Happy Quest

When things don’t go as I want them to or when people don’t behave in the way I want them to behave or fail to treat me in the way I want to be treated, most often than not I am the problem.

When I don’t get the cooperation that I need, the conventional thought is for me to think that “they” are the problem. I would think that people are uncooperative, self serving and insensitive to my needs. They fail to honor their word and they fail to honor my rights. They do not understand and they are mistaken in the decisions they make. I count the number of times they make mistakes and I deposit their failures in my emotional bank account. I soon associate their presence or the mere mention of their names to their so called misdeeds and it affects the way I deal with them. I become unhappy with them and soon wish I don’t have to deal with them. The problem is they are members of my team or members of my family or friends. I will feel trapped in the company of people who do not understand my needs. If I don’t get any relief I will become bitter and start dealing with them in a negative way. I label them problem employees, problem child, difficult persons, difficult customers. But are they truly the problem or is it me? Let me think about it…

I don’t get the cooperation that I need because a lot of times, people do not understand what I need. They do not have a way of knowing because I often fail to communicate. I just assume that they know because they should. They know me hence they should know what I need. Besides most of the things I expect from people only takes common sense to figure out as far as I am concerned. Here in lies the problem. I expect people to focus their attention on my needs. Many times I forget that they have needs too and they have their own priorities, and their not prioritizing my needs may have nothing to do with how they think of me but has more to do with what they think should be prioritized at the moment.

I hate it when people do not deliver on expectations. They come across as incompetent. But wait, there are times when people around me fail because of my own incompetence. My kids fail to perform at school because I don’t give them the kind of emotional and logistical support that they need and why? I have a justification for that. I also didn’t get the kind of support that I’m supposed to have when I was a kid but I made it so why can’t they. My staffs fail to meet my performance expectations because I was unable to give my time train and coach. I can also justify my action for that. I didn’t get the support that I needed when I was in their place and I made it this far, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to do the same. I seem to have a justification for all my actions, why can’t I have justification for theirs? Is it because I am always right and they are always wrong?

In the morning, I go to the bus station and take a bus that’s empty, I choose the best seat where I can comfortably read a good book or have a nice sleep. This is all because the journey is two hours long and I don’t want to just endure it. A few miles down the road the bus is filled and some women will be standing on the isles as the bus chugs along. I have a personal rule, I don’t offer my seat to women except the really old ones, the pregnant and the ones with children. I strategically position my self so that I am the last man to give away my seat. This morning, I had no choice. An old woman rode the bus and no one is offering. With all hesitations, I gave away my seat. The old lady smiled and thanked me for offering my seat. She said that I didn’t have to do it. Offering my seat she said is out of fashion. I stood for about an hour but it was well worth it. Why, because I was able to win over the demon inside me who keeps on justifying why I shouldn’t give away my seat.

I realize that in our lives there are so many of these situations when we have to win over our inner demons. Its when we are in cross roads literally and figuratively. These are situations when we have to wait for our turn to cross the street or just violate the traffic rules because we can get away with it. It’s when we feel it most convenient to blame others for our failures rather than do some serious self examinations.

Its useless to blame because it attracts more blame. Blaming is counter-productive. Blame won’t put people in their place. The lesson therefore is not to blame but to think… What should I have done better and how can I make things work better for me and the people I am with. If we can do this, we can live a happier more fulfilling life.

On average, human beings live for 66 years. If you sleep an average of 8 hours a day, you lose 1/3 of your life to inactivity. That is about 22 years. More if you sleep longer than 8 hours. But I don’t want to bother much about rest, one won’t get to a ripe old age without it. Its what you do with the remaining 44 years of your waking hours that matters provided that you have 44 years  of it to live. Oh one more thing, there’s a good chance that as you read this article, you’ve already spent a good amount of that 44 years. How you spent it and how you will spend it in the future is the topic of this discourse.

