I am a web designer (not)

50% admire 50% disgusted by people who call them selves what they are not, just yet.

Like calling yourself a chef, when you are only a cook or just starting your career in culinary.

I admire their bravery. I get it. We should state and say an I Am statement so out of this world, that we will call it to be our focus, and in time, it will become our reality. But i'm also disgusted by how fast they claim to be who they aspire to be. Why disgusted? Because i believe in the process of things. It's disrespecting the title that needs to be earned with time, sacrifice, hard work, and experience.

I get it, it's the ways of things now. But monetary recession is not getting better (yet) and that means, all these people who are not who they claim to be, will probably lost their job or customers, or be forced to do more than what they are willing to do. 

Ahh 2016. I wonder what will happen then.

To stay, let go, or move forward

Sometimes at the end of year we reflect on what have done that year. When we have not achieve anything significant, we try to find quotes that basically says, don't look for money, spouse, bla bla bla. Just live in your own pace. 

I agree with the slow down notion. But sometimes i think, we use that warning as an excuse. To not go forward, to push ourselves, to make decisions. We cower behind the slow down movement, and we tell ourselves that we are not ready, it's not the right time, etc.

Of course, it's one of the biggest question in life, "HOW do we know whether to keep going or to let go? To stay still or move forward?" Nobody can give us that answer, and even our hearts cheat us by giving the answer we need to hear, not what we should be doing.

To be successful, rich, and to have it all. These dreams, often seen as vanity or shallowness. In church however, i have heard many times, that it's okay to want and pursue those things, as long as we want and use them for right reasons. 

Doesn't it scares us? When money is not the root of all evil, then the roots are our intentions with them.

There's such a things as doing things too fast, like getting into commitments when we are not ready or well-equipped. The trick is to know what our intentions are. Mind you, our hearts and logic can play tricks on us. They can supply us with what is expected of us, and then give us a little dose of guilt trip too. 

But i think, we should all pursue our dreams. Make money, buy that stupid watch, those shoes, build your empire, invest, travel, do whatever our hearts desire. We should, make our own timeline but not base them on everybody else's. 

3 things that i've been saying a lot these past 3 years could probably help you too. 

No Blame, No Excuse, No Drama. 

This surprisingly edit not only the bullshits, but also edit people from my life too. I stay away from people who likes to find blame, make excuses and lots of drama kings and queens. 

Quiet recently i met people who are go getters, solution and result oriented. There' s no room from blame or excuses around them and so i've learn more about opportunities from them.  I learn when to stay, learn, dig deeper or when to chase down that opportunities yourself. 

So i guess, in this end of year. Rather than feeling sorry or try finding all kinds of excuses to validate our lack of bravery, how about we promise ourselves, whatever happens, no blame, no excuse, no freakin drama anymore. Then we'll know for sure, when to stay still, let go, or move forward.

In These Grey Days

Everyone i know are fighting all kinds of battles right now. So i guess, our lives are pretty intense these days. It makes us on edge almost every day, and look to our most trusted way to cheer us up. But then those things failed us. Because who ever made those things, whether it is music, magazine, movies, spa, etc, are fighting battles we know nothing about. Their work became bland and uninspired, just as our lives has been lately. 

I saw that everyone is trying to lash out and get angry. But most held their tongue and frustrations, because we understand. As much criticism that we've gotten from people, we are actually getting a lot less than the actual frustrations out there. Because most people understand.

Is just that, we are all getting tired of this condition, are we not?

We keep waiting, silently praying, anxiously hoping, that everything we are going through will come to pass. Soon.

We want to say goodbye to these tiresome, depressing phase. We are waiting, for better days. 

But. Things are not changing, and though there are so many things that are beyond our control, but some part of it, because we are not changing enough. We can't find the fire, the energy, to do more.

Are we waiting to die? 

To be joyful, inspired, encouraged, to be the crazy ass people we once were, takes discipline. Takes so much faith. 

In our younger days, crazy ideas, energy, and bravery to face all manner of confrontations sort of comes almost effortlessly. I mean we were scared shit of course, but the flame was bigger than the shit. So we trudged on, marched into all kinds of war, even with less armor than we have right now. 

