Jika Ingin Berteman

Apabila kau ingin SESEORANG sebagai teman,
Janganlah kerana kelebihannya,
Kerana mungkin dengan satu kelemahan,
Kau mungkin akan menjauhinya...

Andai kau ingin SESEORANG sebagai teman,
Janganlah kerana kebaikannya,
Kerana mungkin dengan satu keburukan,
Kau akan membencinya...

Andai kau inginkan SESEORANG sebagai teman,
Janganlah kerana ilmunya,
Kerana apabila dia buntu,
Kau mungkin akan memfitnahnya...

Andai kau inginkan SESEORANG sebagai teman,
Janganlah kerana sifat cerianya,
Kerana andai dia tidak pandai menceriakan,
Kau mungkin akan menyalahkannya...

Andai kau inginkan SESEORANG sebagai teman,
Terimalah dia seadanya,
Kerana dia seorang TEMAN,
Yang hanya manusia biasa...

Kelemahan ... Kekurangan ... Keburukan ...
Kalau itu yang kau boleh terima dari seorang TEMAN
Tidak mustahil kau akan memperolehi keseimbangan dalam berteman
Kerana kau juga tidak sempurna,
Tiada siapa yang sempurna...

Missing the boat...

We often say we want only the best and nothing but the best. But when the best actually came along, where were we?

Tears

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand toungues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love...

I Believe

I believe- That we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.

I believe- That no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in awhile and, you must forgive them for that.

I believe-That true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.

I believe- That you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

I believe- That it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.

I believe- That you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.

I believe- That you can keep going long after you can't.

I believe- That we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.

I believe- That either you control your attitude or it controls you.

I believe-That regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.

I believe- That heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.

I believe- That money is a lousy way of keeping score.

I believe- That my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time!

I believe- That sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down, will be the ones to help you get back up.

I believe- That sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.

I believe- That just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

I believe- That maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.

I believe- That it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.

I believe- That no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.

I believe- That our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.

I believe- That just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other, And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I believe- That you shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.

I believe- That two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.

I believe- That your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.

I believe- That even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you - you will find the strength to help.

I believe- That credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.

I believe- That the people you care about most in life are the essence of life. Tell them today how much you love them and what they mean to you.

The Most Beautiful Heart

One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.
Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, "Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared -- how can he say his heart is more beautiful, they thought?
The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its state and laughed. "You must be joking," he said. "Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears." "Yes," said the old man, "yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love - I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.
Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the other person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges -- giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?"
The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man's heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.
~Author Unknown~

Cerita ini mengingatkan aku pada abang. Dia bukan manusia sempurna tetapi bagi aku, dia memiliki hati yang begitu luhur. Semalam aku luangkan masa membaca sebahagian emel daripada abang yang memenuhi kantung inbox hotmail. Terasa bagaikan abang ada di sisi menemaniku membaca setiap bait kata yang tertera. Dalam puluhan emel yang aku ulang baca semalam, aku amat terkesan dengan kata-kata abang yang satu ini.
"Kita ialah makhluk Allah yang paling istimewa tetapi kita sering melupakan keistimewaan itu dengan mengatakan kita cuma manusia biasa. Sebagai manusia biasa kita pasti terkhilaf namun kekhilafan kita bukan semata-mata kerana kita manusia biasa. Kadang-kadang kita terkhilaf kerana kita menidakkan keistimewaan kita. Jadilah manusia biasa yang istimewa. Istimewa dengan cara kita sendiri."

Menyusur kembali setiap kenangan bersama abang membuatkan aku semakin faham maksud di sebalik kata-kata itu. He loved me dearly. He knew all my secrets...deepest, darkest, most dreadful secrets of which no one else in the world knows...and yet in the end, he didnt think any less of me; even if the rest of the world does. Sesungguhnya abang seorang manusia biasa yang istimewa dengan caranya sendiri. Mampukah aku mencontohi abang untuk menyayangi manusia di luar sana dengan sebegitu ikhlas? Mampukah aku memberi sinar kepada orang lain seperti yang dihasratkan oleh arwah Tok Ayah sewaktu menamakan aku dulu. Bukan mampu atau tidak tapi memilih antara nak atau tak nak!

Abang,
Hari ini seperti 6 tahun yang lalu, adik tidak lagi berkesempatan memeluk dan mengucup tangan dan pipi abang untuk mengucapkan Selamat Hari Lahir. Hanya doa dihadiahkan semoga abang aman di sana. Maaf kerana sudah lama adik tidak mengunjungi pusara abang. Adik tidak mahu lagi membasahkan pusara abang dengan air mata. Cukuplah adik mendoakan kesejahteraan abang dari jauh.

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.”

Kebelakangan ini aku dikuasai emosi. Terlalu. Emosi aku seakan mengalirkan lahar yang sekian lama terpendam. Lahar itu tidak meletus tapi cuma mengalir perlahan. Namun cukup untuk menutup pandangan hati aku tentang sesuatu yang selama ini amat aku mengerti dan fahami. Sedar atau tidak aku telah melukakan hati insan (mungkin insan-insan) yang amat aku sayangi. Ya...aku manusia biasa yang selalunya tewas dengan emosi tapi itu bukan alasan untuk aku menidakkan kesilapanku. Salah tetap salah dan aku tidak malu untuk memohon maaf.

