Goodbye Mr. Morris

Image by kabun via FlickrGoodbye to you my friend. I'm giving you up now even before the year ends. I will start 2009 afresh and with personal growth in mind. Without you.

We've been great friends. You were with me in college - by the sheer force of your presence I thought I had gotten an aura of coolness. For an extremely introverted nerd who was insecure in his place in the universe your help got me through that awkward phase.

I have fallen in and out of love. And through these highs and lows you were a constant, trusty companion: the lusty party animal in our heady celebrations and a consoling booster every time I got dumped for a better man.

When I had tried to take my own life eons ago you were there - a partner in an almost consummated crime. And though you were not responsible for springing me back to life, you held your ground and never abandoned me.

You have been a great crutch every time ennui got to me. When every day seemed to unfold with the same dreariness your presence anesthetized this awfulness and made it more bearable.

Nearly thirty years after that initial puff, I have come to my senses. You're not a life affirming friend after all. You belong to the dark side. Hahaha. You're insinuating yourself into my destructive impulses. And you must go.

True, you have hardwired your influence into my brain for years. But I will start anew. I refuse to believe your stronger and grittier than I am. I refuse to believe that I can be made to dance around your little finger any longer. I refuse to believe that a mere cigarette can claim dominion over my life. Because I have intellect and will and I intend to use it. A fellow blog author Brandon Gilbert said it well in his life-affirming post. And I felt as if he were personally addressing me to make good on my personal growth agenda:

You decide. You manifest. You rule. This is why you are here. This is what you came to discover. You were born to experience your absolute dominion over every flimsy, malleable illusion of time and space; to have, do, and be anything.

Thanks, Brandon. I can already feel the universe conspiring to make me succeed. Indeed, it has got my back covered.

Goodbye, Mr. Morris. You have outlived your usefulness

I'm reclaiming my life back.

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Once More With Feeling: Goals for 2009

Goals that are not written down are just wishes. - Anonymous

Very well then. I have to set these down then, my goals for 2009.

Personal Goal. Giving up the smoking habit. I have set it out in my initial post in this blog, but I kept postponing the day of final deliverance. I confess I have yet to position myself on the starting block and make a go at it.

Every day, I first check out the comment section on this blog. Primarily because I positively cringe at the prospect of a reader checking my progress on my earlier vow. I hate that I can't brag that I have started already. Can't even put to to paper the suffering I have to go through on account of kicking the habit. Bad, bad.

It's no relief that this blog has stayed under the radar of friends and well-meaning readers. When they do eventually come around and ask I have to be honest. My credibility as a person and as a blog author rests on this.

It's not enough to write it on stone. In this day and age you have to write it down on a blog for good measure.

I'd occasionally post here my progress if you don't mind. And if you feel like checking up on me, feel free to do so. I'd appreciate it.

Goal For This Blog . In my earlier post, 8 Internet Goals for 2009, I have cheekily enumerated what I set out to do for next year. That I guess was written in a moment of pique or derangement. At the time, I desperately needed company in this blog. And there were no visitors so I wrote that. The only valid goal was summarized in the 8th entry. So there.

Of course, I can delete it, but in retrospect, I elected it to stay as a stark reminder of my progress as a blogger.

I wish to add my dream of moving into a more decent house (shhh, this is just between you and me, okay). Where I can move as I please. Where there's a big cupboard I can stack with to-die-for plug ins. Every time I check out my blog neighbors in wordpress ville, I hate having this feeling of inferiority as if I were a poor cousin. I know I'm not exactly living under the bridge, but I can't help it.

It strains credulity if one blogs about personal growth while living on the pittance of the blogger platform.

I'm just saving money for the move.

In your case, what do you wish to achieve in 2009?

Let It Slide

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis!

It's all right, I know you want to. Let it out. You can tell me. What am I here for? Don't keep it bottled up inside you. If you do it would leak and eat anything in its path, if ever so slowly.

What's bothering you, man? Oh that. The sinking almighty dollar. Very bad for business indeed.

