Life is like a roller coaster. Sometimes it takes you up, and sometimes it takes you down. The difference is, roller coster is safer than life. In roller coaster, you just sit down, relax, scream a bit, enjoy the journey, then everything will be alright. Life is not like that, I just cannot sit down and relax, then think that everything will be alright. In life, I choose my own path, not chosen by the roller coaster operator. If I am lucky, I will be walking in the right path, and if I am not, the path will take me to a detour.

Sadly, for me, luck is not a gift, but a result.

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get. –Ray Kroc

I started my life from the bottom, I did not born with silver spoon in my mouth, and I did not have influential parents who owned companies in Indonesia and money in Cayman Islands. I was born and raised in middle class family that taught me about the life struggle –including how to open a snake-fruit, about how I have to work hard to get something that I want. For example, Dad never bought me a Nintendo, because I could not be a number one in the class.

“You do not need to study in Semarang.” Dad told me after my graduation from a junior high school in Ungaran. “If you are that smart, I believe that you can go to a good college.”. I got two meanings from Dad’s words, one is the high school quality in Ungaran is good enough, and two is Dad did not have money to afford my study in Semarang.

Small city of Ungaran

Sadly again, for me, smart is like luck, it is a result, not a gift. I have to study harder to get that smart predicate. Lucky me, the competition in Ungaran was not that hard, despite I cannot be the number one in class, still, I can say that I had graduated with good and reasonable grade. From four entrance examination that I registered after my graduation, four college accepted me as their college student.

Read my previous story, about my (travel) life in a decade (part one)

“Congratulations! See, this is what I told you before.” Dad said. “If you are that smart, you can go to a good college.”. Umm, I did not think that I am that smart, Dad, maybe it was because the others are lazier than me. Living in a hardworking family, really gave me an advantage on how to survive in this cruel world.