“I am who I am”

(Bros. Theo and Valent Daru, during the General Conference FIC Brothers 2015 in Wa, Ghana)

One of the famous humanistic philosophers, Heidegger, said that I become I because of you and you become you because of me. I am not you and you are not I. Every individual is unique. I couldn’t be compared to the other person. In this context, I am fully agree that I am who I am. I am not who you are. So as long as the statement “I am who I am” connect to the identity of the individual, that statement is true. We should recognize and accept ourselves as who we are.

I fully agree that I am who I am. I accept myself as who I am and hopefully others will accept me in the same way. But we should consider that we as human being always in changing. Our personality is growing and developing to be a mature person, a happy person. It doesn’t mean that I accept “I am who I am” in a static situation. I am growing and changing.

I don’t want to be like other person. I don’t want just to imitate the personality of the others. We are all want to be ourselves. Just to be myself according to what we have to be, what should we do, what do we have and how do we behave based on our own potentialities. We can learn from the others but we couldn’t become like others. We can follow the examples of the others, but we couldn’t be and do like the others completely. The best thing is try to discover who you truly are and fully give every aspect of your uniqueness to the surrounding of you. Find your true self and try authentically express yourselves. But we should aware that we are changing. Who we are ten years ago, even one week ago, indeed one day ago is different with who are we right now.

I wouldn’t change a thing!

(Bros. Frans Dwiyatno and Theo, in Chile 2017)

Most people try to stay in their “comfort zone”, for instance in their high position in their office, with their close friends, with their surrounding, etc. For the people who try to keep their “comfort zone”, it is challenge very much to change to the different situation and condition, especially if it is not adjustment yet. It could be happen also to those people who are very easy to feel satisfy with what have they done, what they have been, and what have they had. They don’t want to do more. They don’t want to do the risky thing that make they lost of their achievement. But, we have to be aware that life itself is full of risk. Even if we do nothing, there is a possibility to have something happened to us, negatively or positively.

The statement, “I wouldn’t change a thing”, to me only true in connecting with our essential personality. Just to give you examples, if we born naturally as man we don’t need to transfer to become woman, and the opposite. We are human being, don’t need to change ourselves to become animal. Our personality type is extrovert, we cannot change as introvert person.

Some years ago, I had conversation with my friend and he said that he wouldn’t change a thing regarding to his personality. It means that I have to accept him with any condition. I don’t want to, because he had a certain habitual that I don’t like, very hard to me to accept and I know that he did not want to change to be better person. I had opinion that he lazy to do hard struggle to continue his journey to be better person.  I am very sure that everyone has time and chance to be a better person, to be themselves, but also try to make the other person to be a better person as well as themselves.

I’ve changed a lot in my life, but it’s not because I’m special. I just created special circumstances. I believe whatever I want is usually easier to get than I think, as long as I am willing to adapt and do what is necessary. Change is a skill I can learn, as long as I have the guts to actually do it.

 Let it go

(Bro. Theo, Mr. Satriyo and Mrs. Emmy, both of them from Kanisius Publisher Jogjakarta, in the riverside of river Maas, Maastricht)

The possibility to let the thing change is let them go. When we say, I am who I am, it means that we try to let ourselves grow and change. We can also say, let it be! Don’t be stuck in certain thing, let always moving and changing, to be better and better in everything we can be and do.

(Theodorus Suwariyanto)