Monthly Archives: August 2008

Working My Work Attitude

Posted on August 20, 2008
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I went home early today. I had a training from 8am to 5pm so I get to go home by 5:20pm or so. As usual, I took the route I usually take walking back to my apartment.

It’s funny what happens when you spend too much time alone – you get to ask a lot of questions about yourself and your life. I have always wondered and this evening, I did again, why I have issues with having a job. It’s not really about a specific job like the one I have right now but more of… why do we need to work.

I might sound stupid about this. Maybe I am. But please pardon me. This is something I did not grow up with – having the right attitude towards work.

When I arrived at the apartment, I had a little time resting alone in my room, half naked with the lights turned off. I was resting my mind when I fell asleep for awhile. It was more of a nap actually. When I woke up, I decided to get some dinner. I bought some around the corner and treated myself with a movie entitled “Pursuit of Happyness” by Will Smith. Yes, the title is misspelled but try to watch the movie and you’ll understand why.

Well, expectedly (as I presume you are guessing as well) the movie gave me insights to my question.

You see, all the while I thought I was looking for real happiness in my work. I was wrong. I realized it was not true happiness I was searching for but immediate gratification – gratification with having fun at work, gratification with finding people to listen to your rants, gratification with things even outside work. I wasn’t looking for it at the wrong place. I was looking for the wrong thing at my work.

I realized that true happiness isn’t something you feel yourself. True happiness is finding someone else find happiness because of you. That kind of happiness is what drives you to overlook your own emotions, your own concerns, your own issues. Thinking about someone else outside yourself gets you going even if you don’t feel fine. Seeing people you love most being happy makes you happier than they themselves are. It’s the key to satisfaction. It is the key to finding real happiness. It drives you like the gasoline in a car. You have the engine. You just got to let it run with other people’s happiness as the fuel.

Looking into myself at the moment, there has been a few “givens” that I believe are factors to why I feel such. One is, I am the youngest in the family and I grew up not minding any younger sibling but myself. My immediate satisfaction is the driving force. Second thing, I grew up in a family where a job is done not because it is self-rewarding but because there is a consequence for not doing the job right. I grew up doing household chores out of fear and not out of love. I don’t regret this nor do I blame my parents for it. I believe things happen for a purpose and, as one good and knowledgeable colleague told me during my latest business trip, there is a time for everything. And I believe this is the time for me to learn that. I know learning it is more than just realizing it, but at least it is a start.

Saying such, I realize day by day the purpose why I got this job. Well, for one, all I wanted a few months back was actually finding a job where I could practice my course and at the same time work on something related to information technology. Next to that, I desired for a job that gets me to save for my future when I decide to settle, get married and start my own family. That dream job is basically my job right now. And, not to brag, I admittedly am in one of the best multinational companies in the world.

I just realize how much I despise the gifts I have been receiving just because I do not get immediate gratification with things I face. The movie I watched awhile ago made me realize that. I know I still have a lot to do to get a regular status for the job and often times, I just think in advance that in case I don’t get the job, I could just go back to my home town and do stuff for a living on my own. I don’t mean to degrade what I have back at home but then I realized that often times, whenever I think of such, I am just actually giving myself an excuse not to do my best with what I have right now. I mean, one knows deep inside when one gives his best to something or not. This job is a gift and God wants me to be a good steward for it. If, in the best of my knowledge, I know that I have given my best to it but still not get a regular status for the job, then I would know that the training period was enough for me to learn the stuff I need to know on this experience.

But, until then, I must patiently and consistently seek true “happyness” at work or with my loved ones. Only then will I find fulfilment and do my best in whatever I do.

As a figure of speech, here is my take: The mist is getting thinner and the road is getting clearer. Your clothes may get damp often, your feet may get tired with walking and your pain may bring tears to your eyes along the way. But then, finding out that the people you carry in your heart remain rested, joyful and happy, then the pain goes away with their laughter.

Whatever you do, don’t forget to cherish each moment. Laugh a lot. Love. Live. After all, we only get it once.

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Deep Thoughts in a Cold Night

Posted on August 14, 2008
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It’s a cold night. The air conditioning at the office was enough to make everybody shiver. Not everyone is here. Almost a third of my officemates went to their department’s team building. That leaves the office building to a few of us. It’s one reason actually why the air conditioning is too cold – there are not enough people to add warmth around.

