“Faj, when abundance of
happiness strikes your life, find any way to share them with people inside and
outside your circle. Because shared felicity would double its
natural healing effect. Writings, photographs, drawings, conversations,
anything would work!” – A Good Friend I Met in Brazil.
With the basis of that very thoughtful wisdom from a good friend, I
am here to share certain happiness I have encountered recently in my very
ordinary life. Interpreting this as a showing-off attempt of a realistic
attention-seeker is your call. My call is that I earned all this happiness with all my sweats and
by sharing it here I’m having a good expectation to inspire my loved ones not
to give up easily, but more into persistently maintaining their perseverance at achieving their ultimate goals of life. So ladies and gentlemen, I present you, my recent milestones of life!
1. My very first almost-four-flat GPA.
Throughout most of the previous semesters of my uni life, the appearances of B(s) or C(s) in my examination results were always there. They said it's normal here in UM, being first ranked uni in Malaysia, it demands extraordinary performance from the students. They said if you can score above 3.30 out of 4.00, you are considered as above-average students. They said due to its extremely high standard, getting 3.50 in UM can be equalized as getting four-flat in other universities throughout the country. I simply don't believe in all those myths. There must have been something wrong with the way I study. Almost gave up trying to find my way back to become a first-class student, I've found the answer last semester. I was so proud of this particular academic achievement. Especially after mentally-suffered from final year thesis project. Huge pressure, pretty tough times. My hard works were being paid off so well at the end. I won the battle :')
2. Internship experience with UMCARES.
University of Malaya Environmental Secretariat was established 5 years ago. It's a great campus-wide environmental initiative and I have participated as a volunteer in a few of its programs since I entered uni life. This year, I had to do a 2-month long industrial training program as a requirement to finish my undergraduate studies and UMCARES agreed to have me as one of their interns. It was really such a fruitful practical experience. I met inspiring environmentalists, worked with remarkable supervisor and colleagues, made good friends with other interns, and experienced a conducive-yet-highly-educating working atmosphere. Oh, not to mention that I earned some money, too! :D But the most important thing is the fact that I finally came to realize that I've been very busy finding international platforms to create big changes, forgetting the fact that I have so many of them in my own backyard. I've been completely ignoring the "think globally, act locally" principle! It was indeed a milestone of life after all (and a slap in the face, too). Please kindly like UMCARES facebook page here!
3. Visiting Europe and performing in the United Nations Assembly Hall.
Yes, visiting Europe was always on my things-to-do-before-I-die list. But man, it never crossed my mind that I would ever step my feet on the United Nations headquarter. It was all started with me daring myself to join global audition to be one of the international core casts for a musical performance entitled "2050 - The Future We Want" organized by Peace Child International and Green Cross International. Long story short, they were apparently impressed by my performance video and CV that I made it to the top 70, went through online interview session and finally made it to the top 25 of all applicants coming from all over the world.
Yes, it was unbelievable! I flew to Geneva in the middle of last August, met many important people, worked with unbelievably talented young people from many different countries, being the only Southeast Asian of the force promoting the global youth voice, environmental sustainability and world peace through a platform that suits me so well: Performing Arts! Oh, two of my biggest dreams also came into realities: I went to Paris and kinda created a beautiful family filled with people whose different races, beliefs, and skin colors. I'm definitely gonna write about them later on. It was indeed the greatest 25 days I have ever had in my life! I learned so many life lessons that I could write a book based only on the experience. Hahaha. Anyway, if you wish to watch our performance, please click here and here to see all the pictures taken during that prestigious event :)
4. Featuring in a local media.
It's another slap in the face, really. I had been featured in a local media for a few times before, but it's a slightly different case this time. When I was invited to be interviewed by the media, all I expected is another small article about a young high-achiever on a small corner of the last page of the newspaper. But when my cousin tagged me the article on FB, I was crying like "No, this is not happening! Not a full page of my story! Not in the effin' "Inspiring People" section!"
Yes, I totally appreciate the way they recognized my achievement, but I don't think I'm already deserved to be publicly acknowledged as an inspiring person. I'm pretty sure I am not mentally ready to be a good role model yet. Nonetheless, I could do nothing about it. Me trying to be positive believes that it is what you get when your hard efforts are being highly appreciated by the society: Popularity. Haha. But never expect me to let the society defines who I am. Naah. I'm simply gonna be myself, with all big dreams I am trying to reach on top of all obnoxious weaknesses I might have to offer the world.
5. Graduating from Young Leaders for Indonesia 2013 Leadership Program.
Young Leaders for Indonesia (YLI) is one of the most prestigious leadership programs in Indonesia initiated by a world-class management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. I was named as one of Top 60 successful participants of this year's batch six months ago, after a competitive selection processes with hundreds of other applicants coming from all over Indonesia and overseas. It's a full scholarship worth USD 1500 in the form of 6-month long leadership training series where all 60 of us had to attend 3 leadership forums every 2 months, filled with most inspiring Indonesian leaders as keynote speakers (e.g Anies Baswedan, Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama, Sandiaga Uno, Handry Satriago, you name it), provided with leadership workshops and learning sessions, and also conducted individual leadership project and group project in between the forums.