If you spend an average 2 hours of each day angry or sad, you lose 3.33 years to sadness which leaves you with a little more than 40 years. That is again provided that you have that amount of time in this world. If you spend some amount each day resenting other people, regretting wrong decisions worrying about your prospects are you really using your time wisely?

As I said, life is too short. For all we know we could leave this world tomorrow or in the next 50 years or so. This is something that is completely out of our control, so why worry about it? When we experience failure in our lives, it is nothing more than a twist in our progressing life story. Its a decision point for its main character, you to make it a tragedy or an action adventure story. Happy ending or sad ending, it doesn’t matter. Endings are just endings, its when everybody goes home. You have the rest of your life to be more excited about.

So, what am I saying here? Am I saying that we should all be slap happy, optimistic individuals who pretend that all is well in this world? That we all go into denial when bad things happen to us? Of course not, I am quite as familiar with bad experience as everyone else. My future dimmed when I got my girlfriend pregnant at age 19, I struggled in the 13 years that followed, my first wife left me at age 26, I felt my life shattered. I lost a very important person in my life on my 32nd birthday while my daughter was seriously ill and yes I lost my job and were broke and up to my eyeballs in debt at that relatively young age. I’ve gone to hell and back and what did I learn? I learned to cut my loses. I learned that staying down when one falls will get one nowhere. I’m quite a clumsy person not only physically but also in terms of my decisions. I faced dead ends several times in my life and failed countless times. I have encountered so many of them that I’ve learned to deal with them. I learned that if one falls one should get up as soon as he can, shake the dust off, and move on. When faced with a wall, turn your back to it and yes, move on to find a better path.

A boxer who accepts his defeat, learns from it and then challenges his opponent with a new resolve and stronger determination have a 50/50 chance of winning. 50%! That’s so much better than zero!

Think about it. Think about how smartly you are spending your precious little time in this world. Smart is not about worrying about failures or the prospects of it, Its about how well we fight knowing fully well that we have half a chance of failing but not worrying about it. The worst thing that can happen is to lose everything but hey, who doesn’t? Don’t we all lose everything in the end? So why bother?

Live life, smell the roses, appreciate the people around you, have fun dealing with what life throws at you, take the good with the bad, stop being angry or resentful  and most of all, stop worrying about what tomorrow will bring. Life is too short for that.

Do you agree with me that it is sometimes good to engage in a communication with yourself? No, not the crazy looking type where people will think you’ve gone loony and run away from you or worse lock you up in a loony bin! I mean serious conversation with yourself.

When I was a kid I do a lot of it. I talked to myself about what I wanted when I grow up. I stopped myself from doing bad things. I let that person in the soap commercial talk to me about things that I can and cannot do. Its funny how life experiences tend to change your perspective. There are two ways to learn, the good way and the bad way. I must say that before I learned what I call the good way, I learned  in a bad way. As a teenager, I made a lot of bad decisions that lead me to blaming myself. At some point I stopped the kind of conversation that I had with myself. That was a time in my life when I felt that I was just standing still or floating in a sea with neither a sail nor a compass. It took me a while to recognize the fact that I am not going anywhere. Which led me to start asking myself again about which direction I wish to take.  I started asking myself these questions:

• What do I want to do with my life?
• What kind of contributions do I want to give in this world?
• What are the things that are important to me?
• What are the things that I would enjoy doing?
• What do I need to do in order to get to where I want to be?
• What do I do when I encounter hurdles?
• What do I do with people who matter in my life?
• What do I do with people who get in the way of my happiness? do I let them?
• What are my weaknesses, and what can I do to turn them into strengths, or how do I compensate for them?
• How do I celebrate each success, or how do I reward myself for a job well done?
• How do I deal with failures?
• How do I keep my self growing?

Since questions require answers and that one does not get all the right answers right away, I am able to search inside me and outside. I began to understand what I am all about and what I am not. Now I know myself better. I make better decisions, not necessarily the right ones everytime but my batting average has improved.

