A travel hack

How do you prepare your travelling?

For any travelling, I always prepare myself especially the things I have to pack. I don’t want to have something left behind that probably will ruin my traveling.

For this, I always make a list of things I have to bring considering the purpose of the traveling, how long and also how far including clothes. The longer the traveling, ussually the longer the list becomes. This list shows the details. I put them categories :
1. Travel documents
2. Clothes (tops)
3. Clothes (buttoms)
4. Clothes (inners)
5. Clothes (underwears)
6. Footwears
7. Electronics
8. Luggage and bags
9. Books and pen
10. Cleaning products and cosmetic products
11. Medicine
12. Food
13. Misceleneous like umbrella, sun glasses, tumbler and many more

The list can become really long. The longer the stay, the longer the list. It depends on each individual and also each one’s priority.

This list really helps my memory, it doesn’t have to think unnecessarily. The longer the trip, the earlier I prepare the list.

I remember I jumped out of the bed in the middle of the night remembering I had not put a pen refill in my luggage and my flight was the first flight in the next morning. It was a vacation trip. I prepared myself to write during that trip so enough pen refills was essential for this trip.

My roomate in the retreat program recently was amazed when I told her that I made the list three weeks before the date of our departure and I packed my stuff a week before. She only did her packing one day before the date of her departure. She became more amazed when I showed my list. It showed the details.

She said to the other roomates that I had everything including umbrella, kettle for boiling water, cable extension, coffee, scissor, trekking stick, envelope, knife, ginger candy etc. Until in the last few days of our stay one of them asked if she could borrow a weight scale from me to weight her luggage and I replied: ‘Probably one thing I don’t have here is a weight scale.’ 😊

I also remembered when a friend offered me for a staycation with her last year. It was in new year eve. We stayed in one of 5-star hotel in the middle of the city. I did my packing one day before. I arrived at the hotel at 11 am and I called my friend to tell her that I had arrived at the hotel. Our plan was to do an early check-in so we could explore the hotel to know what facilities and what programs they had that we could participate. To my surprise my friend was telling me that she had not packed her stuff in her luggage. She was just about to do it. She was still at home and she didn’t have any list.

I waited for her at the loby of the hotel and finally we checked in at 2 pm. It was fine with me. I went around the reception area and found a ballroom which had a table tennis and I played table tennis with a teenaged boy who was happenedly there. I enjoyed it. We actually had a pleasant and memorable stay.

How much words can work

It has been a week I am here in a retreat program. I planned to join this program a month before. I prepared myself before leaving. My roomate here said that I am a good planner. I also planned what to do and what not to do during retreat. I want to take benefit for myself from this program as much as possible. I want to learn as much as possible, not only from classes and lectures but also from sharing with other participants and also from observation.

One of my favorite corners in this retreat place for my reflection

I put a limit for myself in accessing internet and social media platforms. This is what I can not do in my normal day where I always carry my smart phone with me. It seemed like I cannot live without this device even just an hour. I want to prove for myself that I can live without a smart phone for several hours a day.

Ussually I read one quote as a thought for today for myself. I do it in the morning. Then I also post it on one of my social media platforms. Quite often my friends or my contacts get inspired also by reading the quotes. Some thanked to me for posting it.

It is amazing how words can work really positively on people. This is a very easy way to inspire others probably also to uplift others. How do you feel when you are reading an inspiring quote? Does it give you a positive feeling?

A few days ago I got a message from my little friend, a 10-year old boy called Marvell. He wrote to me why I did not post any inspiring quote anymore these days. I felt so sorry about it. I told him that I am in India and I am too busy to read and to post one. Probably I should make time for this today or tomorrow knowing at least someone is waiting for the post out there.

We never know what one quote can do to someone’s life. We never know if it can relate to someone’s situation and probably become the answer for their questions.

Mount Abu

I think I have to be thankful to my colleagues. Deep down in our hearts we are supporting one another though superficially we sometimes look like Tom and Jerry to one another.

Our communication has been so open that anyone can say anything about any of us. No one should get hurt or probably ‘should learn not to get hurt’. We learn one another’s personalities without any judgement and learn to accept them. If we are full-time working probably we might spend our times with our colleagues more that with anyone else. So when your relationship with those who work with you should be enjoyable.

When I became a bit more reactive, some colleagues said to me “I think you need ‘namaste’. You have not gone to a retreat for several years.”

I have been practicing meditation and they call it ‘namaste’. They are very funny. They understand meditation helps, at least what they see in me. When I began to be a little bit reactive to a situation in the office, a colleague said “You have become like us. So you urgently need a ‘namaste’.” They were aware of me being different from them and they wanted me to stay different. It is intereating to know this.

They even asked me to get the nearest schedule for a retreat for me. They encourage me to go and I have planned to go to Mount Abu India.

Joy Of Missing Out

December this year looks different from December last year in 2021 and definitely different from one in 2020. At least what I see in my office. Some colleagues have started to prepare their family vacation during Christmas holiday and New Year. Some even had their early year end vacation last week. I think it is a good idea, because hotels are fully booked for new year and prices have gone very high.

