What A Time To Be Alive

If I had written this post on October 1st or 2nd, I'd have written the title as "What Do I Do If I Miss You Tonight" or "I Miss You So I Write It Here To Pour Out All The Longing", but I didn't, so I gave it the title I've been thinking of for the past few months. I might have been a little bit overconfident in the last post, where I wrote that I had already gotten over everything that made me cry a river at the beginning of 2025. After that post, I had several relapses to the point where my friends were tired of listening to the same old stories over and over again.

My latest relapse was at the beginning of October, almost a year after that, during the peak of the project at work, personal life, exercise plan, and anything in between. I cried my heart out, longing for someone that I should not miss anymore. On those two days, I brought myself back to several years ago, during the peak of my projects and my confusion about how things should be at work. I had someone who could give a new perspective to me and reassure me that I could do things. Years later, I literally went through a lot of things alone, without him. I literally cried the whole day on October 1st. I even cried at the mall after my friends left me alone. Yes, you read it right. I. cried. at. the. mall. I dragged myself to buy soap at the supermarket, and the cashier had to witness my teary eyes while accepting the payment. The only time I didn't cry was when I needed to lead a meeting. #BigGirlMoment

I had the biggest urge to write all the sad words that my mind had and to pour all the longing into words here. But I promised myself to store more positive things instead of negative things in this memento. So here I am, writing about all the sad scenes from several weeks ago with peace of mind. The project was finally done, and I started to regain my sanity. I haven't cried lately. Even during my run under the crazy heat from Gadog to Cisarua last Saturday, I didn't cry at all (almost tho). Life has been so calm, and I love the kind of peace that I have recently. I even had my 14-hour sleep last night after pulling an all-nighter to finish an assessment. I even ate my favorite food today, twice, for lunch and dinner. Unagi Kurofune for lunch and Gyukaku for dinner. So I'm thinking, maybe this is the right time to write a long post here, because I don't have any enormous feelings, and I can write something more objectively.

I chose "What A Time To Be Alive" because despite the ups and downs, the hazy sky in SEA, a truly unwise government, a bad economic situation, and yada yada, I'm still blessed with a roof, health, family, a job, and good people surrounding me. It doesn't mean I'm happy looking at how the national economy is spiraling down. I mean, despite everything, I'm still hopeful and rely on God's provision. Despite the declining economic conditions, tech excites me again, just like circa the 2000s when I first encountered tech and the internet, with the rise of AI. Even though it's challenging to find enough time to explore everything, I have endless items on my list to explore. Safe to say, I'm looking forward to tomorrow with these endless items.

So yeah, what I'm trying to say is, I'm turning 30 soon, leaving my 20s behind. It has been a wonderful decade. I lost some, I gained some, I even gained weight lol. I even realized that a lot of my goals in life were related to a person in this decade. Which is why, even until now, I haven't decided what's next for me because...turns out I lost myself along the way. With the fast pace of technology and endless doomscrolling of quick content, I found myself getting even more lost in the unnecessary noise. In this post, I'll try to list the lessons learned from the past 3 decades I've lived. So that if Eka, several years from now, feels like she's lost, she can always go back to this memento and relearn what she should do.

#1 Life Plan Should Not Lean On A Human, But On God's Calling

I'm not trying to make it like a theology class, but recently I've been feeling nostalgic and recalling a lot of moments in my life. Thinking about the next step in life brings back memories of Eka at 16, being unsure of her future and not knowing where life would take her. But that brave girl made a long list of plans from A to Z, brought it to God, and prayed, "God, these are the plans that I created, but let it be Your way. If none of these plans align with Your will, let Your will be done." And by God's grace, she didn't need to go through plans B to Z. Her plan A somehow aligned with God's plan, and she flew to Bandung, to the place with cool air (that's what she told her dad when asked why she chose that particular uni as her only choice) that even until now takes up a big space in her heart. The 16-year-old Eka only had her faith and some random gibberish words on this blog that took her to Bandung, which led to the best 3.5 years of her life. Eka in the last year of her 20s is a coward who can't even put on her shoes to take the first step. Somehow, the wisdom I've gained has come with the burden of fear of taking risks.

At a Sunday service several weeks ago, the sermon was about the principles that we need to hold onto when we want to make a decision. The principles are a) lean your heart towards God (this was what the 16-year-old Eka did); b) check whether the goal is to be a blessing to more people (little did that young Eka know, her courage became an inspiration to her little brother. He has now grown up so well. I'm beyond proud of him); c) stay obedient and trust God's promise. He doesn't promise us a toll road, but He promises that through everything, He will be there for us.

