Category: Dear Diary

Get Your Hands Dirty

Tina Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about hard work lately.

I remember one time, when I was preparing for a sort of date, I complained to a friend about how it was so hard to make an effort sometimes. Like, at one point, you kind of just don’t want to exert that much, and shouldn’t this thing be easy? Shouldn’t it just fall into your lap when you’re not looking?

But relationships and love are complicated, so let’s talk about something more tangible, and easier to measure. Like, losing weight. My workout schedule has been erratic ever since 2015 rolled around, and I would rather catch up on sleep or eat or do something else than spend an hour in the gym. Until my female colleagues signed up for Curves, the all-female gym near the office, and invited me to join them. I tried it out, and signed up, because it’s cheaper and it’s more intense than what I’m doing now. Of course, as soon as I started, I expected that I will shed pounds like that, completely forgetting that when I first lost weight, it took me lots of muscle pains, sweat, discipline and hard work to lose all that I lost in nine months. I suppose I assumed that just because I did it before, it should happen the same way again, but obviously, it’s not.

Or, school. I started taking a certification course for Digital Marketing last August. Since it’s my first time to study and work at the same time, it wasn’t as easy to get my study habits back. I always remind myself that I won’t learn if I don’t put in the necessary hours to actually learn the things. It could be spending an entire Saturday in a classroom, missing some other things in the process. Staying a few more hours after work to attend a webinar. Allotting extra hours to go through the course material, and working on the assignment ahead of time. I often said when I started studying again that I thought I could go by just swimmingly and not put too much effort into things, like how I did some things in college (heh), but the first assignment totally took me by surprise and I realized that I can’t just wing this thing. I need to put in the work.

How about writing? Like I said last time, I’ve been stuck in a certain part of book #2 for a long time now, and it’s frustrating because I know what’s going to happen, but the feelings just weren’t there. It’s like I’m writing robots instead of characters with stories and feelings. And then I see some people who are coming out with books and I feel like they’re churning words like machines while I just keep on writing and rewriting the scenes that I was stuck in. Then there were so many things happening to other author friends and it’s all exciting, and then I’ll think: when will that happen to me, too?

And then, I remember that as with everything in life, writing and putting out books still requires hard work. From writing the first draft to the revising and editing, to sending it to the world and then thinking of ways to get people to notice your book and read it and talk about it. There’s no overnight success in this, and venturing into all of this meant I have to do the dirty work. It may look effortless to some (as I have sometimes fooled myself into thinking), but there were many things that happened behind the scenes for the show to look flawless.

So yes, hard work. I have to remind this to myself – especially recently – that nothing worth having ever comes easy. I forget this easily, because I have allowed myself to believe that I deserve things simply because I want them, and not because I worked hard for them.

I want to make a promise to myself this time, for the sake of all the things that I still want to accomplish before 2015 ends (and beyond) to never neglect hard work. I want to remember, and learn – and maybe sometimes even force myself – to sit down in front of my computer to write, to open my course notes to study, or to take those steps to the gym, because I believe that the things I want to accomplish is worth rolling up my sleeves and getting my hands dirty. They should be, because if they’re not, then why am I even wasting my time reaching for them?

Let me end this post with wise words from HB:

All good things come tangled up with sacrifice of time and space and resources. You have to go out on a limb. You have to trust in the things bigger than yourself. Not everyone is going to understand your discipline but it’s going to be necessary for the race ahead. Stay focused. Keep your eyes forward.

(Image source: Desktop Sketching, Eric Heupel, Flickr)

To get yourself a new life you’ve got to give the other one away

Tina 2 Comments

Change is happening at work right now, and it has been happening since a few months ago. I’m no stranger to it – I’ve witnessed change happen several times in the course of my career, especially in my previous company, but I guess I wasn’t totally affected by it until my last career shift. Now we’re in the thick of it, and I have a completely different set of responsibilities to handle it now. I’m not directly affected, but I have this responsibility to help in making the change easier for everyone else.

It’s sort of funny, how all these changes at work sort of paralleled the changes happening in my personal life. They weren’t exactly life-shattering changes, but still, they were pretty major, and it shook my otherwise comfortable world. And I didn’t like that.

And it’s also a little funny that sometime a year ago, I was experiencing the same thing – except it was entirely different than it is now.