December last year I went to Bali for a short escape with a friend. Though we were still shadowed by the Omicron variant but we decided to go to Bali. We went early December last years anticipating the crowd during Christmas and new year. Bali just started opening for tourist last year. Many hotels were not ready for receiving guests. I remembered we booked a very nice hotel, 4 star one in Ubud with a very good price, later we knew that not all the rooms were open for guests. Not fully booked last year. Today, no need to ask. I think most of the hotels are fully booked including ones in the city. Since staycation has become a choice nowadays for those who don’t want to travel.

December in 2020 was a completely different story. Noone was talking about having a holiday. Most of the hotels were closed. Many restrictions were applied everywhere. My colleagues and bosses got covid after a kick-off meeting. Some even needed hospitalization. Sadly a colleague left us forever only a few days after the new year. Covid was very scary in those days. It was still unknown.

Seeing the scenes, what people around me are trying to enjoy the holiday and also feeling the vibes make me feel so good inside. The moment is back!

Today was the last working day before Christmas in my office. Some colleagues even have taken their leaves starting today. In my room, there were only 3 of us, holiday vibe was felt. A colleague told me that she is going to take her kids to Komodo island. They plan to stay there for a week. Just listening to her, I was feeling excited.

I myself will not go anywhere. I am very far from ‘fomo’, while everybody is away, I would prefer to spend time with myself at home. I can do it for days and I enjoy it. Being in solitude is also a luxury. In fact I am more ‘jomo’, joy of missing out.

Living with inspirations

When you need an inspiration, what do you ussually do? Or where do you go?

Do you need an inspiration in your day to day life or not?

Where do you go for an inspuration?

In my case,  I have several targets to achieve that definitely need some fresh inspirations. Firstly I have to give a public talk or workshop to serve community once a month. It is always a free topic. No one gives me a particular topic. This is a monthly target. Secondly  I have to write a weekly post for this blog. Thirdly I have to write at least four journals every morning. These are my personal targets.

The third one is very easy. This is about my daily reflection. It is based on my experience, observation, what I read or what I listen in a class. To achieve this target, I just need to make time in the morning and a solitude. That’s it! Ideas seem to freely flow. I do not experience any pressure doing this because basically I am just expressing what is in my head.

The first and second ones are not always easy. Sometimes I feel stuck. I need some inspirations. Sometimes I need a different atmosphere also.

Today I decided to go out for an inspiration. Today is a weekend. I carried my laptop and books in a tote bag (a shopping bag). When I was just getting ready, my neighbour who was happenly in his garage asked me “Where are you going?” Our houses are just across to each other.  “Just looking for an inspiration.” I replied, leaving him with a smile. He knows me and understands what I meant with that answer.

I went to the nearest Starbucks Coffee. Starbucks ussually does not fail for this purpose. When I got there, I saw some people were busy with their laptops. This coffee shop is located in separated building, sharing space with a marketing gallery for property. It is suitable for a working space during weekend. I spent three hours there. I found it was a quite productive weekend!

Happy weekend everyone!

Boredom

I like putting ideas in my head in writing. If someone asks me why, my answer would be in the sake of clarity. Yes, when it is put in writing, it becomes clear to me. I like writing everything, an idea or an issue that is occupying my head.

If it is an idea, it allows me to see how much I have understood. If it is an issue or a problem, it allows me to see the root cause of it and what possible solution or probably just a way to deal with it.

Long time ago a friend asked me if I have written a topic on boredom. I think she was feeling bored at that time. Another time she said to me that she was feeling overwhelmed. I then tried to recall if I had written one. I didn’t remember. I think I never write about this topic. It doesn’t mean that I never feel bored. Sometimes I also feel it, but it never becomes an issue that I have to really pay attention and seek a remedy.

I like to put myself as a learner. I see life around me and also nature as an opportunity to learn something. There is always something new that I can explore. The world around us is like a very big school and all of us are students. There is always enthusiasm in being a student. You will always find it as a life long learning process.

The exam would not be fixed in timing. The question would be different for each one. We can not copy it from other students. The good thing in this process is that we are still allowed to fail. We are given a chance to learn again.

How do you deal with boredom?

Learn to forgive

A few weeks ago I gave a public talk on forgiveness. To be honest, this is the topic that I had avoided for so long. But I decided to take this topic to share to people. I decided to put the tittle ‘learn to forgive’ instead of ‘forgiveness’. To forgive is something I need to learn.

I heard from many people around me saying ‘God is forgiving. Why do we not forgive?’
I have the conviction that God never gets hurt. He doesn’t take sorrow from anyone’s behavior nor wrong doing in the first place. He doesn’t take time to forgive and also to forget it. His intellect is always accurate, He doesn’t keep any waste thoughts. His heart is always clean and pure. Nothing or no one can ever hurt Him. So He is definitely forgiving. But human beings are not God. We never become God. Our hearts easily get hurt probably because our hearts are so weak. We have lost so much power. We take a process to forgive, it means we take time. and it is OK, just keep taking the process. So we need to learn to forgive, and also forget.

