An Inspirational Look of What Women Can Do with their Passion, Dedication and Love
Everything started from a simple question, “Do you like to read?” that question honestly threw me off a bit. Since I can’t quite recall the last time I take my time and actually read one book properly but a friend of mine, I usually call her Ce Nesa, asking me this question and I simply say, “Yes, I do like to read.” Now, here I am finally writing what I get from reading this book.
Breaking Barriers: Portraits of Inspiring Chinese-Indonesian Women was published in 2012 and it aims to inspire everyone who read this, not just women, to pursue and achieve their dream. Aimee Dawis write this book in a journalistic style and she wish that it will be accessible for anyone who is interested in Indonesia, its people and its culture. As a reader, I can say that this book is really inspiring and the writer herself has tried her best to give us a good portrait of these inspiring women.
This book started with a foreword from Krisnina Maharani Akbar Tanjung. In her foreword, she said, “The maturity of a nation is related to developments within the modern human race”
She implies that a country will only develop if the people, the human race who lives in it also pursue a continuous development. This sentence simply reflects what all these wonderful women are trying to deliver in their talk with Aimee Dawis. The hope for a better development of people and is what makes them trying their best in their field.
As I read through this book, I come to realize that these women have three things that drive them to do their best. They are passion, dedication and love. We are going to talk about these points below
- Passion
Image from The Compliance and Ethics Blog
Each and every woman in this book has a burning passion for what they do. They are not just stop at liking things, they go as far as working for it even when there are so many obstacle. Dian Muljadi in this book telling us as a reader how she finally succeeded in becoming the unrivaled media empress in Indonesia despite her mother’s objections. Kuei Pin Yeo, her love for music didn’t stop at just becoming a word-class concert pianist. She also working hard so then those who have passion in music can be well educated when they are trying to pursue their dream. Melani Budianta, she knows her calls as an educator and she continuously push herself forward in this field.
2. Dedication
(v.) to commit to a goal or way of life.
When we dedicate ourselves in something, it means that we are ready to commit and sacrifice our life for it. Mely G. Tan, through her dedication, she is widely known as a remarkable sociologist. She was recruited as G. William Skinner’s research assistant, an eminent anthropologist from Cornell University. 18 months of work with the anthropologist was paid off with many chances she could unlock in the future.
“I will never stop writing. Writing is my life and it is one of the ways through which I can contribute to my country”
is what Myra Sidharta said. It is clear that how much she had committed her life into what she did despite of how many writings she had published.
I put Josephine W Komara (Obin) in this part because she keep continued to refine her skills. She set up a lot of workshops, accepting apprentices in order to keep the growth of traditional cloth making going.
Many have said that without love and devotion, what you do might become bland even for yourself. It’s a different case for these three women that I am going to talk about in this part. Siti Hartati Murdaya, even when she had odds with her competitors, she was able to use diplomacy to settle the differences. Without her love for badminton, we might not be able to know Susi Susanti, the badminton player who was able to give Indonesia’s first gold medal at the Barcelona Summer Olympics in 1992. She sacrifices a lot in order to achieve what she had today.
We might not know some of these women’s name without media, but they have engraved their name in history through how much they dedicate, passionate and love what they do. As we go through this hard time, I write this as a kind reminder to myself and everyone who read this: Do not forget what push you forward till today. Do not forget what your passion is, to whom your life dedicated to and what you love. We might have slowly burn out since our passion is underappreciated, maybe we feel hopeless because no one seems to notice our dedication and even worse, we might have lost the love we used to have.
Even when it is dark and hopeless, keep holding onto it. You might feel like you’re alone, but the truth is you are not alone. We won’t be able to achieve anything from just lying around, doing nothing. You got this!
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Note:
This book is like a fresh air to me. I’ve been locked in writer block for a while; I do not know what to type. Therefore I would like to thank Ce Nesa for suddenly giving me this book xD
And obviously I would like to thank Aimee Dawis for writing such a great book for me to read. I discover lots of things as I read through this book and I am grateful for it.
Thank you for those who are reading this! Let me know if you love this blog, and lemme know what I should do in order to make this blog even better! Lots of love~
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