I’m staying late tonight. I have a few international calls from my team across the globe. That’s what you get from a team of across timelines. Oh well.

A few hours ago, the rain was heavy outside. Working at a high rise building lets you hear thunder in threatening volume. The rain has now subsided. As for me, I’m sitting on this half-lit room waiting for my calls. I can see the city lights from here. Street lamps mark the way of the avenue just beside the building. Vehicles were lining up, most are probably heading home. I look at the evening sky and I guess it’s pretty much what it is – just another night in the big city. Where the sun sets and rises in the morning. Tomorrow, it will just be another day.

Across the office building is a hotel rising high. Some rooms are lit, fascinatingly displaying what transpires on those rooms. Honeymooners, travellers, or families, each with their lives spent on one of those hotel rooms. It amazes me how life goes on from corner to corner.

There may be times that one desires for the world to simply stop, to pause for awhile. What if that happens tomorrow. One wakes up to a world where nobody is there, where you still have cars on the streets, buildings lit up from last night’s use and where restaurants and bars still with their blinking lights. What if one morning, one wakes up to find out that all he has done for a lifetime are no longer worth a thing. The world becomes his, yet owns it alone, with no one else left in the world but himself. Will those things that used to be so valuable still be what they were? One can then have the finest cars and the most expensive jewelleries. One can travel the world and see the most wonderful places on earth with no one to stop him or her. Could those things by then still be as precious as what they are right now?

I guess you know the answer.

Moments like these are moments that bring me to deeper thoughts, things that one usually ignores at the height of the day when one is busy working or doing things in order to survive. A friend of mine told me that sometimes, we take these things as an excuse from doing the things that we need to do like work and earn money. That may be true to some extent but then, one could also not deny the fact that life is but a fleeting moment and that it is never impossible that in an instant, one’s death could come which makes all of these things that are necessities for our survival become worthless.

I guess the thing for this post is that, there are two timelines for our conscious mind – one is the immediate timeline that reminds us to work for food and for our daily survival. The other is the eternal timeline, the awareness that , when we die, life continues for others who are still living and what happens to us by then is quite unknown to us. These two timelines, though seemingly contradicting each other are actually working hand-in-hand. It reminds us that while we need to consider our immediate needs today, we must realize that there is another span of time that lasts long after we are gone. It challenges us to search for realities of that eternal timeline, a timeline that answers our questions about the meaning of our very existence.

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The Reality of My Unreal World

Posted on August 11, 2008
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The light fades and the shadows come to life. All the more my senses are aroused by the absence of light. The streets are crowded and the city wakes up with the neon lights. Yet my heart stays silent in one corner, not knowing what it seeks. Sulking in solitude, my soul departs from reality and into the world of dreams – the place where none of my realities have ever been.

This world is where the impossible is a possibility in itself. This is the place where boundaries are but the gates to eternity. It bends space and time. It stands on top of nothing but the very thought of reality.. for where there is no reality, there is no unreality.

Sometimes time flies so fast, too fast that time cannot wait for itself. It keeps ticking, keeps sweeping, keeps moving. But in this world of unreal, time is the very reason for this world to stop. In this world, time is not a reality, for time encapsulates an event in a period where there is a beginning and an end. This world does not know beginning, nor does it realize the end. It is just there, standing still while constantly moving.

You may think this world is the opposite of reality. Yet, what is real? Reality is relative. In this world, nothing is relative. Everything is what it is, no ending nor beginning. Reality in itself has no opposite. Reality is what it is – reality.

In this world of mine, imagination is not the limit. Does it have an image of a nation? I doubt. It is beyond any nation and any image you can imagine. Perhaps, relative to what you think is real, this world is unreal. But then again, take out the relativity in what you believe is real and you have something you know nothing about.

Life is never real in its true sense. For life is simply the reality that we think we are in. Reality is an illusion of the mind. What lies out there is way way much bigger than we could ever imagine. What we grasp is but a spec on what is out there. What is out there? Who knows? I don’t.

Man has always tried to grasp knowledge of the reality he is in. But, the more he seeks wisdom, the more he realizes how useless he knows. He creates things that destroys himself. Man did not came first, the world did. Man was never in the position to change the world, or the world as others see it for that matter.

So much seems defined. Yet the more things are defined by man, the more things become unknown.