I realized the value of asking myself questions and relentlessly look for answers.  When the answers don’t come right away, I feel frustrated but I’ve learned enough not to give in to frustration.

If you’ve read about my babbling this far, I suggest that you start asking yourself the above questions if you haven’t done so yet. Get a paper and a pencil and start answering the questions as thoroughly as you can.   When you do you’ll begin to know yourself more and realize that there is so much to discover within you. If you are good at convincing your self to take the necessary steps toward self actualization, you’ll begin seeing your self taking a different direction… a more deliberate shift.

Go ahead and talk to yourself and discover who you truly are.

Below is a speech I delivered sometime ago when I finished my basic speech project as a Toastmaster. For those who are unfamiliar with Toastmasters, its a global organization that aims to enhance people’s leadership and communication skills. This club has made me a better listener, thinker and speaker. If you are interested to reap the benefits of becoming a Toastmaster, please email me at edebreo@yahoo.com or call me at (63)9205044521.

Rules are important; they bring order to this world; they help keep us sane and from killing each other. People go to great lengths to impose the rules. They write laws, books and guidelines. People protect them. They preach, warn, and punish just to ensure compliance. When we were children, our parents made the choice clear, follow the rules or feel the stick. Schools taught us to memorize the right answer and gave us 6,975 tests and quizzes to make sure we know them. At work, we are taught how to do things and then they expect us to follow their lead. They don’t say “this has always been how we do things; it’s up to you to decide how you want to do it”. No! It’s their way or the highway!

There is however a good deal of contradiction between following rules and greatness. Great people didn’t become what they are by following rules they make their own even if they pay a high price for it. Galileo was deemed crazy and a heretic, Columbus was ridiculed, Bill Gates, well, Bill Gates became a billionaire. These gentlemen of history proved that some rules are meant to be broken and that for most of them it pays to break them. Some men broke some rules to make this world better. I would forever be indebted to the person who broke the rules about beach attires and invented the bikini… but not as much as the man who made earth-bound human beings fly via the airplane.

Wait; don’t go about breaking rules yet. You must learn to differentiate breaking rules that lead you to the bank from the ones that deservingly lead you to prison. There are also rules for breaking rules you know and here they are:

1. Believe that there are many correct answers – From elementary school to college, we’ve been taught that 1 + 1 = 2, My kindergarten teacher taught me to color the sky blue and the grass green when I draw. My classmate however had a different answer. He colored his sky violet and the grass gray. When my teacher told him it was wrong, he asked “why, that’s how I see the sky during sunset”. There are many correct answers, and sometimes, the second, third or fourth correct answer is the one that breaks the rule big time! Someone said “Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one we have.”  Next time you are challenged by a problem, ask yourself questions that require plural answers. Ask what are the solutions rather than what is the solution.
2. Know that it does not make sense to say that it does not make sense – People like to reject new ideas like a body rejecting a strange protein. I think it was One of the Warner Brothers who said “who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” during the time of silent movies. We’ve been fond of saying “it does not make sense’ when we hear ideas that are out of whack or seemingly out of this world. I wonder how many of them were heard by Einstein, or Edison or the guy who invented golf.
3. Be ready to challenge the rules - Do you know why the keyboard in your computer is arranged that way? That’s because when the type writer was invented, the inventor got complaints that the type sets are getting stuck when they type fast. In order to prevent the typist from typing fast, they put the commonly used vowels in such a way that the weak fingers will be used to hit them. Does that reason apply today now that we are using computers? You bet not! That’s why somebody invented the devorajk system, I bet some of you don’t know that. So next time you see some rules, ask are these rules still applicable? Does it still serve its purpose? If not, break it.
4. Be foolish – Especially when smart means being conventional and conforming to the accepted norms. “Don’t be foolish” is what Economic and Business Experts said when Henry Sy planned to build the SM city in the middle of nowhere at a time of great economic turmoil following Ninoy Aquino’s assassination. Look how his business is now! If that’s what you call foolish, I hope we can make similar foolish decisions.
5. Don’t let failure stop you from trying – What makes great people different from ordinary mortals is not the amount of success that they’ve achieved but the amount of times they try after each failure.