Dear bro,
I know that you believe I understand what you think and what you said. But I'm not sure you realize that what I heard is not what you meant. There is a great difference between knowing and understanding. You can know a lot about something and not really understand it.

I take you for granted vs You take me for granted

When was the last time that one of your loved ones came up to you and with a lot of excitement said, "I just heard this guy talk about something very profound. He was saying... such and such. Isn't that amazing?"
And you felt a wave of strange energy, as if somebody just poured a bucket of cold water over you. You didn't know how to react, because you were thinking, "I have been trying to tell you the same thing for such a long time, but you never heard me. And now it takes a total stranger to say the same thing once, and you take it as a message for the heavens...."
While disappointed with the process, deep down you are also happy that they "finally got it", but you wished it could have been done much sooner, when you first told them.
And then, there is the other side of the coin. When was the last time you approached one of your loved ones with considerable excitement and said, "you can't believe what I just heard. So and so was saying such and such... isn't that amazing?"
And you were waiting for them to share the same excitement at receiving this revelation, and be just as inspired and energized as yourself, but all you get is "the look". They try very hard to be congenial, and eventually utter something benign, or even lame. Something like, "that's nice!"
So you are thinking to yourself, either they didn't get it, or it is one of those things that they just had to be there...
Why is it that we consider strangers to be bearers of heavenly inspiration and messengers of the divine? Why is it that those closest to us very rarely - if at all - have the same impact?
And conversely, why is it that we constantly make impact on strangers and those whom we hardly know, yet when it comes to the ones we love most and have known most intimately, we can seldom make a dent?
They say everybody is a hero in somebody else's town.
This is very evident in the stories of the lives of the prophets. Jesus was a carpenter in Nazareth, yet Christ everywhere else. Mohammed had to migrate before he was taken seriously. Prince Siddhartha could not become Buddha until he left the Palace. And Zarathushtra made very little impact in his own hometown. Only when he got to a faraway land, did he manage to change the world of his time.
While reflecting upon this notion, I realized that it is in our nature to become familiar with what is surrounding us. Our home becomes familiar, our town and the local streets, our workplace, they all become familiar. And after a while, we know exactly where everything is. We even know the potholes down our street.
And in the same way, our companions, those with whom we spend the most amount of time, become very familiar to us. We know exactly what they look like, and how they behave... except that they change and they generally grow to behave differently with time.
Just like the potholes down our street may be fixed and paved over, the potholes in the character of our loved ones also fill up - and perhaps some new ones are created - and the grooves in their features also change - and generally multiply with age.
But because of our familiarity, we rarely look at them with fresh eyes, and even more rarely interact with them with a fresh mind.
We take them for granted, and they take us for granted. We don't hear what they say because our ears are already full of what they would say. But we hear the voice of the stranger, because we have no preconceived notions - at least not until they open their mouth.
By the same token, our loved ones are not receptive to our wisdom, but venerate the wisdom of strangers. We try to justify it by nice spiritual platitudes such as "when the student is ready, the teacher appears". But that is mainly to convince ourselves that our wisdom was sound and we are OK.
In a way, taking someone for granted is a defense mechanism. A shield with which to protect ourselves against exposing our ignorance. If I can disregard what my loved ones say, then I am really no dumber than they are.
But why do we accept the fact that we are also taken for granted? Perhaps that too is a defense mechanism. If I am taken for granted, then the gems that I share become commonplace. Once they are devalued to that level, or should I say, once I have allowed them to become devalued to such a level, then these gems of wisdom are no more than colored glass and bits of quartz found on any beach.
And if the gifts that I can share, are not really of that much value, then I don't have to go through the trouble of sharing them with others. And thus I have relieved myself of my human responsibility of sharing my gifts with the world.
The less I have to exert myself and go out there to give of myself, the more I can crawl back into my comfort zone. And that gives me further opportunity to shield myself, by being taken for granted even more. What a wonderfully effective self-defense mechanism. It feeds on itself.
Except that it misses one thing. It may bring us comfort and ease, but the cost of that comfort is the loss of our humanness.
So what is the solution? Can I force myself upon my loved ones? Can I force them to not take me for granted? Should I push myself upon them, over and over again, until they finally get it, and acknowledge that I have all these gems to share with them?
Of course not. Like everything else, the solution is an inside job. The only reason others (those close to me or otherwise) may take me for granted is because I have taken myself for granted. And the only way I can stop taking myself for granted is by stopping to take others for granted.
So my only way out is to have the spirit of a child - to look at the world with fresh eyes, to hear everything with fresh ears, and to interact with everyone with a fresh mind.
So the next time we connect, if I take you for granted, don't get upset with me. Just smile at me, and wink - and I will know....