Soft Heart, Possible?

Fire melts metal,
Taming its hard side of life.
A shout to soft heart—

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Hardship in life train two muscles: physical body and mental body.

The harder the exercises, the harder and tougher the physical body is. Punches will only hit hard strong muscle and a hit back can even beat the attacker.

In fact the harder life tests a human being with challenges, the softer one’s heart could be. Soft heart isn’t a sign of weakness, it is kindness or even wisdom. And wisdom is the purest strength.

A Javanese wisdom reflects how a soft heart can build someone’s attitude and behaviour: sugih tanpa bandha, digdaya tanpa aji, ngluruk tanpa bala, menang tanpa ngasorake.

Sugih tanpa bandha: Someone can feel rich without money or property. She can own treasure, wealth, fortune more precious than what money can buy. The true richness is a soft heart that can contain a lot of opportunity to learn lessons and preserve the heritage of life wisdom of being a human. Only soft heart can do that.

Digdaya tanpa aji: Someone can be powerful without physical strength. Only clear mind and soft heart can shape her to a powerful individual through whom solutions and ways out are channeled. Don’t ever worry, Beloved that having a good heart is in vain. At the end it is soft heart who drives good mind and it is also soft heart who invites true appreciation and respect.

Ngluruk tanpa bala: fighting without ally sometimes happens in life. Or always? Yes, when she fights against her own imbalanced judgement or inharmonious thinking, that’s when she doesn’t have ally. She is alone. No one can help her. She needs her own self and her alone. It is soft heart her sole ally to win every battle inside.

Menang tanpa ngasorake: winning without defeating or humiliating others. What do we need but victory? Yet victory isn’t always about winning against others in arguments or race. Victory is at the end about learning what weakness lies beneath a failure to appreciate and respect a relationship of any form: blood ties, friendship, romance, etc. And only soft heart can calm her down from intensity of defeating or humiliating others. The softer her heart, the better others feel about themselves. As a result those who are not feeling belittled will make space; and only soft heart will be given space without second thought.

Unfortunately it is applicable only in relationships without money as the basis. Sad? No. I can apply it happily outside business arena, a space which is broader and deeper than it looks. Step by step…. 💝

Salaam…