Remain Joyful; overcome the Jealousy and Anxiety

Hello guys, here I would like to share my dreams and how I standardize the life-goals. I dream of being successful young entrepreneur (success before 30 YEAY), the world recognizes your existence. I dream to live in western country like Europe or America, and marrying a western guy as well 😂😂. I dream of living in a big house, saving with countless digit in my bank account, traveling to many beautiful & exotic places over the world.

But it's so shocking form while some people posses all what I want, but still decide to end up their life instead of enjoying all of them.

The world was shocked over Kate Spade & Anthony Bourdain's death these past months. I'm not fan of them both, but after their death I read some of their biographies on Internet. They are brilliant, amazing and inspiring persons with a lot of achievements. Actually they are not the only famous & rich persons who decided to suicide. Many inspiring persons out there like Jonghyun (the lead singer of famous korean boyband, SHINee), Robin Williams (one of my favorite comedian actors), some of them ended their own life tragically.
They can have countless digit savings in their bank account, they don't only have money, they also have popularity, luxury, they don't only win "things" they want in this world, but they also have won half of the world's population's hearts, they are adored by the world, their art-works are recognized by the world, and their hard-works have impacted and gave happiness to the world. So, I can really feel the world's loss over its best people.

But if those things (my dream)s are the requirements to the perfect-life; Robin Williams, Jonghyun, Kate Spade, Anthony would be the happiest persons in the world, and I might be the most phatetic person in the world. BUT they did end their life. So, what's wrong with it? I don't mean to judge what they have done, despite I admit it's a wrong thing to do. Everyone has their own problems, and we cannot compare everyone's strength in enduring the burdens & the pain.

If you open up the Bible, we will find out that thousands years ago, God has given us some directions to have a happy life. One of the verses I pick up coming up from

Proverbs 17:22  A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

I'm not expert at storing happiness, but here are some practices that I (always) do to have a joyful heart and mind, especially overcoming my jealousy:

1. ASK HIM

First if you are not having peace at all in your heart, what you're gonna do is ASKING HIM, because He is the provider of eternal peace💧💕. 

It's a quite shocking that the one makes me realize that my prayer is wrong is my father (my father is non-religious person, he never goes to church in his life time) but he does realize me that life is not always about money, popularity, and luxurious life, it's a about HEART and MIND. He said instead of asking God being rich, asking Him to give you a joyful-heart.

 So I changed my prayer from : 
"Lord, make me success person, I want to make my parents proud, and I want to be RICH person. I want to travel the world, so my future children never ever feel suffer in their future life and I can school my children to the higher degree in the best university"

to

"Lord, grant me a joyful and humbled heart, center my heart and my mind to you, so that in any situation I can still feel joyful and for what You gives to me, let it be the channel of Your blessings to others."

God never promises us to take away problems from our life. Maybe each of us may have different difficulties such marriage & financial issues, family issue. They may steal your joyful heart and mind for awhile but do not let them stay any longer.

Ask Him for a  joyful-heart and He will grant you a new heart. No matter how hard your burdens are, you can still feel peace in your heart.

Every time I feel sad, no peace and feel bad for myself, I always come to my church after back from office (I pass the church from office to home). I pray alone to Santa Maria Cave at my church and I confess all of my feelings and ask Him to fix my heart.

At least openness is the beginning of recovery. When you cannot trust person to share with, trust Him to share your problems in a prayer.

this is where i usually pray

2.THINKING LESS ABOUT "ME"

In my case, my big issues are my mind 💣 & my heart 💔.

Do you know the phrase which says :

"Thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to actions. Actions leads to results." 

So, I never underestimate how thoughts could have power to control something big. That's why putting our mind in the right place is important. Your mind can lift you up or otherwise can knock you down.

I am so insecure of myself, I am also feeling less and less, I'm afraid of disapproval and rejection, I'm trying to live my life on how the society nowadays standardize and it makes me never enough of my self.

As for the simple thing when I'm writing this post. There is a necessity to be read & complimented by people; When people scoff at my writings, it would make me down. And vice versa, when people like my writings it makes me excited.

I center my self too much on me. Sometimes it becomes pleasure and a necessity when I can show off the best out of me and people do acknowledge it. I live for myself. Sometimes we value our self based on what we have achieved and how people value us.