I would say it was the most fruitful experience throughout my entire leadership journey so far. I went through both motivating and demotivating turning points a lot, those almost-gave-up and my-spirit-is-burned moments, and well-equipped with a lot of new lessons and softskills on how to be a good future leader for myself and for the nation. Not to mention the connections and friendships made with the other 59 inspiring young leaders of Indonesia. Ah, I was so grateful to gain such an experience :') I have graduated from the program last week and am now officially a proud YLI alumnus! I highly recommend you all Indonesian future leaders to give it a try next year!
6. Keep covering songs and posting them on Youtube and SoundCloud.
I was told that one of the habits of highly effective people is that they focus on the things they naturally do well - to remind themselves of their talents and strengths and to overcome discouragement. Thus, I've been keeping this not-so-humble activity as regular as possible. I seriously don't care anymore about how many views and comments I get, or how many people like and dislike my covered songs. All I care is this peculiar hobby helps me a lot to stay positive whenever I'm living in a cloud and everything seems pointless and negative. So yeah, the followings are the four most recent covered songs I've posted on my Youtube Channel and SoundCloud Account :)
Well, that's practically all happiness I need to share this time. I always keep reminding myself that every single of it started with a dream and none of my dreams are unachievable as long as I am willing to put my hardest efforts to make them into realities. After all, life is a revolving arena. When you are up, prepare yourself to go down. When you are down, take a short break and fight back to reach the top again as soon as possible, as hard as you can. So, that's how my story of happiness goes, keen on sharing me yours? ;)
Kuala Lumpur, 28 September 2013, 5:00 am in the morning.
Fajri Usman
1. My very first almost-four-flat GPA.
2. Internship experience with UMCARES.
3. Visiting Europe and performing in the United Nations Assembly Hall.
Yes, it was unbelievable! I flew to Geneva in the middle of last August, met many important people, worked with unbelievably talented young people from many different countries, being the only Southeast Asian of the force promoting the global youth voice, environmental sustainability and world peace through a platform that suits me so well: Performing Arts! Oh, two of my biggest dreams also came into realities: I went to Paris and kinda created a beautiful family filled with people whose different races, beliefs, and skin colors. I'm definitely gonna write about them later on. It was indeed the greatest 25 days I have ever had in my life! I learned so many life lessons that I could write a book based only on the experience. Hahaha. Anyway, if you wish to watch our performance, please click here and here to see all the pictures taken during that prestigious event :)
 |
| President of Green Cross International, Alexander Likhotal (in the middle of the bunch) with international musical core casts coming from all over the world and David Woolcombe, the director. |
It's another slap in the face, really. I had been featured in a local media for a few times before, but it's a slightly different case this time. When I was invited to be interviewed by the media, all I expected is another small article about a young high-achiever on a small corner of the last page of the newspaper. But when my cousin tagged me the article on FB, I was crying like "No, this is not happening! Not a full page of my story! Not in the effin' "Inspiring People" section!"
Yes, I totally appreciate the way they recognized my achievement, but I don't think I'm already deserved to be publicly acknowledged as an inspiring person. I'm pretty sure I am not mentally ready to be a good role model yet. Nonetheless, I could do nothing about it. Me trying to be positive believes that it is what you get when your hard efforts are being highly appreciated by the society: Popularity. Haha. But never expect me to let the society defines who I am. Naah. I'm simply gonna be myself, with all big dreams I am trying to reach on top of all obnoxious weaknesses I might have to offer the world.
5. Graduating from Young Leaders for Indonesia 2013 Leadership Program.
I would say it was the most fruitful experience throughout my entire leadership journey so far. I went through both motivating and demotivating turning points a lot, those almost-gave-up and my-spirit-is-burned moments, and well-equipped with a lot of new lessons and softskills on how to be a good future leader for myself and for the nation. Not to mention the connections and friendships made with the other 59 inspiring young leaders of Indonesia. Ah, I was so grateful to gain such an experience :') I have graduated from the program last week and am now officially a proud YLI alumnus! I highly recommend you all Indonesian future leaders to give it a try next year!
6. Keep covering songs and posting them on Youtube and SoundCloud.
I was told that one of the habits of highly effective people is that they focus on the things they naturally do well - to remind themselves of their talents and strengths and to overcome discouragement. Thus, I've been keeping this not-so-humble activity as regular as possible. I seriously don't care anymore about how many views and comments I get, or how many people like and dislike my covered songs. All I care is this peculiar hobby helps me a lot to stay positive whenever I'm living in a cloud and everything seems pointless and negative. So yeah, the followings are the four most recent covered songs I've posted on my Youtube Channel and SoundCloud Account :)
Fajri Usman
