How to Maintain a Healthy Life (process analysis)

I am sure that whoever we are; student, teacher, parents, or manager, always have many activities in our life, from studying for our examinations, to managing our own company. In order to do these activities, we need many things, including health. Health is a condition where there are no obstacles of someone’s body and mind to function properly. Here are some tips from me to keep a healthy life. These steps may be common to us, but it is good to apply them in our life.

First, watch our food comsumption. We should eat regularly, three times a day and make sure that our daily nutrient needs are fulfilled. The nutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Food containing many carbohydrates are rice, corns, potatoes, cassavas, etc. For proteins, there are meats, chickens, eggs, fishes. We can get vitamins and minerals from fruits and vegetables.

Second, do some exercises. As researches suggest, by producing sweat, exercises help our body to clean its system, removing toxic elements from the body. Exercises can be done however and wherever we like and we should do it regulary. For example, jogging in the weekend, swimming in the pool with our family once a month, going up and down the stairs every morning, etc, as for me, I often take a walk in Dago’s Car Free Day with my friends in Sunday morning.

Third, keep our environments clean. Environments are our surroundings, any places where we live, work, or socialize. Remove any substances which may compromise our health; cigarettes’ smoke, air pollution, piled up trashes, animals’ wastes, etc. Keeping our environments clean helps us to maintain our health, because there are many diseases caused by environmental factors; diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malaria, gradual loss of lung function, and so on.

Fourth, be positive! It is believed that our mind is connected by our body, which means that what we think will affect our body. If we think of something negative (feeling discouraged, worried, disappointed, angry), our body will respond to the negative energy we are creating. Besides, are there any disadvantages of thinking positively? I am sure there are not, it is worth trying. For example, by getting up in the morning and always think, “What a nice day! Today is sure to be a great day!” and other kind of thoughts.

There are many tips out there to keep a healthy life which we may get from articles, books, doctors, but in my opinion, these four are the most important; watch our food consumption, do some exercises, keep our environments clean, and be positive! I hope that whoever we are, wherever we live, whatever our activities, we could maintain our body’s health.

-Muhammad Yusril Yuriis

The Missing of Courtesy

                “Thank you!”, “Please”, and “May I..?” are the example of respectful words used to express gratitude and to ask for something. Good manners is reflected in my mother’s story about her childhood. One day my mother told me about it. There has been a huge difference between her hometown, Madiun, a small city in Eastern Java, and big cities like Jakarta in terms of people’s politeness in their interaction with others. In her times, people in the village where she lived were so kind, polite, respectful, cheerful, and hardworking. There were no such things as individualities. People there were always helping each other; cleaning the environment, building houses, bridges, fences, etc. They gave their warm and nice greetings when they met, they shared food to their neighbours when they had more than enough. In the big cities where I live and used to live, Bandung and Jakarta, courtesy, respectful acts, excellence of manners, good social conduct, polite behaviours, or whatever it is called, is considered missing or rarely found in the society. I identify there are at least three possible causes of this; the confusing character building in our education, the lack of religious commitment, the society or the surrounding itself.

                In the city where I grew up, Jakarta, students are obligated to study for 12 years. Unfortunately, these long term educations do not guarantee that it will generate human with good character. This is probably because not all teachers, lecturers have the same perception of good manners, respectful act, and fair play. For example, in High School, when the Final Examination is coming, the students and the school is preparing what are needed; the subject supplements, the prayers, the advices. Just before the class ended, teachers used to give us advices. One day my Bahasa Indonesia teacher told us that it is fine to give answers to another students unbeknown by the guards when the Examination was already started, saying that it was the act of “helping” and “caring”, while days before, my Biology teacher had told us that we must do the exam ourselves and do not give any answers to another students so that we do not drag them down into the “darkness”, the unconfident of doing one’s own works. In Higher Education, there is also this kind of phenomenon, not all the lecturers have agreed for what is called good manners. There are lecturers who strictly regulate students’ rule of conduct, politeness, and manners in the class, i.e. by prohibiting the use of sandals, t-shirts, being late, and so on. Meanwhile there are also others who do not, they just focus on academic materials. It causes confusion in the students’ mind that they eventually end up to behave pragmatically, taking the practical rules as normally humans would do.

