I am in Gran Melia Jakarta Hotel now for business. This morning when I was about to go to the airport, I read in a local newspaper that the keroncong (Indonesia traditional song) singer, Mus Muljadi, suffers blindness because of his diabetic.

It is a shocking story for me. Even though I don’t know him personally, I know him from his song he sang. In the 70s his famous keroncong song “Rek, Ayo Rek” was a hit. At that times, many of radio station aired this famous song, till this song become an iconic song for the people of Surabaya. It is a song about Tunjungan Street in Surabaya. A street in a downtown of the city, like Singapore’s Orchard Road, but in a much different meaning and reality.

Muljadi admitted that he couldn’t control his eating behavior. Especially in his world tour in 1990-1992. He just eat whatever he liked. And it made his diabetic worst and worst till it bring blindness to his eyes.

As reading it, I spoke to myself that self control in eating is everything whether you are diabetic person or not. I always say to my daughters that in tasting of any food. In the first spoon we taste and the hundredth, the taste is still the same. The difference is in the damage cause by the food to our body. And I shared about it when I spoke in Vita school last Saturday.

My late pastor, Jerimia Rim, once said that some people dig their grave with spoon and fork. That is so true. Many people died because of the way they eat. Something that should be in their control.

There is a big difference between hungry and desire to eat. The first one is to be fed and the second one should be controlled.

And the key is in our hands.