What is real to us is what we can grasp. What we cannot grasp is not real.

This is where faith comes in. This is where faith makes sense of everything else unknown to Man. Faith does not only define what is real, it also puts a place for the unknown, the what could be, the what if. It is only in faith that Man finds his purpose in a world of pointlessness.

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Back to My Abode

Posted on August 10, 2008
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Hi Blog. It’s me again. It’s been a while that I haven’t written on you. Well, things are happening fast. Too fast that I can’t find the time to take note the details. Hmm, where did I left… Oh yes. My trip to Singapore.

Well, it was a great experience. And when I say great, I mean overwhelming. It was quite too much for me honestly – my first international flight, my first business trip, my first time to work with people from across countries and cultures, and yes, first time to meet my boss, my boss’ boss.. and my boss’ boss’ boss! Whew!

Please don’t get me wrong. My bosses are great people, fairly in touch with their lighter side. It’s just that, most of the things I’m dealing with everyday are pretty much new to me too – the people I meet on the streets, the people I cross the streets with, the people living across my apartment’s window are new to me. I was still on my adjustment stage when I flew for Singapore. That probably caused the balloon to bloat. Good thing it did not pop – yet..

One good thing with the trip though, is it made Makati much more of a home to me. It made me appreciate the boundaries of my own country. Singapore was beautiful, way more beautiful than any place I’ve ever been. Yet, I still could say, there is no place like home.

After the Singapore trip, I flew back and went straight to my apartment. What greeted me was darkness. My uncle was in a night shift again so nobody’s home. No welcomes and no “how was the trip” thing when I arrived. Just the silent, small apartment I began renting about a month ago.

The after the Singapore trip, my boss came to our office here in Makati to on-board me to my specific tasks. The whole week wasn’t a torture but undeniably critical for me. I mean, I need to get as much information in a little amount of time. After that, only remote communication for queries. It was interestingly challenging.

Then, last night, I went out with two old buddies of mine from college. We were in a choir together and it was fun being with old friends you are comfortable enough to burst out in laughter.

I was actually telling them how things are going with my new life here. One good point that my friend told me was that I am probably facing quarter life crisis – my transition from pre-adulthood to full adulthood. I felt it was very right. I mean, I realized when he raised that point that I am actually in denial of the things that are coming my way. He pointed out how in high school or college that our goals are actually laid down on us – do your assignments and answer your exams well to get high grades so that you’ll pass the semester. When you pass the semester, enroll and do so all over again for the incoming semester until you graduate. That was it back in school.

But now, everything is laid down before you – you do the choosing. The choices you make today will affect what happens to you in the future. Making those life-changing choices are a big thing, those which used to be only for the big guys. Now, I am actually getting into that stage, making choices that shape my life. Sometimes, I just want to get away from those decision making and want to live my life free and careless.

It’s difficult when what you need to do is different from what you want to do. It’s not about the job I have. It’s about the life I have now. You see, I want to always be in a comfortable situation (who doesn’t want to be, right?). In my case, that means living back in my parents’ house and doing my stuff with my computer, designing websites and playing computer games. But then, that is not what I need to do. I need to work well for a successful career in order for my future plans to come true. I want to have a family of my own soon, provide for them well with the best that I can. On the other hand, the inner child in me doesn’t want to let go of the comforts of my home and the fun and laughter of good old childhood days.

Maybe this is what Antoine de Exupery was talking about in his book. In order for a boy to be a man, he has to let go of his childish ways. Growing up is indeed difficult, and with it is learning that you bring for a lifetime.

Many times, I sit in silence, sorting out things in my mind, the things that I see, hear and feel. Just this evening, I went to have shower. One hand was reaching for the soap while the other turns the shower knob. The water was flowing down my chest. The warmth the humid air brings was gone for some time. I closed my eyes and it was a moment of bliss. Getting naked is refreshing. It frees you from clothes that symbolizes what you are on the outside world. When you bare yourself of it, all that is left is the real you, little, fragile and afraid. The real you is that little boy or girl that has worn the body of a grown-up to be able to live the life that the society wants him or her to live.

Life is fun. But life is not all fun. Life is also tears and pain. Life is a combination of the pleasant and the unpleasant. It is then that we make a choice to see what is beautiful and love-worth. It is in our brokenness that life’s small details become precious.

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