But you know what, let it slide. Dude, thousands have lost their jobs, you still have yours. You have lots to be grateful for. And if worse comes to worst, you have other prospects, right? Just the other day, we're talking about your multiple streams of income. Think about that. You were ready even before this economic downturn. You have continually reinvented yourself.

For sure, this is crimping your style. You have to cut down on eating out, buying fancy but for most parts non-essential stuff, blah-blah-blah. Therein lies the beauty of it. It's back to the basics for all of us - a continuing appreciation of what is truly essential. All else is fluff. What is it again - all is vanity and vexation of the spirit? I wonder who said that, totally escapes me now. But that doesn't make it any less true.

Preoccupy yourself with the problems that bedevil your fellow man. Compared to their burdens, your concerns seem hilarious at best. The most precious personal growth can be achieved not only in times of plenty but during adversity as well.

I know you're made of sterner stuff. Take heart, my friend. If all else fails, scream. :)

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Rescuing A Dream From The Garbage Bin

Back in college, we were asked to turn in an essay on what we dream of achieving. Because my pretension to becoming a writer then was already being severely limited by lack of focus and to a large extent by a paucity of ideas and creative inspiration, I settled for publishing. Ding. I proclaimed I'd be a big time publisher. A Filipino Charles Scribner in search of my own Ernest Hemingway incarnate.

My teacher gave me an A for that presumptuous essay.

God, however, gave me a D-. Of course, you know what usually happens to the best laid plans - God laughs at you and upends the drafting table. I know God might have finally approved of the plan, but my failure was largely because of my lack of focus and other failings. I had designed the blueprint myself. And so it had come to pass.

Instead of graduating from college, I applied for a job. I found one but I was underemployed as a quality inspector in a textile factory somewhere in Rizal. Of course, I went through pushing carts full of bobbins of yarns to spinners. I was fairly young, but it was backbreaking. An opening in the quality control staff later made my life easier. From peon I became a pencil pusher, consolidating inspection reports and doing other routine work you can do on auto-pilot. The greatest challenge to my creative aspirations was to cook up excuse letters for my co-workers who gallivanted from work. It's that and how to squeeze my minimum wage so after I fed myself I'd still have some money for books.

Cut to present time. I'm managing a small computer retail store. At night I have been blogging. That's publishing still, right? Well, what do you know. May be this is my second chance. With this publishing platform, I have the world for an audience. Of course, the audience is preoccupied elsewhere. Understandably so, I have not written anything for them to take notice.

It doesn't daunt me a bit. Why should I expect the world to pay heed? I did my inquiries and I found out my best friends had yet to check up on my blog. None among my family members had visited me, too. Boo-hoo.

Maybe that's for the best. That will give me enough elbow room on this blog. "Who do you think you are - mentioning in your blog your Ate R's to-die-for recipe for carbonara. You perhaps think that trumps my exotic frog recipes?" Or something of this sort.

Even the household puppy named Ditton - of askal lineage (local variety dog) - reserves barking and raising an awful racket every time I sit down to blog. It doesn't help that children carolers drive Ditton to a fit. If I skip blogging on some days, it can very well be because of him. Clearly, he's not a cute, dainty little thing that blogging big time eventually bought. But he's become a metaphor for everything that taunts me to quit. It's just a blog after all. An excuse that will soon become a full treatise why one stops pursuing a dream, if I don't pay attention to these things.

Nice thing though - it has been only 17 days of blogging. I should not let up and lose focus.

If only for the reason that this blog can keep me sane. That's a big thing for me. Honest writing can make a person fully conscious of life's journey, it's challenges and triumphs and even losses. That's a major help, whatever job one may have in this world.

At least I have here a tool to help me evolve as better person. By looking inward, by self-examination, and by seeing all this personal growth crystallized in writing. And if I am lucky through your companionship and conversations.

Your thoughts? Any dreams from earlier life you have rescued from the garbage bin? Are you working on it too?