Wisdom-to-share

Once Dalai Lama said, “The purpose of our lives is to be happy” The statement is very strong and simple. How many of us believe in that statement? How many of us think to be in that stage of happiness? I was in the talk show “All is well” from Ajahn Brahm the author of the book “Who ordered this truckload of dung? Or Opening the door of your heart” He is a great author and a great monk. In his book, he shared simple funny stories to open our heart to see happiness in every single thing in life and see problems in positive perspective. Ajahn Brahm told one story that in life we used to show our pictures, wedding pictures, and graduation pictures. All pictures are good pictures with happy faces or happy moments in life. We wouldn’t put our bad pictures. However we all like to keep the bad memories in our mind. It might be because we want to hide those bad memories from other people or we love the bad memories and they become our attachment. If we love to show the world, we are happ...

It was one of my busy days; suddenly I got a message, “Miss, do you want a chicken pie?” I was so hungry at that moment; however I couldn’t escape from my teaching time. The young man came to give me two pieces of chicken pie while I was starving during my teaching time. I was touched by that simple action. He is a brother of one of my students. We knew each other through a social network. World is so small and we met in the same building. I promised to have a chat with him during my lunch time. Right after teaching, I saw him standing and there was something in his hand. He gave me that box and I asked him, “What is this?” He said, “A cheesecake for you Miss” I was wondering, “Why do you buy me a cheesecake? “ He walked besides me and he said, “O… I saw in your status something about you want a cheesecake for your birthday” Ops… I forgot that I wrote in my face book about a cheesecake on my birthday. When I wrote it I didn’t think someone would keep in his mind. This young ma...

Age is a matter of feeling, not of years. Washington Irving My husband Jozef is not an expressive person, no wonder if his friends always say he has standard smile and standard expression. It was Sunday, right after church, we were in the car to visit our parents. Suddenly he said, “You have more gray hair now” I looked at him and asked, “Do you mind if I don’t want to color my hair?” He gave me a standard smile and said, “It is up to you as long as you are happy” I replied him, “I am happy with my gray hair and wrinkles in my face and it is my choice” We just celebrated our birthday in the same month. He is just a year older than me and we will be married for twenty one years this year. The journey of our relationship started since we were in high school. Seventy five percents of our ages we spent together. Actually both of us are getting older in the same time. We had a discussion about old age along the way. It is common; when we are getting older we want to kee...

The end result of kindness is that it draws people to you. Anita Roddick Walking through the security door and receptionist is my ritual every day. Sometimes I have to do it more than four times a day. No wonder if the security staffs and receptionists know me very well. I always greet them with smile and sometimes I tell a joke or just a short motivational story. Since they knew I am a teacher, they love to ask me some random questions or to teach them English language. I was happy to share my phone number with them, so they can send me any questions. As the result I got many SMS and questions, but I do love to share in my life. Last Friday, I got SMS from one of the receptionists who liked to ask me to translate for her. The SMS said she bought me a glass of mixed ice and she put it in the front desk. Yes I remembered, she promised to buy me an ice every time I did a translation for her. Actually she was not longer working in that building, but she came just to bring me a glass...

It was in the afternoon, I sat in the corner of a coffee shop. I always sit at that coffee shop to teach my student or I just wait someone there. On that day I looked around and I observed people were busy ordering drinks. My mind was frozen a bit to capture the moments. I didn’t have anything that I wanted to do at that time. My mind was browsing randomly my memories. Out of sudden my heart told me to do something for someone. As John Ruskin said, “A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money” Right away my mind went to my student who would bring her dad to Singapore to get some treatment. I really cared about my student, she is not only my student but she becomes my sister. I sent her message whether she needed any help to find a good doctor for her dad. I got her message yes … she needed it. With the power of internet, I sent email to my handsome friend in Singapore, I asked him about the doctors. And in a couple minutes I got the doct...

It was Saturday night two days before Chinese New Year 2012. I got the invitation from a good friend to have “fine dining at French Restaurant”. In my life I only had a very few time having “fine dining”, I believed not more than ten times. It was a bit awkward for me being surrounding with many forks and knifes, sometimes I made a joke about how difficult to recognize which knife can be used to cut or to kill, and it was easier for me to recognize the chopstick because they didn’t have “left or right”. Anyway my friend is a very handsome and extremely smart I couldn’t reject the opportunity to know people better, especially when the setting was in the one of the most expensive restaurant in Jakarta. I was in a very nice restaurant with three handsome men. We talked about random topic and suddenly one of them asked me, “Miss Lina, how do you enjoy your life? “ It was like a table topic speech for me. Yes… that was really a good question for me. I don’t really like shopping; I don’t ...

If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit. Oprah Winfrey It was December 13, 2011 we arrived safely in Texas and I was so grateful for the opportunity to bring back my mom to visit United States. I wanted to share my belief about “Life is not about age, life is about the spirit of life itself”. My mom’s last trip to United States was 22 years ago and she was 55 years old at that year. She didn’t want to visit USA again because it considered a long trip in the airplane, especially when she got older and older. She was worried about her health, her legs and there were many reasons not to go to America. I thought, maybe the biggest reason she didn’t want to be a burden for somebody during a long trip. In July 2011, it was two days before her 76 years birthday at one o’clock in the morning, my daughter woke me up and said, “Mom … wake up… please wake up.. Something happened with grandma” My daughters always slept in my mom’s room. I jumped f...