for better or worse

Do I love my country? I guess so.
One’s country is like one’s family. The majority of us don’t really have a say in that. We might as well learn to love it, because what choice do we have really?

What does it mean being an Indonesian? In the eyes of outsiders, it’s not something that is worthy of something. Being Indonesian is not the same as being an American. It’s not even the same as being a Singaporean.

No, I am not ashamed of being an Indonesian. It’s who I am. But I won’t deny the fact that generally, we Indonesian do not hold ourselves really well.

I won’t even go into stuff like corruption and bigotry. I’m going to cover the small, daily stuff. Stuff that is within my grasp, and of course stuff that is related to me. There are so many things that we have to admit that we, as a nation, are lacking.

1. Discipline
When it comes to discipline, I am 100% Indonesian. I have no passion, no focus, no competitive streak whatsoever. Why are we not superiors in sports? Why don’t we invent anything? Because we are clearly lacking on those things. Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that our soil is so fertile that almost everything grows, therefore we don’t really have to create something. I don’t know. It’s still something that I also have to work very hard on.

2. Winner’s mentality
I’m not going to criticize our national football team. Those guys are awesome and they have improved a lot. I’m criticizing the mentality of the rest of us, the supporters, who automatically looked for something to blame when Malaysia humiliated us 0-3 in the AFF semifinals. There was nothing to blame. Malaysia simply was better than us. Period. We sucked. Admit. Retreat, re-strategize and re-attack. Yes, Malaysian supporters did use laser. But what right do we have to criticize them? Our supporters are worse! Supporters here can march into field right in the middle of a game to beat up the referee. Hello? My advice is, fellow supporters, next time we lose, don’t look for something to blame. Keep sending our support because our losing team needs our supports more than ever.

3. Fighting spirit
I was quite sad when I saw the Indonesian team gave up on the last challenge on The Amazing Race Asia 4. Sad because it was predictable. I knew he was going to give up once I heard of the challenge. I just knew he didn’t have it in him. I know it must be hard for him because of his height phobia, but isn’t the whole point of joining the race is to push himself to the limit? Compare it to the Singapore team who were left far behind and managed to catch up. It was because they kept on fighting. Him giving up is just so typical of us, Indonesian, who run away when faced with an impossible challenge. Yes, I am also guilty of this crime, but I am working on it as I grow old.

4. Speed
I’ve worked with people from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, India and New Zealand and I have to say that they are faster than us. We probably have the same IQ, but we tend to take things slow. When we are given a task, we don’t jump into it. We push it aside and continue our meaningless chats and only give it a thought when it’s nearing the due date. Why is that? It’s a mystery, even to me. I guess it’s because people take things lightly. I was guilty of this crime when I was at school because I hated school with contempt. Now that I finally found something that I like doing and it pays good, I take it seriously. There are millions of people out there who’d kill for my job so I intent to keep it by being irreplaceable.

5. Integrity
I guess there is no way I can talk about our nation without touching upon the subject of corruption. Oh well. We are so used to pay our way into anything. That is a sad fact that only a revolution can change. We have no integrity. No. Zilch. Nada. Zero. This is probably connected to point 2 and 3. We don’t really see the need to fight or be good because we can always earn it the easy way by cheating or bribing.

It is no wonder that we are not competitive at all, in every way.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about what we can do to make a change in this country. Her advice was really good and doable. Start small, do many small things.

So that’s what I’m doing. Starting with myself, of course, changing many small things about myself. Just like Michael Jackson said. That man was a genius.