My friend said that to forget someone’s mistake (probably also our own mistake) is the highest level of forgiveness. We need to do something to forgive, but I don’t think that we need to do something to forget. When you forget something happened in the past, you can not recall it anymore. It doesn’t exist anymore in your memory track. When the memory is too strong (probably also strongly hurt), usually the memory stays for a long time. And we can not forget it. If something reminds you of a situation that brings hurt, your emotion might get triggered. The whole story might come up on the screen of your mind. If you have got healed, the emotion won’t get triggered even if someone tries to remind you. You remember the situation, the memory is still there, but you no longer get triggered. I think it is also another level of forgiveness, before we forget it completely.

Now look at your heart. Ask your heart if you have completely forgiven everybody or you still learn to forgive. If you are still processing it, you still learn to forgive, you might need to forgive yourself first for this. Don’t put more burden on yourself by disliking yourself for still not being able to forgive others.

A forgiving heart

This is what is called life

A long time friend has just visited me. She is married with two children. They have grown up, so when I offered her to come to my house and spend the night during weekend just for something different, she quickly agreed. She said that the children didn’t mind at all.

Are you a morning person or an evening person?

We spent every morning going in the botanical garden near my place for enjoying the nature. I think everyone agrees that nature is a quick mood booster at least both of us found it true.

She is an evening person, it means that she really likes enjoying evening. She wanted to spend the evening sitting in my veranda and said “Evening is very short. It will turn into dark very soon.” I was smiling in fact listening to her reasoning. I think I am a more morning person. I enjoy morning time more than any other time during the day. Morning time is my most productive time, ideas seem to flow in my mind, sometimes best decision I made in the morning. I don’t want to miss my morning time. It is my precious time, my valuable treasure more than anything else. We can not buy time.

As a morning person and almost everyday spend the evening working at office, I could not understand the beauty of evening time. I rarely enjoyed my evening relaxing, being in nature. I also don’t understand some people enjoy sun gazing in the evening. It is the moment of sunset. I think the sunrise in the morning is more beautiful.

When I joined my friend sitting next to her enjoying the evening, she said “This is what is called life.” I looked at her and feel amazed.

This is what has led me to journaling

Very recently I was invited to give a sharing session by a company for their managers. It has become a regular event in the company as development program for their employees. I talked to the general manager of the company and asked about the topic they wanted me to share. In corporates, the most popular topic is related to soft competencies like leadership, communication, decision making, coaching etc. I am aware that many people out there are probably better than me in delivering those topics. I reluctantly offered the general manager if I could share on dealing emotions through journaling. I think it is not a popular topic in corporate, at least here. Somebody said to me that writing is not popular in most Asian countries. Surprisingly he was interested to this topic.

I said to myself “from now on, I need to know each and every expectation I have created”

I was very excited preparing the presentation. I focused on the audiences, what they might need relating to deal with emotions in their day-to-day life in office. No one is free from negative emotions. Ussully the trigger is the people they work with, either their co-workers, subordinates, bosses or even customers and clients.

I remember what has brought me to journaling was also from a situation in office. In fact I have to thank to my co-worker who had taken a credit from me in a meeting and it triggered my emotion. I realized I was feeling very uncomfortable and low. I also remember I said to myself “I need to do something”. Surely not paying back to her, but dealing the feeling inside. and I didn’t know what to do at that time. Similar situation might be reoccurring in office and I don’t like the feeling. The situation in the meeting and the feeling have led me to a book on how to deal with negative emotion. This book said that the reason of each and every negative emotion is an expectation. This was just the book I needed to read. Probably God has arranged it for me and given me a way.

I said to myself “Okay, from now on I need to know each and every expectation I created that had triggered my emotion”. And not only knowing it, but also writing it. Since then I have been processing my emotions and expectation in writing.

A lesson from nature

I have been having grass jelly plant in my garden since long time ago. I remember I bought this plant more than 15 years ago in a flora exhibition. This is a climbing plant. It climbs up trees nearby and also the fence. It gives a lot of leafs from which we can make grass jelly drink. I think it is a natural and healthy drink with a lot of chlorophyll in it. I think it is an eternal plant. The gardener who cleaned up my garden had cut it many times and I thought it might had died but it has grown again and again. Probably its root was not completely pulled out from the ground. It is now growing so well with a lot of leafs. I just realized that it has been crawling the gate now. I am sure it will cover the whole gate very soon.

This grass jelly plant is eternal.

I learn one thing from this plant that nature never becomes corrupted. Plant is part of the nature. How wildly it grows, it is not corrupted. It takes nutrition and water from the grown and also light from the sun to grow, not more than it needs. Even when it grows ‘wildly’, it is not called a corruption. A plant grows not for itself.  They give leaf, flower or even fruit, but those are not for themselves. Plant, like animal they don’t develop any greed. They are not selfish either. It is human being who develop selfishness and greed. It is human being who exploit nature out of greed. No wonder that nature has a very good energy or vibration. It heals. No wonder that many people like being in nature. It gives really nice and fresh feeling. It is healing our souls.