                In my religion, we are advised to follow Prophet Muhammad’s way of life, called Sunnah. It includes almost everything, i.e. lowering our voices to elders, soften it to younger, obeying our parents, helping our parents, relatives and best friends, fatherless and/or motherless children, the poors, people in a journey respectively, treating women honourably, etc. There is also this typical good social conduct of Muslims, when two or more Muslims meet, we should greet by saying “salaamun ‘alaikum”, which may also act as if we pray for them, because it means “peace (of Allah) be upon you”. Isn’t it great if we apply those to our daily life? Won’t it make human more human? Unfortunately, some Muslims in big cities lack the commitment to apply their religious teachings, thus causing some discourtesy, disrespectful act.

                The lack of educational guidelines from schools and people’s lack of obedience in their religious rules contribute to the already complicated circumstances in big cities like Jakarta in which people from different cultures share their diverse practices and beliefs. The diverse practices may result in a collision manners, thus making it harder for the people to build the courtesy, because they are afraid whether their practices will suit others or they just do not care since it is not in their hometown anymore. If this process continues, there will be less and less people who are willing to guard the value and making courtesy uncontrollable in the end.

                In summary, the missing of courtesy in big cities like Jakarta may be caused by –but not limited to- three things; the confusing character building in our education, the lack of religious commitment, the society or the surrounding itself. In spite of that, I believe that there still exist education institutions which have the same visions, Muslims who put Sunnah above the whole world, and people who are willing to guard the value.

-Muhammad Yusril Yuriis

Things Affecting Friendship

                As we learn from school and our experience, we, human, are classified as the social creatures, creatures which cannot stand by themselves. We need other people’s help, ability, and  existence to fulfill our needs, especially our social needs. Friendship is one of the way to fulfill it. Friendship is a bond which defines itself and different from others. Three kind of bond which we generally know are parents-children bond, marriage bond, and friendship bond. The parents-children bond and marriage bond are clear to define, it is regulated by law, whether a federal or religious law. What about friendship? It is not regulated by any law; it is the people involved who define it, the boundaries, the parameter, etc. Like any other important aspects in life, friendship bond may also be affected by many things. It may be affected by the time and space barrier and the changes of each way of thinking over time.

I am sure that all of us have at least one best friend, whether when we were a child, teenager, in school or neighbourhood. For most of the people, friendship bond will lessen as the time and space barrier grow larger. For example, when you have a childhood friend, at some time, both of you move to some distant places and haven’t contacted for years, there are two possible things that will happen in the future regarding your friendship. The first is your bond will lessen, if you are trying to forget or even ignore the memories you had had with them. The second, your bond will grow stronger. I know that it may be confusing, but this happened to some people. It will grow stronger, if you keep the memories you had had with them and convince yourself that someday, somewhere, you will meet them again and struggle together to bring back your big childhood dreams into reality. So, time and space affect friendship bond to two possible results.

We live in the world where everything is constantly moving and changing, including time and space. As mentioned before, time and space affect friendship bond. Other than that, it may also affect the people themselves, their each way of thinking. The way of thinking are regarded to our own experience and how other people in our surroundings treat us. In other words, it will vary over time and places. Why would the changes of each way of thinking affect friendship bond? Because, most of the people will tend to befriend with the one who is more like them and understand them more than any other. So, when two best friends who are separated and live a different life since then are met again, their friendship bond will grow stronger or even lessen depending on whether he/she likes the “new” each way of thinking.

In conclusion, we should not think of friendship bond as something statics, because there are many things which may affect it. I only identify two of them; time and space barrier and the changes of the way of thinking of the people involved. Whether they will make the bond stronger or lessen is determined by us, the people involved in friendship.

-Muhammad Yusril Yuriis