   Edison

   counted 1001 wrong ways to make a light bulb before he can find the best solution.

Ladies and Gentlemen, every piece of innovation in this world is a deviation from the norm. Without rule breaking we’d still be in caves or worse, we could have been extinct. Occasional rule-breaking therefore is essential to survival. My father gave me a great advice about rules when I was in high school. He told me rules are relative truths, they must change overtime. Books are references, not rules to be followed. You don’t live your life because books tell you so. You can choose to disagree, even make your own rules for as long as you make sure that you don’t hurt people. He also said that you cannot be in the business of breaking rules if you keep on saying it cannot be done because those words have the tendency to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Before I end, I must repeat that rules are important. They are boxes that keep things in proper order. But sometimes we need to go out of those boxes in order to create new orders. Go out of oft-trodden path and create new paths. I read from somewhere that one cannot be better without changing the way one does things, so change the way we do things we must! In this business of rule breaking, the only limit is your imagination, so use your imagination to find all the right answers in making this world a better one to live in.

Now go break some rules.

You guessed it right…

What is the Other side of Heaven? Hell

What is the other side of Success? Defeat or failure

What is the other side of Love? Hate

What is the other side Rich? Poor

Almost everything in this world has its opposite. To know one you’ve got to know the other. We all choose to be at the positive pole of things. This is because happiness is in that end. However, no matter how much we choose to be at the positive side of the two ends we at times find ourselves in the wrong side. Why? We ask ourselves and the people whom we wish could give us answers that we like.

Intended or not, sadness gives us an understanding of what happiness is and is not. it helps us and motivates us to move towards that end of the stick, to do our best to lift ourselves out of that rut. Some people sometimes wish that someone can help them move from sad to happy. Sometimes those people come, sometimes they don’t. When they don’t, the sad people stay sad. That is the sad thing about waiting for people to make you happy. Its like putting your fate in the hands of other people. The pursuit of happiness is easier when we accept that we are responsible for becoming our own catalist to happiness. If we anchor our happiness to what we hope other people would do to us, we are setting ourselves for failure.

What am I saying?

Help without expecting to be helped back. You will find the sense of high of being able to help without asking anything in return.

Love without conditions, and you will liberate yourself from holding back.

Fight a good fight but be willing to accept your loss, that will allow you to fight again tomorrow.

Be thankful for what you have rather than getting bitter for what you don’t have.

Happiness is a high that is all in your mind. You can be happy if you want. It is a choice.

If you think that I already left this topic, think again! I know my postings come far in between, but who said finding a good material for my chosen topic is easy! (defensive mode) Anyways, I write because I was again confronted by a question that came from within me as I took that 2-hour bus ride from Fairview, QC. to Makati. The question was, when am I happy? It’s not when will I be happy but, when am I happy? I realized the importance of asking my self questions that I can actually find answer to rather than throw sighs of uncertainty in the air. If I ask my self when will I be happy? I could probably answer well, when I finally get  my own car, or when I am able to buy a new house and lot , or get my kids to finish College, or when I finally achieve that ever elusive financial freedom. I could give all sorts of answers but I know for sure that achieving them won’t guarantee me happiness. It’s like wanting to watch a movie without really being certain if you will find the enjoyment you expect.

