Confession

Everyone of us has a standard we set for our partners-to-be. It is sort of a foundation built to protect us from heartbreaks and keeps us from being with the people we really don't want to be with. However, some time in our life we compromise a little and little did we know we've compromised a lot. Then the only thing that will matter is the sincerity and purity of your love for that person.

We usually tell our friends they deserve better whenever we see them mistreated and unappreciated. But have we ever tell that stuff to ourselves whenever we are in that kind situation? Of course we did! The problem is, we never listen. We never listen because somehow the happy memories are still dominant than the bitter memories. We never listen because we have told ourselves that this is the last love we would ever have. We never listen because we already gave everything we've got and we feel that we don't have anything to lose anymore so we just wait until we are totally drained. We just wait until we realize that literally, we have nothing to give because we stop taking care of ourselves. Where in fact, we could have totally save ourselves from that life-wrecking breakup if we were a little obedient to what our mind is telling us.

Love is so magical that words are not enough to explain it. It gives you chills, it gives you butterflies, and a whole lot of blood rush. It feels so good that what we do is basically based on what we feel. But our hearts are also so deceitful. It is ironic that every heartbeat indicates that we are still alive but every feeling that we entertain from it can also cause us death; mentally, emotionally, physically, and even spiritual death. It has the power to take the sanity from us if we let it take over, but it also has the power to bring it back if managed carefully.  

So I'm going to make this short confession and I know most of us are guilty about in this kind of situation. So somehow somewhere in front of your monitor or cellular phones, I want you to confess this with me to yourselves:

"Dear (your name),

I'm sorry for causing you too much pain. I've taken you for granted. You have already set your standard in the first place but I never listened. I got too caught up with the love bug and all of its rainbow feelings. I never realized that I was destroying you. I've destroyed your ability to trust and ability to believe that true love exists just because of the excruciating internal pain that you have felt or still feeling right now. I've cheated on you. I should have listen. I'm sorry. I promise to never do the same mistake again.

Sincerely,

Myself"

Okay, it is weird doing that. I admit. But the point is, you can never blame other people on the pain that you have just felt especially if you already have all the flashing red signals in the first place. You decided to go for it even if it says stop. You decided to let them in. You decided to trust them even if you know that you shouldn't. It was all your decisions. But past is past, forgive yourself and move on. It's just a bad experience not a bad life. Life is what you make it. Just remember, before you can forgive yourself, you must admit that you have made the mistake. Be firm next time. You didn't make those standards for no reason.

Xo,
Athena

SUCCESS: Stability

I believe that one of the most common things that a human desires is to be successful. And it is also a human nature that whenever we are on top, as much as possible, we maintain it. Hence, people doesn't only desire to be successful but also to be stable.

According to Merriam Webster, success is the fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect, or fame and stability is the state of something that is not easily changed. In this world, they say that the only constant thing is change. So is a stable and successful life possible? Let's take it in the general view. Sufficient amount of wealth, respect, and fame differs from every individual depending on his or her standards and technically speaking, in order to have a stable state of something you either eliminate that things that keeps on changing it or have more than enough of what you need. Now, how do we do it? What do we need to do to achieve the state of success that we always wanted? What things shall we eliminate? Or how much success do we need in order for us to be stable?

Just like any complex mathematical problems we have encountered in our life, figuring out the answer to that question without going back to the basic will consume too much of our resources. We mostly end up in giving up without getting it right and just settling for what we've got or just left it unanswered without trying. (Well, we all know that doing nothing will lead us nowhere and success is not given but earned. Success is composed of perseverance, hard work, and a lot of determination and since we are talking about success here, we can scrape off the option of leaving it unanswered and focus on being a risk taker.) In the end of the day, after giving everything we've got, whether we end up with the right or wrong answer, we will just say "I did my best." But deep inside, we hope we were right and never shall we follow it with the "..but I guess my best wasn't good enough" song. 

No one loves failure. It is a sad fact that when it is there, it is there. We can never remove it from our life. We can never manipulate the past as well as the things around us but we can always control ourselves. That's why instead of focusing on what was done, we train ourselves to get back up every time we fall down and make a new start. We accept the fact that some things are bound to happen, we learn from it, and we prepare ourselves so we can never make the same mistakes again. We become responsible on how we spend our resources and make decisions in our lives. Thus, a stable and successful life is possible given that stability is a measure of responsibility and success only happens in taking chances.

The question is not how much success do you need to be stable, but how responsible you are with your life. Because no matter how much you have, if you do not take the responsibility of having it, sooner or later you'll see yourself back to square one.

xo,

Athena

Better things are yet to come

Writing this post hours before our flight back to Manila. Well, I didn't really expect nor foresee this thing will happen or I will have these experiences I had for the past five months.

