February 5, 2011
“Diam adalah Emas”
In Indonesia, the proverb “diam adalah emas”, which means silence is gold, is usually spoken. It is commonly taught in the elementary school and is implemented in the school activities. However, people sometimes misunderstood this proverb. In my opinion, silence is not always good for people’s life. There are many disadvantages by not taking an action in solving problems.
In some of school in Indonesia, it can be found that students are usually got scold by their teacher if they ask something about their lesson. They are considered not paying attention to their teacher or too lazy to read the books. Unfortunately, it will lead the students to keep “silence” although they have questions about the lesson. Thus, the students will not be prepared to express their opinion to the public, which is important in the real life. It is often found that people failed because their speaking and writing is not good enough.
Sharing an opinion in public is very important in all societies. People can communicate in a good way and the societies can be better. For example, when I organized an event in my university, we usually spend more time to have a chat, maybe in the restaurant or in the office, to talk about our event. From this chat, I always found practical problems which although not directly correlated with the event, it became a problem in committee. With solving these problems, the productivity in the committee will be higher and the relationship between people can be more positive.
Although silence is sometimes good to avoid the problems, it will be simpler to talk about these with the others. Action is the only way to express our feeling and perception. With action, the productivity of people and societies would be higher and the relationship of people will be better.