I don’t know if anyone will agree with me or if this is even a new idea at all, with gazillions of people in this world, it’s hard to claim originality. I think that happiness is not a destination. It’s not something you achieve, but It is some thing that you do. Ok, I may have watched too many cartoons, but there is one that reminds me of what I’m talking about. I forgot which cartoon show it was but it was about a hunter who went after a monster all his life. He failed many times but never surrendered thinking that the only thing that can make him feel satisfied in his life is being able to slay the monster.  When he finally killed the monster, he felt deep emptiness. All of a sudden, he lost his sense of purpose. All these time he thought killing the monster will make him happy only to realize that he has been happy all along because he was enjoying the chase. The failures fired up his blood to seek new ways of pursuing his monster. The closer he gets, the more thrilled he is of the prospect.

Here’s how I’d like to connect this little story with my topic. Our mission in life are our monster. We want  to finally be able to take our monster by the tail, slam it to the earth draw our sword, plunge it to its heart and step over its carcass. That time might come or then again maybe not, it doesn’t matter. You may have heard this one before… Its not the destination that matters but the journey. Happiness is not in the destination but in the journey, its in the thrill of the hunt.

Here’s my call to action. Find your passion and decide where you want to bring it. Again let me ask you this question, when are you happy? Let me share with you mine… I’m happy seeing other people smile (or laugh). I’m happy when I see inspired people, I’m happy when I am able to help people realize just how good they are and how much they underestimate their own power. I’m most happy when I am able to create… or do something of value to other people. I have aspirations too. I aspire for everything that I mentioned earlier. Now that I thought about it, I will also be happy when I finally achieve what I am aspiring for, but I am not waiting that long, I can be happy now.

When are you happy? how about doing those things that make you happy now…

Enjoy the ride!

I finally found time to sit-down and do something I love doing, bloggin!

Yesterday, I took a cab and met an interesting cab driver on my way to conducting a training. The car is an old Kia. The aircon was working quite well, but there are strange noises underneath. This started our conversation. I learned from this guy that the cab is his. He traded his owner-type jeepney for it. He said that he hasn’t recovered the cost of fixing it but he is confident that he is can recover it soon. He paid PhP80,000.00 for it, inclusive of the 30,000 worth jeep. He said that this is better than we he used to drive nice cars for operators and get a measly amount for it. He said he stopped driving for a long time. In fact he had a hard time finding the best route from my home in Fairview to Brgy. Kapitolyo in Pasig where I was scheduled to conduct training on Customer Service. This guy proved to be quite enterprising. When he stopped driving he put up a Pet-shop on wheels by converting his old Ford Fiera into a rolling store, selling fish, birds and feeds. He said, that he earned 7,000 on a good day and almost nothing on bad ones. He also make aquariums. He can earn up to 50.00 margin on a 10.00 investment. Not bad right? He also designed an artificial plant with weights that he sell in his petshop and distribute to other shops as well. This guy supports his family with kids studying in a private college and the families of two brothers in law. He makes them help with all the businesses he started and he said he hasn’t stopped to find new ones.

I told him, "man you can teach in college with what you know. this is something that everyone should learn how to do". He said "what can i teach? I do not do anything out of the ordinary. All I do is follow my instinct. When I think something is worth doing, I do it." And I guess that is the secret to this man’s success. He’s learned the secret of execution.  I’ve seen too many people who probably has more IQ than this guy but would never amount to anything that he is. Its because they are afraid to execute.

This is the message of this story. Follow your instinct, execute your plans and don’t be afraid of failures. If you fail, stand up and try another idea. The right ones will eventually come along.

Till next!

Hey! It’s been long!

The last time I posted was in November. Anong petsa na?! You must have thought that the quest has been abandoned!:D

Well, not really. I guess if you are in a quest like mine, you don’t set a quota or deadlines for things you must find. I’m taking a stroll through life and enjoying the scenery. Speaking of enjoying the scenery, that’s what I want to talk about right now.

I can categorize in to three types of travellers all the people that I meet each day. As usual, you are free to add another category as you please.