Let me be a bit cliche here for a minute: change really happens everyday. Our new CEO said that during the first time we met him: who you are at this minute is different from who you were five minutes ago. Sometimes we choose to change, and that makes us (painfully) aware about things, but often times, change is thrust towards us, and we have the choice to be agile and jump in, or be in denial until we have no choice to but to move.

I remember sort of going a bit meta a few weeks back when I sat down to look at all of what’s happening in my life. I remember smiling at how things seem to be unfolding, because really, it’s not so bad. But I’m a creature of comfort – so when I went back down to focus on what’s in front of me, I resisted, again. 

I think what scares me – and everyone else, for sure – about changes happening is how it has the tendency to leave us uprooted. I felt like I was losing so many things that I have painstakingly built, everything and everyone that I had invested in because of these changes, and of course I didn’t want that. I deserve these things, I thought. These are mine. I felt – at least, as far as those personal changes were concerned – that I was floating up, up, and away, and I didn’t know where I will end up. I’ve got half the mind to just allow that to happen to me – to go with the flow, so to speak – and see where it will take me.

Except.

The last time I felt uprooted like this was almost two years ago, and it was terrifying in a lot of ways. Looking back at all that, I realized that while there was uprooting, I didn’t exactly float aimlessly. In fact, it was the opposite: I had simply changed direction and I was firmly in the middle of God’s plan.

I am not aimless. It felt like it was, because I didn’t know what was going to happen. But it was never aimless. It might not even be floating, actually. God has me firmly in His hands, and even in the midst of this changes, He has never let me out of His sight.

You know what? Maybe it’s not even really uprooting. I think that I am still rooted – deep in His love, as He had intended it to be. But I think that the changes that came in my life recently – both personal and professional – is some sort of pruning. It’s painful (because hello, you don’t prune without scissors and cutting something), but it’s necessary. Because if you don’t prune, then how will it grow?

I was never aimless.

True, sometimes things at work feel a bit shaky sometimes, and frankly sometimes I still don’t know what to do. But like what my manager tells me, I can take all these by the hands and make deliberate steps to push myself forward. And I believe God is telling me the same thing: after this moment of pruning, I have the ability to move forward and grow, trusting fully in Him who had stitched me together with His love. :)

 

Remain in My Love

Tina Leave a comment

I think it was late last year, during my most stressful days at work, when I thought of running away.

Not really run away from home, mind you, but run away somewhere just so I won’t have to deal with the things I had to deal with everyday. I was so, so tired, and I thought of all the options I have in front of me: to resign, to study, do something else – just be anywhere but there.

But in the end, I didn’t do it, because responsibility won me over. Plus I couldn’t help but think of what my manager told me before I joined the team when she saw my tenure – that I was someone who stayed, and it’s a big thing. I thought maybe I should hold on a little while longer, and not make hasty decisions. And it’s not like it was so easy to just run away.

Besides, if I didn’t remain there for a little bit longer, I wouldn’t have found my 2015 word, and I wouldn’t have moved to this other job.

So it all worked out in the end.

The One Who Remained.

At the SFC International Conference at Cagayan de Oro last year, the second talk was all about the apostle John, and the crucifixion.

You see, John was the only one among all of Jesus’ apostles that was at the foot of the cross up until Jesus drew his last breath. When everyone else had run away and hid, John stayed. After Peter denied Jesus three times, John followed Jesus to the cross.

Why was he there? The speaker asked.

The answer was simple: He was there because Jesus was his friend. 

The speaker further explained: He was there because he loved the Lord. John thought that his presence there would somehow ease Jesus’ pain and suffering just by merely being there.

It was early morning, and I was on my way to tutoring when a thought hit me.

Why don’t I study abroad? That’s something nice to do.

It was, admittedly, a nice dream. It was something I had parked at the back of my mind years ago, but I never pursued because I didn’t want to leave. And then I found a reason. Or perhaps, it wasn’t really a reason, but a push.

It seemed like a good idea, though, and it is still a good idea now. Except back then, the reason I wanted to do that was because I wanted to run away again. I wanted a fresh start that I can’t seem to get here, so I thought, where else can I get a fresh start but in another place where no one knew me?

Of course that didn’t happen, because other things did.

John could have ran away, too.

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