the need for a change...

leaving everything behind and doing something different from what is expected of you is a difficult decision to make. i guess i’ve always been the academic in the family and the one who dreamt the biggest dreams. i guess i have the perfect ingredients to boot - some intelligence, big guts, and a matured (not boasted) ego! growing up, the expectation to deliver has always been constant. this even went overboard after i finished my bachelor’s degree and decided to pursue not just one, but two master’s degrees! in my early 20s, i remember someone telling me that i am destined to do bigger things. i was even advised that the world out there is bigger than what i thought and imagined it to be, and i can conquer that world only if i wanted to. however, i confined myself with the comfort of staying in the philippines – where all my family and friends are, and basically just doing what i know. it was then when an opportunity that is very hard to pass came along. then i left.

i thought leaving the Philippines and going to a foreign country can break my own stereotype and eventually erase it. i told myself that while it will be tough, i will leave the life that i had and pursue something different. but since i still chose to be in the same industry that i was then, and decided to do post-graduate studies again (and hang out with people of the same caliber and frame of mind), i guess i never really escaped the life that i wanted to escape from. i was on a standstill except that i lost my crazy friends which ironically kept my sanity intact.

the plan. in two years, i WILL quit my job. inasmuch as its value cannot be overemphasize as it pays for my rent, my daily sustenance, and send money back to help my family, i really have to quit lest i lose my sanity. i love what i am doing, and i guess in a much bigger spectrum helps the industry safer, however at the end of the day, i am no longer motivated. i am no longer into it – i am more bored than ever! i give my heart out but in the end i get nothing in return. on a personal level, it doesn’t fulfill me anymore. what used to be a source of my pride and joy is now merely just a source of livelihood. and it’s not good!
i need this for myself. i need to do this for myself. while i do not know what the future holds (who does, anyway!), what i am certain is that i need this change. i always tell my friends to do what their hearts desire, to go to a place where they think they ought to be...but where am i right now? i am thousands of miles away from home, but still it’s as if i never left because i am still stuck at the same things which i long have been wanting to escape from.

so where do i go from here? where do i REALLY want to go? what do i REALLY want to do? and who do i REALLY want to be?

in two years, i will have my own business, pursue my dream of that elusive PhD degree (this is one thing i will not want to hide from or change), do some social development research, teach on the side, go back home and put up my own NGO or help an NGO – help people help themselves, and be a better person! sound easy although i find it daunting!

time flies very fast and the next thing you know you are in your 40s or 50s...the worst thing that i will do to myself is to wake up one day and blame myself for not doing what i really want to do. i owe myself this change. its been long-standing and lingering for more than a decade now. It’s either i do it or just totally stop the whole idea, and accept the fact that this is my destiny. it’s either i lose this battle or i win it!

mi ultimo decision? change and win it...big time!