Reinhard Gouw's Journal

I know that sometimes it is better to keep something to yourself and not tell someone. But I think it is also not wrong that it can be worse when someone finds out what you're hiding from them by themselves.

You lie because you are afraid of someone's reaction when you tell the truth. But maybe you'd wanna do that only when you have good intention. To protect someone else, to protect them, or anything. Never lie when the only reason is just to protect yourself, just to make sure they keep liking you. It only means you're self-centered, you want them to see you the way you want to be seen, not the way you really are. If they are meant to stay, they'll stay. If they're not, they'll leave. If you lie for your image's sake, the relationship between you will then be the lie itself.

Never disappoint someone by lying or making excuses too much. It makes it hard for someone to trust you. Moreover, it tends to get really nasty at a certain point.

When we were little, most of us lay our days on our parents' hands, letting them protect us, guide us, place us, teach us everything we need to know. Some of us grow up with abundant love and care, some without. Despite that, we still believe that we're gonna be safe as long as we shelter inside their arms, because they're the ones who brought our existence to life. They're our superheroes.

As we grow up, we start to have our own opinions which sometimes differ from theirs. We start having this little fights, thinking they don't understand "this era", and maybe our opinions are really better. We become rebels. We start trying to do things our own way; lying to them when needed, just to try to go along with the plan. Then the fights become bigger. It becomes the fight between principles, or maybe between "my era" and "your era". We think they'll never gonna understand. But that might not be the worst.

Not all children experience this, but what's worst is the moment you found out that your parents become the person they always protect you from becoming, doing the things they get mad for whenever you even just talk about it, and in the end destroying the belief all your life they've been sharing with you to hold together. That exact second, it breaks you to pieces knowing that they aren't perfect, that your parent isn't that superhero you've believed them to be. that honestly they are humans. Just like us. They're humans who have flaws, who can't stand temptations, who can be a hypocrite at times, who can lose grip of their own words. The other sad reality beyond that is we can't always shelter anymore, we have to find a grip of our own and survive in the wild.

With this post, I'm not hoping to make children hate or question their parents. I also acknowledge that I've never been a parent. What I'm trying to say is maybe it is a false popular belief that we believe in or that parents plant in their children that they're superheroes. Undeniably, parents are also humans; only, they lived longer, brought us to this world, took care and nurtured us. The perks of being humans are that we are learning throughout life. Everyone is still a student of life, differing in ages. To expect too much of parents are to forget that they may also do "things", or the ones we call mistakes. And thus we blind ourselves from the probability of that to happen. When it finally does, we get mad because those expectations are broken.


Maybe it's fair to think they're superheroes when we were little. But there is a time when we grow up to be aware of their humanly flaws, and still love them. Take the good attributes, the strength, and just throw away the bad ones. They are just like us. We don't have to hate them just because our expectations over them are violated. In the end, maybe it's even fairer to see them struggle with their "dark side", and still love them anyway. Above all their horribleness, they gave us a beautiful gift: a chance to be in this complex maze called Life. And that's the reason of the breath you've been taking up to this second.

To parents, or future parents, maybe we don't have to be perfect for our children. We don't have to build those overrated expectations for them. We don't have to hide from them our probability of making mistakes. We don't have to always be an almighty for them to feel safe. Maybe we need to put some layers of our "I'm always right" down, and instead train them to have their own version of "strength" and "right", with the hope that they will be a better person than we are in the future. To tell them that it is normal to be imperfect, that they can still find happiness and satisfaction in life with that condition.


When I have a child of my own one day, I won't force in his mind that the world is a harmless place. I will nurture inside him that the world is not like the ones in fairytales, but I, with all my imperfections will love him and help him get through it. I will tell him that he's a fighter, and ask him to put his trust in this older knight as we walk through life, until he's ready to become a knight of his own life.

 Imagine you are standing inside a circle of columns. Each column is an aspect of your life. One might be family, the others college, talent, friends, relationship, anything. These columns are supporting your life. Your job inside these columns are to maintain each, so that it will not go down. But sometimes the wind is too strong, even comes with lightning that strikes one of your columns. And it's out of your control.


