So I was looking through my facebook photos. My old ones, from the beginning.

I saw a lot of pictures. Of me. With a lot of different people. In a lot of different places.

There were pictures of me back when ThursdayPeople was but a dream shared by Rara, Iyo and I. My hair was, er, ghostly, I was wearing an apparently undersized ngatung t-shirt and I had someone’s fake glasses hung on my neck. Like, seriously.

There were pictures of me on the stupid, yet really fun, bike trips I had with Malika, Citrya, Vira, Fathia, Haswin, and the others. I looked as dekil as ever, at Pizza Hut, lying down on the floor at CiWalk XXI, in front of Fathia’s house with Malika when it turned out that Fathia wasn’t home… at Ace Hardware sitting down with fake serious faces around a Dora The Explorer table with Haswin. My hair was still hideous, as ever.

There were pictures of me debating. At ALSA UI, at ISDC :’) There were Irfan, Rifky, Hanif, Kania, Salsa, Monik, Elda, Hana, Willy… then the selection camp at Jogja. Then ASDC in Manila. Then, of course, the World Schools Debating Championship :_)

There were pictures of me with my high school friends. My OSIS and LKS friends. My MK3 friends. My T’sT friends.

There were pictures of me with my AFS friends too. And a lot of other pictures.

There were even pictures of me when I was a little boy growing up in Melbourne, with Galih and Hanif. Looking back, I can really relate our friendship back then with the tale of The Three Musketeers. Or rather, 3 Idiots. There I was with the shade from my hat covering my face. Or at Mount – crap, I forgot the name! – with snow in the background. I remember how back then I kept on tripping because my shoesole was totally worn out.

Nowadays, I fill my schedule to the point that there are hardly any empty spots. I join a lot of activities and put them all up on my Facebook profile.

But now and then, I feel inferior. Inferior to my boss’s and colleague’s leadership skills at the organizations I join. Inferior to my new friends’ life experiences. Inferior because of the fact that I have never watched a single episode of How I Met Your Mother, nor Secret Garden.

I’m beginning to complain a lot. About myself, mostly. About my bad traits, my insensitivity, my cockiness.

But looking at those photos made me think. I’ve gone through a lot of things in my life – more than most people. I should be grateful for that.

Grateful, not just in the sense of thanking God for all the things God has given me, but also remembering that God put me on this path for a reason.

Whatever that reason is, it’s definitely not to sit around and whine.