Good 'ol days!

I know, our lives change when we decide. Today our problems might not go away, but i need to think of it in this way : that i will deal with the portion that can be done today. That means, there's still a long way to go. That's just, demotivating to say the least. But i should try to make peace with it.

I know, that this christmas is not as merry because we really run out of money, or maybe, we can't be with our family. But, happiness can still be created in these grey days. Our day really depend on how we make it. Whether it will be merry or not, completely up to us, no matter what our circumstances are. 

It is hard. But if we could be less self centered, if we direct our thoughts to making other people happy, we could be happy too. Maybe we can think about other people's lives. People who have less hope than we do. The refugees, people whose babies and love ones bombed and shattered in front of their eyes, people who have no home, no love, no clothes, not even dream about getting fresh water today. Children who look at our children with envy because they have so much love from us. Or adults that look at us with envy because we can shower with hot water. Men who look at us enviously because we can provide beds for our loved ones. Women who look at us with envy because we are free to choose what we wear and what we want to pursue in life.

We take so much for granted. Let's direct our thoughts and love toward people outside our little lives.

There are so much to be thankful for, so many reasons to be merry. 

Recharge with love and prayer. 

Inspirations will come, energy inflamed within us, and the path will then, be seen again, right ahead of us all.

Love

You know, it's scary to write about love. since i am a working woman, a leader no less. Writing about love makes us woman leaders look weak, while we are still fighting to make more women be seen tough enough to take on more leadership roles. But not talking about it, i think, made us less brave to take on that role. Because that's what we've been doing. In Sandberg words, we check out long before we need to. It's all because of love.

Since i was a kid, i always know I'm different. I always have opinions about things. I'm always intense. People used to think I'm exhausting. Can't blame them. I was. But you can't help growing up faster than others if you grow up in my home. I will not elaborate more on that, but i will say, i always had to find solutions no matter how impossible they were. So it's frustrating for me to not criticize others when they dont see the solutions, or worse, not doing them even when they know what to do.

These tendencies to see pattern and stuff had made people think I'm indigo, but I've had my aura photographed and my aura was turquoise not indigo, so I'm not. But i still have the gift of leading and so i became outspoken, active, achieving all kinds of things that parents dream about their child. The more driven i become, the more scared i was that no boys will like me. This insecurities had gotten me into bad relationships. Bad, as in, i became needy and too ready to make the relationships work. 

Later, i became more scared and insecure. I started to think about my self more. I started to build this wall in the name of self preservation. I made requirements and boundaries as to what kind of men i allow to enter my life. In a way it's good, because then i will rule out men that does not have the same vision as i do, but other times it kinda makes me, a chauvinist, i guess.
 
 Let me explain.
As i grew stronger, i expected my man to understand fully, that i am a working woman. I like to contribute my talents to the world. If in a date a man would say, "I want my wife to be able to cook, or stay home, i don't want nannies to help take care of my children one day." Those were my deal breaker. Men like these bore the crap out of me. There will never be a second date with these men. If i were to watch movies, and saw that a man would leave their wife, because the wife became more successful in their work, preoccupied, or make more money, i would swear to my self that i make sure i interview my date about things like this. It is my primal fear, that i can't be who i am, because the man i love wont allow me to be who i am. I'm scared because i can't choose between them.  In my mind my family and my work are the loves of my life. They are like my heart and lungs. I can't live without any of them.

So as i sorted out potential candidates, i grew more hatred if the men cited they want their future wives to like be their mothers. This went on, until i met THE ONE.

