Vacation at home in Indonesia is not complete without cleaning my room. There are always things to throw as I always have a hard time to be detached from memorabilia, clothes, or papers. As I grow old(er), some things lose the value and I manage to reduce them. For example, last year I reduced one-box-per-high-school-year of memorabilia (total of 3 boxes) to one-box-for-3-yeards-of-high-school.
As I read my doodles in my agenda and diary or what other people wrote about me, I came to realize how lucky I am to have known some people now, particularly my spiritual director and people who give me formation classes.
So here they are: list of things I wish I knew when I was a teenager:
I wish I knew earlier...
1. that I can and should attend frequent confession, and that it would give a great benefit for me.
When I was about to receive Sacrament of Confirmation, a priest did tell me that sins are like thorns in the flesh (my last confession before that was in Primary 6!). Thus I somehow knew that I need to attend Confession frequently, but the people around me generally go twice a year and unlike in Singapore, priests do not sit in confessional 15minutes before Mass. I guess it's because of the limited number of priests in parishes in Indonesia.
Furthermore, when I read what people wrote about me, I became more aware on how bad my temperament was (or is to be precise). It's there. It's always been there, just that the manifestations change a bit. When I was primary school, my mom often scolded me and joked a bit that my lips became 5centimeters longer when I showed black face =P Now of course I don't do that kind of thng, but I do show black face when I'm corrected or unhappy with silly little things.
2. that it is important to guard my heart
You know..those silly period when you had crush here and there?
I think I was a bit emotionally attached and wasting too much time dreaming or day-dreaming.
Thankfully my parents never ally with idleness and my brother's and my schedule is always full, but still I would love to know earlier that it is good to not feel too emotionally attached with other people.
3. that I need to know about home-making
I study study study study study and 'only' study when I was teenager.
I am really grateful that at least my mom make sure that I wash my dishes =P but I only iron my own clothes on regular basis in university @.@ (unlike my friend) My own mom is a home-maker since I was 9 years old, so I never despised home-making, but I really little knowledge in home-making skills and need to catch up a lot now. hahaha.
4. that I need to choose good books
I was looking through the books that I read and I realized that I could've spent the time reading better books. I only started reading Indonesian literature such as Pramoedya Ananta Toer's works in university (ironically, through a module called Modern Indonesian Literature in a foreign university!). I didn't know that there were books that were considered 'classics'. My friend is a librarian and when we had garage sale last year, she got the job to select books that were not so appropriate to sell. Some of the titles were actually popular on bookstores and that experience opened my eyes and made me hope that I knew these earlier. Once we organized a discussion on 'how to choose good books'. I really like the explanation that my friend gave. We only have limited time on earth and there are so many good books to read! Why would we waste time to read bad books? Another explanation is similar with our physical health, we try not to eat junk food on purpose. We also obviously do not want to take poison. The same thing works for our mind too. We don't want to poison our mind with books that can be harmful to our mindset.
That's all for now. Hahaha.
Anyway, get up and start again =) Happy mid-year!
As I read my doodles in my agenda and diary or what other people wrote about me, I came to realize how lucky I am to have known some people now, particularly my spiritual director and people who give me formation classes.
So here they are: list of things I wish I knew when I was a teenager:
I wish I knew earlier...
1. that I can and should attend frequent confession, and that it would give a great benefit for me.
When I was about to receive Sacrament of Confirmation, a priest did tell me that sins are like thorns in the flesh (my last confession before that was in Primary 6!). Thus I somehow knew that I need to attend Confession frequently, but the people around me generally go twice a year and unlike in Singapore, priests do not sit in confessional 15minutes before Mass. I guess it's because of the limited number of priests in parishes in Indonesia.
Furthermore, when I read what people wrote about me, I became more aware on how bad my temperament was (or is to be precise). It's there. It's always been there, just that the manifestations change a bit. When I was primary school, my mom often scolded me and joked a bit that my lips became 5centimeters longer when I showed black face =P Now of course I don't do that kind of thng, but I do show black face when I'm corrected or unhappy with silly little things.
2. that it is important to guard my heart
You know..those silly period when you had crush here and there?
I think I was a bit emotionally attached and wasting too much time dreaming or day-dreaming.
Thankfully my parents never ally with idleness and my brother's and my schedule is always full, but still I would love to know earlier that it is good to not feel too emotionally attached with other people.
3. that I need to know about home-making
I study study study study study and 'only' study when I was teenager.
I am really grateful that at least my mom make sure that I wash my dishes =P but I only iron my own clothes on regular basis in university @.@ (unlike my friend) My own mom is a home-maker since I was 9 years old, so I never despised home-making, but I really little knowledge in home-making skills and need to catch up a lot now. hahaha.
4. that I need to choose good books
I was looking through the books that I read and I realized that I could've spent the time reading better books. I only started reading Indonesian literature such as Pramoedya Ananta Toer's works in university (ironically, through a module called Modern Indonesian Literature in a foreign university!). I didn't know that there were books that were considered 'classics'. My friend is a librarian and when we had garage sale last year, she got the job to select books that were not so appropriate to sell. Some of the titles were actually popular on bookstores and that experience opened my eyes and made me hope that I knew these earlier. Once we organized a discussion on 'how to choose good books'. I really like the explanation that my friend gave. We only have limited time on earth and there are so many good books to read! Why would we waste time to read bad books? Another explanation is similar with our physical health, we try not to eat junk food on purpose. We also obviously do not want to take poison. The same thing works for our mind too. We don't want to poison our mind with books that can be harmful to our mindset.
That's all for now. Hahaha.
Anyway, get up and start again =) Happy mid-year!
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