Young, good looking, and currently
have achieved something great, not for just himself, but also his country. Yes,
I am talking about Rio Haryanto, a figure whom is currently buzzing the (social) media.
There
are pros and cons about Rio to finally be able to take part in Formula 1, world’s highest class of single-seat auto racing, which has been the premier form of racing since the inaugural
season in 1950. On the cons side, the majority argues regarding the
huge amount of money allocated for taking part in the race. I have to agree
that for the context of Indonesia, we kind of have our national priority
straight, which is to reduce poverty by accelerating growth, etc, and this mission
takes on significant portion of our national budget. However, on the other
hand, a balance should be created by start investing on other matters outside of
our “national priorities”. I was passing by this interesting writing I found on
Facebook arguing that there is indeed a price to pay to take part in world class sport events,
be it auto racing, soccer/football, etc. At the basis of it, in my opinion, when
it is related to investing money, we tend to calculate and predict revenues (short
term or long term) measures in numbers, and we’re all pretty much gambling with
the probabilities. At the end, we can decide whether we’re satisfied (or not)
with the money that we have invested.
Let’s break it down a little bit : Rio Haryanto,
born 23 years ago in Solo, Indonesia. His Career started back in 2008, when he
was still 17 years old, he took part in Formula Asia 2.0, since then he tried
to improve himself by taking part in other regional series of auto race. In one
of the series, Formula BMW Pacific,
he won 11 out of 15 races. He started to steal spotlights since taking part in
GP 2 Series in 2012. He’s been racing in numerous countries, representing
Indonesia. The number one Indonesian oil company has been his major sponsor
throughout the way, and he also gained support from foreign sponsors and
partners. Because of his involvement and accomplishments in the GP 2, he is
eligible for the FIA Superlisence, his grand ticket to the Formula 1 Series.
Let’s take out our calculation and start looking at
the other (un)tangible matters, the immaterial impacts. Though it is too early
to predict their victory in the series, Rio and his team has worked really hard
to be where they are now, another example of success stories that deserves more
highlights in our media. For the kind of person who really appreciates process
like me, I highly regard Rio and his team’s efforts. I believe that in the
globalized word that we live in right now, we need more Indonesian people to
move around, representing our country, and leave impression on others. With talent
and support, Rio has the perfect modal to do it. While on the other hand, he
has big responsibility to represent Indonesia in his best effort. Just like the
old saying, the bigger one dream, the bigger the obstacles, therefore one must
endeavor.
We have seen and heard couple of success stories of
Indonesian abroad from various fields before, be it science, music, politics,
etc. We need more of these success stories, the immaterial impacts. We need our
younger generation to be coherent with these stories and examples. We need our
younger generation to be brainwashed with optimism, creativity, and willingness
to dream big. We need our younger generation to be constantly inspired by our
own people, from people to people. We need our younger generation to believe
that they achieve anything they want as long as they work hard for it. You cannot
really measure the spirit of optimism and working hard with money, nor to
invest and expect return. It is a spark that grow inside of us, because we want
to achieve something, else will follow. We need optimism to help lights the spark.
I’d like to close this writing with one of my favourite verse from the
Qur’an, surah Ar-Ra’d : 11, which has strong relevancy to the topic above, and the
verse is more or less is translated to the following : “God (Allah) will not
change the state of a people until they change the existing situation on
themselves”.