With my husband everything was different. He was obnoxious, worshiped his mother, and the most insensitive man you could ever meet. But, it took me almost 14 years, to finally get it. In the beginning people wonder why i chose him, while i could have chosen any man i want. I was beautiful, skinny, smart, and talented too. I was and still is a book worm, i like jazz, drink wine, love philosophy. I hate parties and meeting many people. While he was and still is into edm and dance music. He does not think or contemplate about life, he likes parties, going out, meet people. Yes, we are extremely opposites. As different as any north and south pole. So what made us attracted to each other? our values. Our likes and dislikes are surface things. But our values are the same. Not only does he supports my work, he would scowl me when I'm feeling lazy and less committed. He's a committed father. He believes that fathers have important role in children upbringing, and so not only he can play with them, he knows our kids' doctors, their meds and dosage if they ever need any. He also does not care that i can't cook, as long as i make sure i take care of his food. Believe it or not, i only found out about this recently. Once i tried to please him by making fancy dinner for him, he said to me, "I would rather you buy the food or make someone else do it and then sit and talk to me. rather than you stressing out trying to do this for me and i can't enjoy that." Those words were my eye opener. 

Recently i watched this movie "The Freedom Writers". In the story the female lead became more preoccupied with work and finally her husband left her. Then i recalled, if i watch this movie 15 years ago, i would call names towards the husband. Why can't husbands supports their wives, the way that wives are expected to do? I would come to a conclusion that only weak men would do that to their wives. While that's still true, i also know now, that marriages are not that simple. Although we know the key to any relationship is great communication, we often don't realize we are not communicating. Can we tell the difference between, talking and communicating? I sure can't. Not in the beginning anyway. Communicating involves a lot of listening and asking. Not just telling or sharing stuff. I have long leave that habit we women do. You know, saying, "nothing" when our man ask us what's wrong. I have now learned, there is no need for that kind of drama. I just tell him what i want, when i'm ready, and we are not too tired. I found, now, it's my husband who has trouble in saying and asking me what he wants. I have learned that, to make people brave enough to ask or discuss things, we have to create an environment of open mindedness. That is something that i was not, even 2-3 years ago. I created this "what my man should be" in my mind, that i'm not open to compromise. I was being chauvinistic toward my man, and i didn't realize that at all. I was so averted toward his kind of music, that i even look down on him for that. I would dismiss and dissaproved whenever he wants to go out with his friends to clubs and places that plays this sort of music. But it all changed when we started to go to business coaching. Of course the coaching sessions does not involve talking about our marriage, but it made me rethink a lot of things. It opened my mind and i was more willing to change my perspective about a lot of things.  That attitude seemed to affect my marriage too. I started telling my husband, that next time he wants to go out, ask me to come along. He was shocked, and the whole night that we went out, he kept checking on me. "Are you okay? is this okay? are you bored?". And to tell you the truth, i was not bored at all. The places we went to wasn't so bad. In my mind, he would go wild, but apparently, there were just a group of friends. They talk about stuff, like what most men talked about. You know, cars, holidays, stocks, investments, that kind of stuff. So the next time he wants to go out, i was ok with it.The change in my attitude, brought change in his. He was more open to my kind of happy places. Then i asked him a lot of things beforehand, even though i know he would have no problem with it. Usually i only ask when i'm not sure whether he will be ok with it or not. Now, i involve him in many more decision making process. He does the same thing too.

My younger self will scowl and look down on me for doing things that i do now. But i know now, men and women wants the same thing. We want love and still be free to be who we are. To find someone whom we can grow together with. Grow as a person, not just grow old. We all are unhappy when we are forced to be someone we are not, but we need to not be lazy and use that as an excuse to be more than our own concept about ourselves. So i think, to be a strong woman, a strong leader, we need our support system in place. Our spouse is our backbone, without their support, we can't bring out our full potential. This goes both ways.   

Love should make us stronger, bolder, happier, and grander. Not the other way around. Our target in love, should be just that. Everything else should not matter. And if people talk, let them. They seem to have a bitter life, plus their standard is not relevant to our own lives. Our love lives are what we make of it. 

I also know one thing for sure, whatever your faith is, find people you can grow spiritually with. It is the utmost important. Because it's an automatic thing, when you and your significant other move upwards together, both of you will grow closer, in God. 

Lastly, for those of you who are currently single, or have problems in your love lives, do pray. Let God handle your love lives and lift up your burden. Be hopeful that God knows better and in His own time, He will show you His plans for you. Amen.