I spent all weekend reading the first three books out of four Laskar Pelangi Tetralogy . The first two (Laskar Pelangi and Sang Pemimpi) are truly un-put-down-able. Totally. I was so engulfed with the wordings and detail description I read it through sahur until maghrib. It was so educating, funny and far from lecturing. I would recommend any warm bodies to read them.  

And today, as I spent almost half day writing an essay that (I hope) would guarantee me a seat in my dreamed business school, the theme of the essay -which is ‘The Meaning of Success To Me’- I found my self ending up equaling Success with Happiness and below is an excerpt of what I wrote:

The meaning of success to me is if  you could balance things that are important to you in your life and doing that within the boundaries of your religion and norms.

When I wrote the summary, my mind went to Ikal’s struggle for education and better life in Laskar Pelangi. And yet, he never once compromise his religion and values. Never once, disrespect his parents and family. His Lone Ranger was his distance cousin. A relative. He even ditched his beautiful girlfriend who he thought the value is very different than his. He did not give up to the influence of physical love.

And I learned so much in these two days from these three books.

I learned that Memory of Childhood is very powerful. Much more powerful than the most expensive toys a parent could procure for a child. It will serve as blue print to the values of the children and inherit it to their children too one day. Our descendent. The Next Generation. And I remembered, that long time a go, a child Psychologist told me, “Sometimes we give our children things that they don’t need, and most of the times -under the name of work etc- we didn’t give them what they truly need. What our children truly need are our time and undivided attention.” And tears welled up my eyes remembering all the time lost, all the small improvement I missed and times when I really disconnect with them. I hope it’s not too late now…

I also learned that you have to chased your dream. You have to have a dream, and not let your life flow day by day without any objective. And the objective you have, you have to pursue it. Make effort to get it.

The other thing I learned is every single aspect of our life, every single dissappointment, big happiness or small achievement, all the motional roller coaster we rode, people we met, people we said good bye, people we loved and people we despised…they all are pieces of mosaic of our lives. When things fell into place, as years goes by, we’d understand why it happened. Everything happened for a reason. We are yet to give the knowledge of it today. Just be patient and you’ll learn. God is not ignorant, He was only waiting for the right time to give what we prayed for.

Last but not least, your faith, your effort and what God wrote for you will affect your life. But even if we don’t succeed in accordance to the human’s criteria, it might be a major achievement in another area. Happiness will not come with promotion, more money or more credentials. Neither will come with having family or big luxurious houses or more cars. You need to have the ability to create happiness within your self. That even a small thing, as long as within the boundaries, will give you a happiness, without a side effect. The process is as important (if it is not more) than the result.

Hah, I feel so hungry now with all these serious thought!