Looking back, for the past few years, I was so busy trying to achieve things because of the noise around me that I rarely asked God what He wanted from me. The noise came from everywhere. Social media, the wrong people, and my mind that kept chasing after someone and thinking that if I achieved those things, maybe I would finally be worthy. Having many perspectives is nice, but you need to be able to differentiate which ones are insights and which ones are noise. Next time, use the three principles above to distinguish between what truly aligns with God's calling and what is merely noise that distracts you from it.

So, if you're not Eka from the future and you're reading this post and feel blessed by the courage of young Eka, let us all say thank you to her. She was just a dreamer with nothing but faith that God's plan was the best plan for her.

#2 I Need To Accept That I Can Not Just Float Around, I Need To Have A Plan

After what happened in 2025 and 2024, I decided not to make any plans for 2026. I'd just float around on this planet. For the first time in forever, I don't have any list of things to achieve, timeline, or anything as my personal target this year. Mind you, I've been making New Year's resolutions since forever, since junior high school, I guess? As young as 13 or 14 years old. It's more than half of my life.

How does it feel to not have a long list of things to achieve this year? I feel a lil bit...lost? But the list is still at the back of my mind. This year, I checked off two of the many items on my before-30 wishlist, which are diving and completing the ITB Ultra Marathon. Without my annual life review, I didn't make a timeline, hence the crazy schedule I have this year because I just went with it without proper planning.

So I will keep being that weird human who does an annual review and makes proper plans for my life. It might be weird for some people, but I hope my future partner will love it too because I believe life needs to be planned well. Even with a proper plan, things can go wrong, and without a plan, the schedule will go crazy, just like what I have this year.

#3 Be Kind And Truthful To Everyone, Including Yourself

I always tell my friends that I'm kind not because I want everybody else to treat me kindly too, but because that's just the way I am. That's the value that I hold. But most of the time, I only share kindness with others, without leaving anything for myself. One of my friends was wondering why I have to be so harsh on myself. As much as I can be considerate of others, I should be able to be considerate of myself first. As much as I can encourage others, I should be my number one cheerleader too. I'm at the age where I should be able to control the noise in my head. I should be able to say nice things to myself as much as I say them to others.

Truthfulness is another value that I hold, because no matter what, the truth will never betray you. But being truthful also means being honest with yourself. Honest about what you feel, what you want, what you can and cannot control, and most importantly, knowing when to let things go. Sometimes, I think I was being truthful to myself, but it turns out I was just trying to convince myself that everything was okay when it wasn't. I was so busy trying to understand others that I forgot to acknowledge my own feelings.

And I think being kind and truthful should go hand in hand. Being truthful doesn't mean you have to be harsh, and being kind doesn't mean you have to lie to yourself just to feel better. You can acknowledge your mistakes without punishing yourself over and over again. You can accept that things didn't go as planned without thinking that you're not good enough. And you can be kind to yourself while admitting that there are still a lot of things you need to work on. Kindness without truthfulness can become self-deception. Truthfulness without kindness can become self-punishment.

#4 Your Heart Always Knows What You Truly Want

After realizing that there was too much noise in my life, I kinda pulled myself away from everyone. I only spent time with the people that I trust, went to the gym, drowned myself in my work, and attended Bible study at church. One of my friends asked me during the first session of our running practice, "It's been so long since I've seen you. Why did you pull yourself away from everyone?" I just shrugged my shoulders and gave some random answer. Because the honest answer would be too long.

But from the time I spent pulling myself away from everyone this year, little by little, I learned that my heart always knows what I want. But it's my head that always tries to rationalize things, limiting me from pursuing what I truly want because of all the possible risks, uncertainties, and what-ifs. As I enter my 30s, I hope I can give myself more time to really figure out what my heart wants, before it's too late to do something about it. And may I be able to stop letting my brain limit what my heart wants, but instead use it to break down those dreams into smaller, more granular pieces that I can incorporate into my everyday life. So that instead of spending too much time thinking about what could go wrong, I can actually start taking small steps towards what I truly want. 

I actually still have a lot of things to write, but the night is starting to shift into morning, and as a grown-up who has responsibilities, I shall stop here. I'm not sure whether I will have time to write the next lesson learned. But this is the longest post I've written on this blog in a decade. I'm just grateful that the writer Eka is back hahaha. It feels so good to be able to reminisce about the past decade and try to squeeze it into a blog post from a third-person POV. Definitely what a time to be alive. 

This year, I did a lot of side quests. When I turn 30, I will shift my focus back to the main quest. It's time for me to rebuild my career. I've always wanted to pursue my master's degree, so I need to get back to this and find the right major, country, university, and scholarship for myself, and find a suitable partner because now I'm 100% sure that I want to marry someone, and I know I will be a good mother (hopefully, because I learned it from the best, a.k.a. my mother). Okay, I'm already too sleepy to be able to write well. Nighty night!

Ciao!

Eka in her last days before turning 30