Last year, a little latter of February I got an invitation to have an interview to one of the well-known companies in the Philippines. I got excited and really had high hopes and prayed for it days before the interview, but unfortunately I didn’t get in. I even call the company a couple of times for the result because I’ll be leaving the country a week after the interview but failed to get the results. So I left the country with an expectation which causes me disappointment when I heard the news. I didn’t expect because I think that I’m good or such, but I expect because our batch has a small number and thought that all of us will get in. However, it didn’t happen. So a week after knowing the results, I had self-pity and thought that I was not good enough. I know it’s not healthy so I prayed for acceptance and peacefulness. So while I was doing my quiet time I read this verse:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

-Jeremiah 29:11-13

Then I realized that I shouldn’t feel disappointed because I am victorious in a way God designed me to be, I just didn’t know in what way yet. So instead of crying over it and hurting myself more, I had a leap of faith and believed that God really does have a plan for me better than my thoughts could imagine. I was so sure that He has something for me in the future I shared it to our church in KSA leaving them a thought that “Everything happens for a reason and the reason is that God is preparing you for something better.” Then four months after that incident, our college department had a student exchange program.  However, it is only offered to students who are taking Thesis 1 and that time I am a term late for Thesis 1 and I have big commitments in my organizations so I didn’t really bother trying to ask if I could join. But four weeks before the term ends, kuya Patrick PMed me if I’m interested with the exchange program because someone who has the same case as mine will join them. And as an initial reaction I said no because of my commitments but then I had second thoughts and told him that I will think about it.

My decision of joining them or not is crucial for me and also for my co-officers. For me because I know that I have a big responsibility that will be left if ever I go and I made a petition to myself that I will do my best to serve the student body since I think it will be my last academic year and for my co-officers because if ever I leave, one way or another, someone must temporarily fill in my space for the whole group to function. I really had a hard time to finalize my decision. I consulted all the people I know who is wise enough to give me advices and thoughts for me to ponder that could help me select the best choice and also consulted my co-officers if they will allow me to join. And thank God for those people who supported me and told me that whatever my decision will be they will still be on my side (special mention to the IE-EMG Student Council and to my family). So the result is I said yes 3 days after kuya Patrick asked me since the list of students who will join the program is being asked for finalization.

Every decision has its own consequences, so aside from the people and commitments that I will be leaving I also needed to finish 3 company studies and take all my final exams a week earlier the term ends making my last 3 weeks in the Philippines “super-faith” weeks. HAHAHA! Yes! "Super!" Because if ever I fail in one of the subject that is pre-requisite to Thesis 1 I will not be able to join the program. With all the grace and strength given to me by God, I was able to come to Chung Yuan Christian University in Taiwan (Yehey!). This opportunity made me realize that if ever I passed the interview and had my internship done last year's summer, I will not have the international experience I just had. Blessing in disguise? No, more of an intervention.

And now the five months internship is over where we all finished our thesis and even surpassed the said requirements that we need to pass with excellence plus experiences that no money can buy and no person can steal from us, I can say that this is really better than doing my internship in the company that I was looking forward to have it. And I am really thankful that God is faithful. All these things that I will be bringing back home, the new found friends, the Taiwan culture experience, the sleepless nights and no ligo days all for the sake of a good write up and high grades in the graduate class is worth it. It was not easy and I could have never made it if He is not with me. Again, I will testify that He has better plans for us indeed. We may not know what is it yet or when it will come but just keep the faith and all will be fine.

So for all the people who also prayed for me and made this possible, especially to our dean who believed in our capabilities, THANK YOU! And for the people that I left, my Mapua CSC family, IE-EMG SSC family, MixmaxPh customers, and my biological family, my success is your success!

When all our hard works paid off =)

Happy New Year!

Just as I promised to myself, will start blogging when 2014 starts! I'm not a creative writer but I hope I will develop my skills in no time. So please bear with me. Hihi.

Well, would like to start this first by greeting all of you guys a "happy new year!!" It is my first time to celebrate my Christmas and New Year away from home-- as in not a single family member is around -- and nothing feels right away from them. But still, thankful I have good friends to spent the holidays with!

2013 was not a bad year for me at all. In fact, if I wrote all my life experiences in a book last year and highlight all the good moments the whole book will be full of colors. Haha! So I hope my 2014 would be the same or even better. And in order to start my year right, I slept all day in the first day of the year. Nothing can beat the feeling of sleeping after pigging-out, don't you think? Haha. Kidding aside, I always started my year since 2011 by writing my faith goals and only this year I feel so determined to cross them all out.

If you don't know what faith goal(s) are, those are visions you have in mind that you would like to accomplish or do within the year. You can have faith goals that are as simple as "get my nails done every month" to as extreme as "travel the whole world in 5 days". It is called faith goals because sooner or later, in the middle of the year, you will feel that some of your goals seems to be impossible, but like what the Bible says "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." (Hebrews 11:1). Thus, in order to make it happen it will take a lot of prayers aside from hard work. 

So these are my faith goals:
* Graduate
* Join a bazaar
* Do outreach on my birthday
* Be involved in music or dance ministry
* Have a life group
* Find a business partner
* Have a high resolution digi cam
* Go to Palawan or Boracay with fam for vacay
* Establish my blog
* Be aCIE
* More patience and less katarayan
* No crying over men

 what's yours? =)