The first category belongs to the "lightspeed people." That’s because they travel at practically the speed of light. They are strong-willed individuals who are hungry for success and determined to accomplish what they can in this lifetime. They are the no-nonsense type. They look at things that do not contribute to their goals as  hurdles and obstacles, hence they leap, dodge, and work their way around these in order to reach their goals. I talk about friends, families even personal enjoyment. To them these are small price to pay for the sake of good old success. I don’t want to judge, so let me just say that maybe this is what they want and this is what makes them happy. Let me also just say that this kind of life is not for me.

Let’s call the second traveller, the "mapless traveller." It is easy to mistake a mapless traveller into the lightspeed or the one I’m going to talk about later because they travel at varying speeds. Some demonstrate a great deal of speed in their daily journey, while others just chug along. One obvious similarity among them is that they go around in circles, not really getting anywhere because they know where they want to go. I would say that there are a lot of them. People who just exist with no sense of purpose. They are caught in a daily grind like a mouse in a rat-race. I do not want to judge them either. maybe this is what they want.

The third kind of traveller is what I really want to become. I’d like to call them the "happy travellers." they are strong-willed and determined like our lightspeed traveller, but they go at manageable speed. willing to stop to enjoy the scenery. They believe that the journey is half the fun. They go to a full halt whenever there is a need to help someone in trouble along the road, or slow down, to appreciate the next fellow in the journey. they also go fast  at times to catch up with competitions but they never compromise relationships for the sake of winning.

Isn’t it nice to be able to be able to run a certain path towards a goal that you wish to achieve and yet, move at a phase that allows you to enjoy the journey. I guess this is what they call work-life balance

When a prospective employer asks you to describe yourself, how do you do it? I have conducted a lot of interviews and my observation is that people just pick out the best adjectives to describe themselves which may not be necessarily close to what or who they really are. I don’t blame them. Anyways, the career planning consultants say put your best foot forward, so the intention is really to just describe your best qualities, or if there’s none invent some. In the teambuilding workshops I facilitate, there is this one activity called “Coat of arms” where participants make some self examination in order to share their perceptions of themselves with their team mates. Most often a good majority of the participants grapple with words to describe themselves. Some of them admit that they are perhaps less introspective than others.

Well this blog is not about acing recruitment interviews; or painting a colorful picture of oneself during gatherings like teambuilding, it’s about knowing one’s self better. The first question that may come to mind is, “what benefits will I get if I exert effort to know myself better?” I can think of many but you are free to add some more.

1. If you know yourself better and know what you want, you have a clearer self-mandate to pursue it.
2. If you know what your strengths are, you can capitalize on it and use it to your advantage.
3. If you know what your areas for improvements are, you can begin, to invest time, effort, even money to address it if you really want to become better.
4. If you know what motivates you, you can let people know about it so that they know how to help motivate you.
5. If you know what de-motivates you, you can tell people about it so that they can help you by avoiding things that ruin your motivation.
6. If you know what you value, you can make decisions based on them and completely align yourself with the things that you value.
7. If you know how well, or bad you are dealing with other people, you can adjust your behavior if you want to improve your relationship with them. At the end of the day, good relationship management can help improve one’s happiness level. Remember, humans are social beings, and we will all do well to be able to relate ourselves better socially.

Here are my suggestions:

Craft a personal vision – spend some time determining what you want for yourself, say five to 10 years from now.  Describe in great details how you foresee yourself once your vision is realized and have it written down and displayed in a prominent area in your room. Try to write it in a captivating and inspiring way to keep the fire of desire burning within you.

Create a roadmap that will get you from where you are now to where you want to be. If you hit some bumps in the road, create plan B, C… the alphabet is long and you know what I mean.

Take some personality tests, do some reflections and decide what your strengths are or what you want to be strong in. Develop your potentials and capitalize on them.

Listen to your friends, parents, and bosses. Ask them what they consider as your areas for improvement. When you here them, don’t whine, don’t sulk. Explore your weaknesses and see how you can improve them.

