Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Think Big, Do big (proust questionnaire part 1)

Before the onset of the long weekend, I was working on this post when water spilled all over my laptop!  I was furious that I had to redo this, but thankful that I was only on question number 2.  Nikki forwarded this questionnaire to me months ago and I find that now is the perfect time to answer it…



My idea of perfect happiness is the absence of everything I hate or dislike.  It is not a perfect ending or summit to be reached at one point of my life.  Instead, it is any given moment that everything seems perfect to me.  It can be as simple as time alone in my room, temperature just right, no worries, and no physical pains.  It can also be moments of laughter with Mark and Xavi or a sumptuous lunch at Tagaytay with mama and papa.  It doesn’t have to be picture perfect either.  It can be celebrating the end of my chemo sessions with family and friends…inspite of my baldness and weight gain.  I guess it’s a frame of mind.  I used to think perfect happiness would come when I’ve achieved all my goals: a successful career, a house, a car, getting married, having children, and so on…but I realized life is just too short.  Why wait for that tomorrow that might never come?  Why wait to achieve this or have that just to be happy?  Live in the now!  Perfect happiness need not be so grand, it can be as simple as taking a looong shower after playing badminton. 

My greatest fear was crossing narrow bridges…I still fear it, but it’s definitely not the greatest.  My greatest fear is death.  This isn’t about fear of what the afterlife has to offer, but fear of what will happen to those I leave behind.  I am scared of what will happen to Xavi when I’m gone.  I want to see him graduate college and get accepted in his first job.  I wanna be there for him if he gets his heart broken or needs to nurse a bad hangover.  I wanna see his perfect happiness unfold.  I want to be there to support and take care of him until the time he can really stand on his own.  This comes from imagining how my life would’ve been without the support of my parents.  I am so grateful they’re still young and in good health.  I don’t know how I could’ve gone through the past few years without them.

I hate my tongue…it can go on and on and say the most hurtful things.  I used to think it was my temper but I realized that I can get pissed and not lash out at the people around me.  I can blow off steam in other ways that do not involve others…workout, walk out, cook, a LOT of other things except nag and talk.

I used to hate slow people, with some exceptions of course (like pwd’s and senior citizens).  This usually occurs in restaurants, cashiers, slow cars, etc. especially when I see there’s no reason to be slow.  I am impatient that way.  Mark and I have this mantra, we do not line up for food.  Number one, it’s a waste of time.  Number two, we’re here to spend money on your restaurant/establishment and this is the first thing (bad service) we get?  Forget it.  But now, what I hate most about some people is their incapacity to be sensitive.  Having gone through the past 2 years, I’ve had a lot of emotional and psychological lows.  Hearing insensitive things hurt me, then make me angry.  How can you tell me I’m fat instead of say how glad you are that I survived chemo?  How can you tell me that we lost Luna because we weren’t married yet, and God hasn’t blessed our union??  Ugh!

I used to admire my lola when I was younger.  Seeing how she raised 4 kids on her own (my lolo died when my youngest aunt was still a baby), put them in good schools, managed her own business, and was still glamorous.  All this faded away when I got older, realizing that success doesn’t equate to happiness.  To me, it doesn’t matter how successful a person is or how many friends he has if he has bad relationships with his family.  This is a deal breaker.  I believe that if I can’t get along with my family (the people I’ve lived with since I was a child), then something’s wrong with me.  If I can’t get along with them, chances are, I won’t be able to get along and live with other people.  Of all the people I know, I admire Mela.  She has shown me that you don’t have to go through all the crap I went through to be understanding and sensitive.  You don’t need to get married and have a child to be responsible for other people.  You don’t need to be greedy even if you’re ambitious.  She is strong to a point that I want her to cry sometimes, just coz she deserves to have a break and I want to be on the receiving end for a change! Hahaha J

I used to splurge on designer bags as a form of investment but now I challenge myself to bigger things.  My greatest extravagance right now is getting a new car.  We don’t really need it coz we already have 3, and my other car is fairly new.  So why get this car?  To me it’s a symbol of career growth.  Living comfortably and having everything we need makes me lax.  Seeing this new car will remind me of the monthly payment and urge me to work more.


I am currently ‘’thinking big”.  Thinking of ways to make more money, more happiness, more quality time, more ways to live a fuller life.  I used to distance myself from stress, so I went for simpler and little things.  But I still got the big C.  So now it’s time to be more responsible and disciplined, it’s time to grow up.   

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