
- Only passion can breed innovation
- Keep the rebel artist alive in you! (Norman Miller)
- When it comes to you VS the world: is it a struggle to find your place in the world, or is it more of an internal battle to become comfortable with who you are? Embrace your true north, stick to it!
- If you go back to your core and have fun, good things will happen.
- Best time to be happy: right now!
- Two things keep you away from living the moments: your attachment to the past and your fear of what will happen in the future. Carpe the hell out of the diem!
- Happiness is like orgasm. The more you think about it, the more it eludes you. And like orgasm, the excitement of happiness lasts only few seconds, the joy and the thrill is in the process
- Often time, wanting is better than having
- Future of the future will still contain the past. Be thankful to whoever and whatever has helped bring you to today's success
- Resilience is achieved by practicing hope (for the future) and gratitude (of what has happened). But brilliance will only be achieved by practicing an all-out focus (on the now).
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