The american version

I find the American version of the previous blog "Aku tidak memilih untuk menjadi orang biasa"
I wish the author makes it more general =?... I am not a man nor an American ;P

I do not choose to be a common man It is my right to be uncommon... If I can. I seek opportunity... Not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen, Humbled and dulled by having the state to dream and build, to Fail and succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the Guaranteed existence; the thrill of Fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence Nor my dignity for a hand out. I will Never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid; to think and act for myself; enjoy the benefits of my creations; and to face the world boldly and say, "This I have done with my own hand, I am a man. I am an American.

Dean Alvange

*Originally published in This Week Magazine. Later reprinted in The Reader’s Digest, October 1952, p. 10, and January 1954, p. 122, lacking these words: “I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat” and “to stand erect, proud and unafraid.”
* The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople (now Istanbul). He was raised in upstate New York.
He served in the U.S. Army during World War 1 and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of ?22. He attended Colombia University where he received his law degree and opened a practice in Manhattan. In 1942 Alfange was the American Labor Party candidate for governor of New York and a founder of the Liberal Party of New York.
Dean Alfange was also Professor Emeritus at UMass Amherst and a leading figure in various pro-Zionist organizations (between other actions, in November 1943, he appeared before the House of Representatives and addressed them on the rescue of the Jewish people of Europe). He died in Manhattan at the age of 91 on October 27, 1989.

This is copied from online http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1483975/posts

AKU TIDAK MEMILIH UNTUK MENJADI ORANG BIASA

Aku tidak memilih menjadi orang biasa

Memang hak-ku untuk menjadi luar biasa

Aku mencari kesempatan bukan perlindungan.

Aku tidak ingin menjadi warga yang terkungkung rendah diri dan terpedaya karena dilindungi pihak berkuasa.

Aku siap menghadapi resiko terencana berangan-angan dan membinauntuk gagal dan sukses.

Aku menolak menukar insentif dengan derma

Aku memilih tantangan hidup daripada derma

Aku memilih tantangan hidup daripada kehidupan yang terjamin,

kenikmatan mencapai sesuatu, bukan Utopia yang basi.

Aku tidak akan menjual kebebasanku,

Tidak juga kemuliaanku untuk mendapatkan derma,

Aku tidak akan merendahkan diri pada sembarang atasan dan ancaman.

Sudah menjadi warisanku untuk berdiri tegak, megah dan berani untuk berpikir dan bertindak untuk diri sendiri.

Untuk meraih segala keuntungan hasil kerja sendiri dan untuk menghadapi dunia dengan berani dan berkata:"Ini telah kulakukan!"

Segalanya ini memberikan makna seorang luar biasa.

DEAN ALFANGE

This is one of the creed from a Forever Young seminar that I enrolled when I was a teenager.

I don't remember the whole creed, but some part of it always creep back to my mind during the crucial (good and bad) times in my life. Thanks to the internet, now I have the complete version in Indonesian again.