"Rebel Without a Cause"

"You're tearing me apart! You, you say one thing, he says another, and everybody changes back again!"- Jim Stark (Rebel Without a Cause)

Since birth, we see our parents as gods. Some even see them as kings and queens because of the role parents play in our lives. Parents sets rules and make decisions that affect our future whether for good or bad and we could only hung our heads to our Majesties and obey. I've loved Fairy Tales since I was in Elementary and I've always seen myself as a princess or a maiden in distress with two powerful royalties as my parents. And yet, I've failed to read between the lines of these magical tales: obey and all will be well.

Even the Genesis speaks of obedience: God constantly punishes Adam and Eve and their children for disobedience and grant them honor when they follow His words.

There are times though when parents can be so frustrated with their children that they say things without thinking. And at these times, children often struggle to remain calm and stay sane. I understand parents only want their children to be better models for the society than themselves, but some of these parents fail to observe their own methods of teaching and articulate the damages it harnesses.

Take the movie, "Rebel Without a Cause". The words that Jim Stark screams to his parents speaks a lot of truth about them: They are so bunched up in their own emotional bubble that they are damaging their own son's well being by contradicting what they have already said and taught.

My parents are guilty of that same tendency. For the past several months my mother had continuously pestered me, telling me to find a job-- a sideline that could bring joy to my life and to others. Now that I have finally found one, instead of appreciating my efforts, she starts questioning the salary and asking if it's worth the effort. And in my mind I was thinking, I found a job that you wanted me to be happy with and now you're complaining the salary isn't good enough?

"You can't have everything" were her words and I had this urge to say that to her during dinner but I bit my tongue. I understand that my mother only wants what's good for me, but sometimes I think she's impossible.
She wants me to find a job that I can do at home so I won't have to travel to the city and back and waste precious money over the gasoline. Now that I found one, she's complaining that I work so hard using up all the electricity in the house for a meager wage.

Who in their right mind would not be angry? Sometimes I think my mother is just trying to test my patience. And at these times, the best I could do was pretend to be tired and sleepy and excuse myself from their presence. It's just exhausting. Too much. Just too much.

My father is a lot more understanding than my mother and for that I am very grateful. Still, sometimes when I rebuke my mother, my father would side with her and I have no one to lean on. And so I've learned to distance myself from my father. I love them very much and I would do anything to make them happy. It's just that they're tearing me apart.

Saying Sorry

I love the author of "The Alchemist". I follow him on facebook and his updates are incredibly penetrating. Sometimes he even adds 10 seconds moral stories, which often questions my own ability to respond to the world and in a good way, too! Today's story was about apologies or, as goes the title, "Sincere Repentance".

My parents taught me to apologize whenever I am wronged and even if I am right, I must not insist my cause. That was one of the many rules in our house. For many years I've been cynical towards their teaching and often fought against that rule. Why must I apologize to someone who is, by fact, erroneous and vulgar and worse than an average barbarian? It is mortifying when that barbarian accepts the apologies of his rival with hours of criticism on his personal being.

It's disgusting!

I am glad that someone at least agree with me: Paolo Coelho. In the short story, "Sincere Repentance" the monk, Chu Lai is defeated by a professor. Although the professor does not want to apologize for humiliating the monk, his wife forces him to do it. Chu Lai, surprisingly does not accept the professor's apology. The wife is furious and demands why. Chu Lai reasons that to accept an apology that is not sincere would only cause tension between them and in a long run, it is better for the professor to acknowledge that he is angry than live his whole life hating Chu Lai.

I love how Chu Lai understood. He clearly understands that forced apology does not create harmony and that he accepts that not everyone can adhere to one's ideas and principles. I bet after this, the professor witnesses why Chu Lai is greatly respected and becomes friends with him.

Apologizing to a man like Chu Lai is enlightening, but to apologize to a moron is suicide. How often do you come across an intellect? Not as often as you meet a jerk. However, I do take to consideration the rewards of humility: inner peace.