When one of them suddenly breaks, it doesn't mean that everything is over. Remember that around you there are still other pillars supporting your life. You can still choose to keep maintaining them, even when you are hurt by the broken one. The shattered stones might hurt you, but not your whole life. Latch onto those columns. If you can, try fixing the broken one. If not, try building a new one. Sometimes, storms are there to tell us that we need to make stronger columns.

Whatever storms you are in, stay alive. Always remember to latch onto something. Even the smallest ones. In life, there is always something to smile about, only if you choose to.

We may think we got everything under control. We might be the most drama-free person in this whole earth. We may be that kind of superman with super self-healing ability. The toughest guy.

But we can never deny the fact that we are still human. We are just like a pot with different boiling points. You might have 100, I might have 150, someone else might have 240. But no matter at what point we boil, we still boil anyway. We have to do something before we go on a downward spiral of self-destruct.

One way to do that is to spill the weights down. As much as I'd love to deny it, I never thought I needed other human to cope with my problems. Until the point when I realized I had too much on my own back, and had to spill it somewhere 'less I want to go psychotic. That moment when I was on the edge, I knew that if I let it stay inside the pot, it would rattle savagely and break the pot itself. And when I spilled some on a trustworthy friend, I surprisingly bursted into tears. I thought I was OK with everything; even at the moments when the problems happen, I felt nothing profound. I could still feel and act normal. But my unconscious realm said otherwise. I realized it was defending me this whole time, keeping everything on the label "OK". And then it was just tired.

So I guess it proved to me that we really are social creature. It's not a matter of getting an advice or answers that magically solved everything. Sometimes what our soul really needs is as simple as to be listened. It lets it map out things. It lets it rest. And after, it stands up again and fight better - with less burdens.

(it can be friends, family, or God) when you're in fear. Fear only makes you seek social or spiritual strength even more. In the end, negative feelings are there for a reason. And if you seek to see it from this point, it actually turns you back to positive feelings. I think this is where "No good exists without bad" happens.

Time flies.
As time goes by, many things happen with it. Good or bad, euphoric or traumatic. These things brought changes. Even ones we never imagined before. Ironically, change is the only thing constant in this world.

Not only things change, but those who we know. People.
You never know when you try to reach out to a good old friend whose accompany you always enjoy, who you got each others' back; only to find them acting as if those times weren't there. That you are nothing more than just somebody they used to know and that you're in different worlds?

I've never given a care to this damn people-relationship world. I'm not quite a fan of friend-drama. But somehow it almost feels sad that I lost someone who used to be so close to me. It's like what's back there, the past, was in parallel world and will never comply to the present. It was good times, and to know that such fact has become only memory is..saddening.

Sometimes, there's a need to try to get them back. Remind them of how we were. A little hit on the head won't kill. But if that person thinks of you as nothing of their concern anymore, even make you feel looked-down at, well then take a leave. Your friend is gone. Maybe it's better burying that fact. It doesn't exist anymore. You live in different worlds. It's dead.

I'm not an expert in this, but you can always choose to make people feel valuable by remembering them, how you were together. When you think you reach a different place, remember you were somewhere with them together in your journey here. Without them back then, something would be different in your story. Maybe they were the ones making it a good story. Maybe they were the rainbow in the rain. Even maybe, they take parts in you being here right now. At least respect people you spent quality time with.

That's why I dislike how humanity bothers someone. Without feelings everything would be so neat.

It's a good day to be grateful.



Some things in my life turned around.

Last year I chose a path that I've been avoiding in the previous three years of my life. I made decisions that disappointed many people, including myself. Things in life started to change. Because of my anger, perfection, ego, and some ultimate choice. As I walked in that path, the thorns and bushes started appearing, left and right, it made me want to run and just screw all the riots. I didn't realize that as I ran faster, the thorns pops and hurts even more. Just near the end of the year, I stopped to realize that I left scars everywhere.

I started to learn that running and just punching bags was awful. I thought to myself, what if I try to walk slower? I never denied that this is not the best path for me. But I've been forgetting all along that it's still a part of my journey. I don't want to stand further in front, then look back just to say "what was that?" I want every road to meaningful. I want to be here.

