Indulgence

what I learned last Friday night

Bill Gates
I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything he ever dreamed of so he can see that it's not the answer.

Berna is leaving for Cebu for work and she might not be coming back soon. It's a permanent job, after all. Well, permanent as long as she likes what she is doing and she grows as a person. I told her to go and do it. It will offer her new opportunities, and honestly, she needs a change of pace too. She has nothing to lose and so much to gain. It will help her grow and I might be losing one of my closest friends to the distance between the cities in which we will inhabit; but I've never been one to stop someone from growing, much less myself and this will be good for her so with all the love in my heart, I told her to go.

We celebrated her despedida (going away party) last Friday. Her old friends from college and high school, mixed in with people she's met along the way. I got to see people I haven't seen in a long time. My friends from 2004 -- Ann, Jaypee, Maik, Charles and Japs; friends from NMI (who I saw 2 weeks ago except Ivan who was in Boracay at that time) and so on. I got a little nostalgic but it didn't last very long. I'm not a sentimental person by far. I was just extremely happy to see them. If anything, I was able to tell myself that I'm still changing, growing, learning and developing. It would be such a scary thing to have the same thing going on in my life everyday.

What's important is my love for them has not left me, as I had left their constant company. With the gang, we were inseparable, until our work took us away from each other and left us with just weekends, and sometimes, not even that. Then I was in NMI and it was the same deal. Together, stuck like glue and happy about it until I needed to get out. I got out and sort of lost contact with them, other than the occasional yahoo messenger chats and texts.

But my love for them hasn't faded. I'm so happy to get a chance to be with them and I really, really have to learn how to divide my time properly. I'm always throwing myself at whatever I'm working on, I'm such a horrible little workaholic, a self-obsessed workaholic for that matter, that it is hard for me to give myself to others; no matter how much I want to. But you have to. I remember a quote from Alanis Morissette in an interview regarding her being a negative songwriter, always writing about anger and hate. She said:

The biggest blessing came when I realized that the more I love the so-called
dark parts of me, the happier I become. The more I am okay with being
angry, confused, vengeful, attached -- all those bad, insecure, self-hating
aspects -- the better I feel. Some people think, if I push negative
thoughts away, I'll be happy. But I don't know anyone who's happy when
they're pushing away parts of themselves. (Insider, July 2004)

And I find that very true. And they are all an essential part of me. Their opinions and thoughts and stories have come through me and affected me and I should respect that.

We work to live, afterall and not live to work. Once again, I am reminded that my work cannot define me. It's okay that it does, I like what I do. But there are other parts of my life that I leave behind because I put all my energy to my work. And that can't be good for me.

posted by wanggo @ 2:15 PM