“I’ve made impulsive and cautious decisions over the course of my life. With impulse, I’ve lost and made friends, money, opportunities and even myself. With caution, there’s still not much of a difference since I’ve also lost relationships, money, opportunities and even myself. But on the bright side, I’ve gained a will to carry on, a time to rethink my steps and gain wisdom (I hope so!).”
After graduation I was offered opportunities and I, being honest here, rejected and did not take them. It wasn’t entitlement, it was finding a sense of happiness and purpose, I guess. The reason? Well, I felt empty and quite nowhere. A few months before graduation, I felt that the topmost priority for me was a job! People kept asking where I will work or where I want to work. I answered them just to simply keep them from probing more questions that I didn’t want to answer, because the truthful answer that they wouldn’t have wanted to hear was, “I don’t know.”
I honestly don’t know. I’ve checked out opportunities and felt that it could work and suddenly when it came, I was the first one out of the door. I went into interviews but withdrew my application after the interviews because I felt that it wasn’t right. I entered engagements, but chickened out a few days before it started because my gut felt so burdened. I was not in-between, nor was I myself. It was the first time that I encountered the other side of myself. It didn’t scare me, but it amused me for a moment. I came to realize that’s just me being human.
Over the years, I’ve had decisions that was inorganic due to pressure and to not wanting to have bad blood over the people in my life over the choices that I made. I’ve had engagements that I could not back out. I told myself, this time, it’s going to be different. Fast forward to months after dilly-dallying everything, I (think I) finally settled at the moment.
Moving from a big city to a bigger city and letting go of the comforts of what my home used to offer me was exciting and kind of sad (I learned some basic life skills like how to do laundry!!!). That was what my adventurous self felt. Yet, a few days of boarding into a new adventure, my cautious self wanted out. It wanted to crawl back to the rock that I have been living in over the course of two months. But a bigger part of me wanted in. Talk about irony! It wanted to try — to try to do something I’ve never done for myself (i.e. make bigger decisions in life). It wanted to fully make an organic choice. Without pressure, without negative factors. And it was liberating.
The main thing that I’ve learned from this big move is that things will come at the right time. Though people will have it differently, case in point: the demarcation line of the different levels of privilege. My feeble heart still believes that we can break that line even if chances are so slim. Those set-backs are part of something bigger. Though it won’t come easily and the process of going there may seem to suck everything out of that spirit within us, don’t give up (just curse or release that via yoga or some stress balls).
Getting to where you want to go is in itself what we do in life. Believe me, I never planned for this. I have a book which I’d like to call a goal book, where I’ve written my planned dreams (including but not limited to getting a job at X company), and a lot of other things. But this one came in my most unplanned moment and in my most impulsive moment.
Remember though that this is not a race. I know we’ve been exposed to the internet, of people and the lives that they live. A little part of me envies it sometimes, but this is one thing that I believe: that deep inside everyone has different lives, different shoes to fill, different problems to face. No matter how happy it may seem, we all have some fucked up moments too. If I wished my life was different, I would not have met beautiful people along the way; the people who helped me paint life beautifully.
I’d stop here. But whoever you are, whatever you are doing and wherever you may be, I wish you’d never lose hope (it’s free!) and courage to keep moving forward (by that I mean, study smartly, discipline yourself if you want to lose weight, and things that you know better vs me). You’d eventually find your place in the bigger scheme of things. And if you haven’t, and you’re stuck at doing what you least like, you may need that experience and wisdom (and money) to move yourself through what you really desire. I wish I could say believe me, that would be so hypocritical of me then, but we need to start somewhere right? And if the chapters that we’re having now in our books will lead us closer to whatever we want in the next 10 chapters or so, then we might as well try.
Valete!
P.S. This is to our past self who belittled ourselves. The present is laughing right now because the universe truly conspires for things to happen. Some beautiful things do come in the most unplanned and unexpected moments. And some arrive because we planned them beautifully and passionately. Trust in that timing and if it fails, then that’s a bonus round to keep on trying.
Kimmy Journals 