As this year started, life started throwing lessons about mindfulness for me, through movie, through other things, and many things that I believe are incoming.
Mindfulness is about being here. Just being here. Right here, right now. With this laptop in front of me, with this 20:55 clock on 25th January 2014. The one I love is still with me, I lay on my bed in a house that I'm living in with my mom who is downstairs, my dad and sister that aren't home yet, and even my dog named Vodka who is alive and naughty as ever. I have good friends who I just had a good time with and they're there for me. I'm still in my favorite campus that is starting again soon. No worries about the next neither the previous time. No fast forwards. Who knows if those details change tomorrow, or the day after, or the month, year after; but it's definitely here right now and I should enjoy it before that happens. Because the only thing constant in life is change, and we can only do best by enjoying all the positive details that are inside the bucket right now.

this long speech of myself,
and
Today, I realize that changes happened. It brought positives in the bucket more than ever. Some speed bumps that's been worrying every now and then is slowly fading. Scars are starting to get mended. As you try to close your eyes to the negative and just slowly feel the beautiful details of your life in your skin, your eyes, your mind, and that feeling of the air flowing in and out of your nose. Just, wow. Life's beautiful and you're alive.

Let life forces try and take you down: people hating you, bad conditions, even your own bad thoughts, but always believe that there are always other positive forces you can latch onto. Once you do, life will seem better. Happiness is always a choice.

Just, God, serenity, thank you for coming down to this human who still makes bad decisions about life. I never deserved this but, thank you. I'm grateful for this day.



What can you be grateful for right now?

I just watched the movie About Time (2013) starring Dohmnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams. It was recommended by my sister as she told me it has good life lessons and made her cry and things. So I searched for the DVD for a long time and I just got it today, and straightly watching it when I got home.




Beware of spoilers!

The movie was about a guy named Tim who could travel back in time, as the men in his family line does. He used his ability to fix things that went wrong, or just slightly not perfect for him. He was doing it until 2 major events happened in his life.

First was his sister's accident. She was fighting with her guy and then got into a car crash. Tim went back in time with her sister to his teenage and make her get a better guy. It was a success attempt that her sister got a good guy (Jay, Tim's bestfriend) and evaded the accident, but when Tim got home, he saw that his little daughter was then a boy. His father, who inherited the same ability, told him that after having a son, a reckless change in the period before can change the time of making love, so that the sperm would be different and thus the baby would be different. So Tim decided to undo it to get her daughter back. Then, Tim learned that some things in life should not be changed. So Tim persuaded her sister to get a new boyfriend and mentioned Jay. From there things worked out for her sister just as it should be.

The second was his father's death. After Tim had his 2nd child, his father's cancer was getting worse. Tim told his father to repair that but it was his father's smoking habit since the time he hadn't met Tim's mother. He also said that a sexy smoker is her mother's attraction, so he couldn't possibly change that. Then Tim was accepting his father's death. Even on the day of the funeral, he's still able to come back to the past and spend time talking to him. Just some time after, her wife asked if they would have a 3rd baby for good reasons for the others. Tim was caught into a heavy contemplation because if he decided to have the baby, he wouldn't be able to return back and meet his past father ever again. It was a short moment until Tim said yes. And just before her wife gave birth, he returned to a quality time of him and his father and said to him that it's a goodbye. He kissed his father and his father took him to a memorable childhood day. They enjoyed their last moments together and Tim let him go.


At the end of the movie, Tim stopped using time travel and learned a valuable life lesson about time:

"We’re all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride".

We can't travel back in time. We can't fix things to make the present better. We can't evade someone precious' death and enjoy more time with them. We don't know how much time we have left doing what we've been able to do, with the people we love. And yet we still spend our time worrying about unnecessary things that it blocked the present; our senses, our feelings, everything. We missed all the small details that we can enjoy.

"Worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum".



When we get in a fight with someone we love and let the anger, the irrational thoughts take over; we forgot that we don't know how much time left we have with them. Can you imagine fighting everyday with your brother/sister/mom/dad/girlfriend/boyfriend/best friend, and 10 years from now how would you see that. I imagined living apart from my family when I have my own, and with this stinky attitude of mine I wouldn't be too satisfied about my past. Maybe we're not mature enough to see through that but we're back to the fact that time changes us. We don't really know if we'd just forget those moments or demand those moments back. Back to the quotes above.

What about you?


I hope you watch the movie as well because it's a valuable 2 hours to upgrade someone's life.