Know what you like and don’t like and be open to people about them so that they will know how to deal with you better. And as the golden rules go, do unto others, what you want them to do unto you, and live happily ever after or something to that effect.

Know what you value in this life. Take note of them and take heed. When you make decisions, consult your values. Your decisions should not run against your values or you will be extremely regretful in the end.

Josef Luft and Hari Ingham developed the JOHARI Window concept of personality wherein they said that our Personality is like a window with four panes  named, OPEN self which represents the things we and other people know about ourselves, the HIDDEN self which represents the things that we know but other people do not know about ourselves, the BLIND Self or the things that people know but we do not know (or refuse to know) about our selves , and the UNKNOWN self representing the things that we and other people haven’t discovered about us. According to Luft and Ingham, it will serve us well to adjust the sizes of these panes by enlarging the OPEN pane and reducing the others.

Here are my suggestions:

1. Increase your OPEN window pane and reduce your HIDDEN window pane by sharing your ideas and feelings with others. When we withhold ideas and feelings, we increase the HIDDEN window pane and leave others guessing. You could be holding ideas that could save a project, or save the world but they are utterly worthless if you keep them to yourself. You could be hurting from what people are doing or saying, but without you saying anything, the hurting can go on until you can’t take it anymore. By then things can blow out of proportion
2. Reduce you BLIND window pane, by listening objectively about what people say, by soliciting feedback from them. If you won’t you will be like a “bull in a china shop.” Breaking a lot of things without knowing about it. Reducing your blind self could lead to a lot of self discovery. I have a staff that I kept badgering about what I think she’s good at, and it took her ages to finally believe me. Think of the time she have wasted by being in denial!
3. Reduce your UNKNOWN self by taking some risks and engaging in self discovery. A singer does not become a singer until she realizes that she can sing or has what it takes to become a good singer. A sprinter doesn’t know he is fast until he decides to run his fastest. It starts with finding your potentials and working to enhance them.

Putting your best foot forward is not really a bad idea especially if it means giving it your best.

Take pride and be happy!

Have you ever felt that you are just floating around, adrift with no particular destination? You wake up in the morning and prepare your self for work. Get to work and find your self with a whole days tasks awaiting to get done and yet at the end of the day, you look back only to find emptiness. You sit there thinking you want some change, you want clearer direction, a goal to pursue, a challenge to face, a bigger contribution, to find your reason for being. “How to start?” you ask your self? “How much am I willing to risk in order to find true meaning?” The answer sends chills down your spine. The prospect of throwing yourself out of your comfort zone scares the heck out of you. So you go to sleep deciding you cannot afford to go out of your comfort zone. “Maybe someday,” you say “when my fears are gone and the time is right, I will do what I am set out to do.” Every night the thought of wanting to do what you really want to do, nags you, haunts you, coaxes you to do something. You dream of a thousand “what-ifs.” What if I have the power to do what I want to do, what would it be? What if pursuing my passion involves taking a lot of risk, would I pursue it? What if I fail, will I be able to accept it? You think of countless possibilities. Until you decide, enough wondering and wandering! This is what you want to do and nothing will get in the way of what you are set out to do. You reorganize your life to make way for your pursuit of passion. Dangers hang like the sword of Damocles over your head. You are aware but you take no heed. You are excited by the chase. You want success but the journey is the one that is giving you joy. You look back at your previous life and see how comfortably at ease back then. It invites you to come back to the comfort of your own box, but you tell yourself, not until I give up trying, which is not going to be anytime soon! It happened to me. Last month, I started pursuing my real passion. I let go of my comfortable full time job as an HR Director, and went into freelance consulting where one can experience feast or famine depending on the amount of effort when exerts and how the market responds. I used to be a full time HR director and part time consultant, now I am a fulltime freelance consultant and a part time HR Director…:D Am I afraid? Of course I am! But I’m happy doing what I really want to do… teach, share part of my self to a lot more people and yes to pursue my passion for communicating as I do now!

You, what is your passion?