Darla!

Category: what’s inside my head

  • Happiness is a Matter of Choice #HappinessProject

    One of the happiest moments in my life: riding Gajah Bledug in Dufan

    There are a million reasons to be sad: breaking up with your significant other, losing a pet, being broke and tied in debt, having to be away from your family, Gaza war, starvation in Africa, et cetera, et cetera. When something bad happens to you, you may feel like the sky is falling, the world is crumbling down, your life is shattered into pieces, and the universe is so unfair. I know. I’ve been there before. And yes, I agree that it feels like nothing in this world can beat you in the Pain Olympics. What you experience is the worst.

    And of course it’s perfectly fine to feel so. Pain is a part of learning who you are. It is a part of growing up; a test to assess your worth. It is the gate to happiness, and as God has promised, there will be a relief for every pain.

    But please bear in mind that happiness is just a matter of choice. All the heartbreaks I’ve ever experienced have taught me that the key to happiness is believing that you are, indeed, happy. Once you’ve chosen happiness, the wall of sadness that’s been built around you will start breaking down. You will be able to see that the sun is still shining, the wind is still blowing, the world is still turning, and most importantly, you’re still alive! You survived the pain, passed the test, and now you’re one step closer to wisdom. Nobody can guarantee that you will never experience any more heartbreaks, but darling you’ve beat one helluva pain, any other pain will be a piece of cake for you from now on. You’re stronger now.

    And at that moment, you will see that God never breaks His promises.

    ***

    #HappinessProject is a project held by Hijabers Community Jakarta. The main event, called Hijab Day 2014, will be held on 27 April 2014 at Mall Gandaria City. See their blog for more details.

  • Don’t Feed The Troll


    I admit that I am a troll.

    Yes. You read that right. I am a troll and I enjoy reading GOMI, though I have only written like 3 posts in the forum. I enjoy hate reading a particular famous blog that’s got a 500+ page thread on it and silently nod whenever somebody points out that the blogger(s) pull out too many pigeon toes. I also enjoy creeping on my Facebook’s news feed to read people’s statuses and laughing at their whinings. And if I find that someone I hate posts statuses about how shitty her job is and how they haven’t paid her for two months or how ‘unmanly’ her boyfriend is, I feel like a winner. Yes, I admit that I am that kind of person.

    Since I am such a horrible person and such a troll, I can tell you this:

    Don’t feed the troll.
    Don’t whine on social networking sites.
    Be smart when posting something that the public can read.

    In the age of digitalised social life, we often forget that there are literally million people out there who can get access to our private life. We often forget that when we post about (let’s say) family issues, not only our families or close friends can read that; the entire population on our friends list can also read it. Now, check your friends list. Out of those 2,000’s faces, how many of them are actually the people you know in person? They can read your posts, your private posts, unless if you limit what you share.

    So, here are some things that you may consider. (Remember, these come from a big, fat troll that I am, so you can say they are legit tips).
    – Stop whining.
    – If you just can’t stop it, use the privacy settings on Facebook very wisely. Put all those people in your friends list into several lists, so you can choose which lists can read your personal statuses and which lists can only read general posts (like those cute cat videos you share from YouTube).
    – Carefully accept friend requests. A big fat troll that used to keep bugging you and whom you unfriended a long, long time ago may create a fake account and try to friend you with their new account (yes, that shit really happens), so it can be useful to carefully choose the requests you accept.
    – If you blog, please bear in mind that you have chosen to give strangers the access to your private life. Therefore, you should be ready to be judged and criticised. Don’t be such a cry baby and/or drama queen; it makes us trolls even happier and gives us even more stuffs to snark about.

    Life is never simple, you guys. It gets even more complicated in this era. The trolls are horrible, but at some points, they can also be right. Now, if you could handle listening to what they’re snarking about, you could actually get some tips on how to make you a better person/blogger, and thus give them less things to gossip about. Just don’t feed the troll, alright?

    Image via

  • November

    Unlike January through October, November has been quite slow. It feels like my whole life is moving in a slow motion. I started this month with a heartbreak, and now I feel like it’s already months ago, when it’s really just been three weeks. Three weeks that feel like three whole years for me. I’ve been as busy as I was in October, but that doesn’t make November feel any less long.

    Now, if I could just make the rest of the month count…

  • Life, etc.

    I’ve been back in Bandung since Saturday morning, but somehow I didn’t have the passion to connect my laptop to the internet and come back to the blogosphere. Right now I have 100 unread posts on my Bloglovin dashboard with no idea how to read them all before I get another unread post. You blogger ladies surely have such high creativity that I don’t *sigh*.

    Anyways, I only got to spend like five days in my grandma’s house Eid week this year. I spend less and less days every year, which is sad. I remember that when I was about 7 or 8, my family used to spend the whole Ramadhan there. Changes are inevitable.

    But, I’m going to go back to Lampung at the end of August to attend my cousin’s wedding, so it’s kinda okay.

    If you really read the title of this post, you might have (or might have not) expect a post with a kind of life update or something. Well, I did intend to do that, but now I don’t think I want to do that anymore. And I don’t have the energy(?) to change the title. But here’s a picture of my sister and Bill watching anime:

    Later!

  • Dealing with Midnight Anxiety

    Ramadhan mubarak, people! It’s already the fifth day of Ramadhan (or for some of you it might be the sixth) and I’ve been busy worshiping God by the most convenient ibadah of the month: sleeping. Not good, I know. But I have a legit reason behind it. I started Ramadhan with a good sleepless night. I didn’t sleep at all before facing the first day of Ramadhan because I had a serious midnight anxiety attack. All the worries I’ve had for the past year came altogether that night that I couldn’t even close my eyes without feeling the urge to ugly-cry.

    I did, however, get over it fifteen minutes before getting out of bed to help my mum preparing for sahur in the kitchen. I haven’t had any more midnight anxiety since then, though that one did screw up my sleeping schedule.

    About one hour before that, I opened the email app on my phone and started writing to someone I trust. At first, I really intended to send the mail. After spending an hour writing about my anxiety without re-reading and changing any single word, I decided to just keep it as a draft. I may or may not send it someday, but saving it into the draft successfully released me from the midnight anxiety attack I was having. It was really helpful.

    I guess I’ll do it again if someday I get hit by yet another anxiety attack (not just the midnight ones).

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