But I try more to not thinking about "me and me", I'm writing here as what on my mind and for my gratitude for Jesus. I just want to share God's kindness in my life. So, when people judge and scoff at what I write, it will never impact my joyfulness and I will keep writing no matter what haha😁😀.

So I try a lot (still in the process of learning) for what I have done is not to please everyone but to please Jesus. I really hope He can smile in heaven when look at me! 😀😀😀

The less we think of our self, the happier we will be, and the more we think of our self, the less happier you will be.

Focus yourself on Him and you will find peace in your heart.

And also there is the time when I'm envious of my close friends' success. Seriously, it makes me sad and feels so bad for my self.
I graduated first among my class-mates in college, I got the job faster than most of my friends, but there is still something missing in my heart. When I see my friends who just get a job higher than me, I got so envious, and for my friends who can live and study abroad I also got envious.

Some moments when I think my joyfulness has been stolen by a silent thief - envy- I ever tried to deactivate my personal account on Instagram and tried every day to mediate so that I can have peace in my heart.

After that I open again my Instagram, I tried to be rejoice for them. And now I can overcome my jealousy over my friend by thinking less of me and thinking more of them.

I have many more experiences while I'm thinking more of others decreasing my worries. You can maybe once try my idea; look the weak around you, instead of spending your money for your desire, give the money to them. At one time, I've been to food festival, and I saw the blind man who was waiting for people to buy his crackers. At first, I planned to buy hamburger for me, but as I saw him, I bought his crackers. Even though at that time I was not wanting crackers, but I don't know why as I saw him I felt so joyful inside my heart.

3. ENJOY THE LITTLE THING IN YOUR LIFE 

The requirement to joyful-life is only being content; being grateful is not only necessary when you have a lot of good things to be thankful for and have no problem at all. Being grateful means no matter how conditions you are, and no matter how big problems you are facing, you still can see God's kindness inside it.

Maybe for some people and me sometimes it's a simple thing that quite hard to apply. But thank God, we can ask Him to give a joyful-heart for free. God has the ability change heart and mind, I do believe that. In my case, sometimes I'm too lazy to pray and thinking it's not gonna work, tomorrow my problems are still the same. But trust me when I have problems and pray for it, slowly but surely I can overcome every problem in my life.  Life without problems seem like soup without salt. The problem is our heart & our mind.

I've felt so stuck just living in Bekasi nothing special at all. But if I look deeper and around, I have my family, my sister, my dad, my mother, my dog. I set some time every day after going back from work to talk with my parents and sister, we laugh together over just little things.

Not only that, I used to think that I would be happy to visit exotic places around the world, now I don't have to travel abroad, maybe just around Jakarta, Puncak with my big family also has made me happy and grateful.

While I'm complaining about my job, now I will do my best in office and enjoy every time to finish my duties and have talking with my colleagues.

We all agree that being rich is not wrong, totally not.But we still hear a lot of rich persons end up their life, that's why it's important to ask God for the guidance so that He can keep our heart and our mind in the right place from all of the negatives thoughts.

I'm also running a restaurant as my side job to have additional income. It's not crowded yet. You know 5 customers in a day is a miracle for me😂. There is many time force me to give up. Moreover when your parents oppose you instead of supporting you. It's a hard time for me. But now I try to believe in God and ask Him to keep my faith and spirit on fire no matter how hard it is. I'm grateful that God still gives me a chance to be productive and try hard not to wasting my time. Every time I got the customers I always immediately pray to thank God and hope the will return again next day.

But there is the time when I also complain like "if it remains like that how long I will earn millions and brings my parents to here and there and I can show off people that I've been established in this young age.", but now instead of thinking about how realizing my desires, now I set my mind to think how my hard-work is for God's glory, and the channel for His blessings, and yeah it makes me less worried.  

Now, I'm trying to close my eyes & mind over how nowadays the world & society standardize the happiness, life-goal, and relationship-goal. Instead of comparing I start making my own! :)

"the more you count your blessings, the more they increase"

4. SMILE OFTEN

Believe or not, when you smile over little thing, it can increase your joyfulness in mind. So learn to more often smile.

Well, how depressed you are, and how worst you ever feel for yourself, don't take away your life. Your life is precious, you are not mistaken either. God still needs you and He can change the situation. If you need any friend, I'm here ready to listen to you. :))))

People's desires on mind may be limitless, BUT so is the joy in our heart. Don't let negative mind limit off our joyfulness.