Keep Your Thoughts to Yourself

I can be deadly honest with people telling them things that has been gnawing through the back of their heads and because of that, I attract more enemies than I do friends.  There were times when I would curse my own tongue for speaking and wished that I were mute.  There were times when I would console my bruised heart and to tell it to weep silently.

I try restraint on my verbal tendencies to attack. It's hard. It is especially hard when the people I bashed, and rightly so, wins the majority's vote and I am cast to the side like an outsider.

"Be honest."

Always? No, not always. I cannot be honest all the time. I have to either keep my silence or refrain from giving unsolicited advice. Even in the corporate world, or whatever job you do, you cannot ensure that your honesty will win you a promotion. Sometimes even the boss of your company admits to illegal activity. My father once told me of this acquaintance he met in New York.

He said he caught his manager doing illegal activity, which is against the company's policies. Instead of confronting the manager, he went directly to the boss. He was surprised to discover that even his boss was doing the same. He was fired that same day.

Luckily for that man, he found another job in another city and he swore to never speak until he finds the truth because 'Honesty' does not always equal to the 'Truth'. My father said that it is necessary for people like myself to adorn a mask and pretend to not see the injustices that's smothering the world.

"You will only hurt yourself more." he worried.

It's difficult for me. I fight the urge to speak for I was raised to voice out.  It seems that to voice out for insignificant people like myself is to lose to the people who played by the rules: take whatever you can take. Sometimes I think the messages that the world gives are misleading and they often proved useless.

I am no Mahatma Ghandi. I am not Mother Teresa. I am not Jesus Christ or Princess Diana. The only thing I desire in this world is to survive and be happy. If silence and cordiality will protect me, I will practice it and practice it hard.

I Must be a Clairvoyant

There has been many cases throughout the years of my life when I wondered and still do if what my grandmother had said about me were true: This girl (me) is a clairvoyant. She once said to me, sounding like a prophet. I kept asking my grandmother if she ever remember saying it years later but she denied it. Was it just my imagination?

I remember when I was traveling with my parents and my dad's best friend, I claimed to have gone to this island. We were walking through the halls of Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Philippines, pass the tourist advertisements plastered on the walls. My dad's friend, who was looking at them was awestruck by the geography of Bohol -- one of the seven wonders of the world and wondered how nature formed the thousand hills that the locals have called, "Chocolate (Hershey) Hills." I remembered screaming excitedly, "I've been there! It was wonderful!"

My mother snapped at me correctedly repeating, "No, you haven't!"

We fought over it until we arrived home. My mother was furious. I was equally insulted because I sincerely believed that I have been there. I just didn't know when. My mother told me that I must have imagined it.

That was year 1995.

A few months ago, my aunt all of a sudden invited me to join her group of friends to go to Bohol. And I wondered, was it a premonition? My mother was also struck by the coincidence. She had thought of me going to Europe and Africa in the future, but never Bohol.

Nevertheless, I went, wondering what I should find there. I was disappointed except for one: When we rode a boat to these little strips of white sands called the Virgin Islands, I saw a strange sight!

I was walking on a little ahead of my aunt and her friends, when I saw a mysterious head bobbing above the surface of the water. I froze and stared at the thing and it splashed and then it was gone. I yelped, surprised. The others ran after me and asked what happened. I pointed at the sea water and told them what I saw. They smiled and made eerie noises.

"Ooohhh! You saw something!" they teased. "It's going to come after you tonight!"
And they laughed and told me it must have been a dead coconut, floating on the sea water. But something told me it had eyes . . . and it wasn't a coconut.

One of my aunt's friend saw how frightened I was and reassured me that it must have been one of the divers, looking for clams. I was still skeptic for all the wrong reasons but I decided to believe his words and tried to forget it.

That's one of the many strange things that happen that makes me wonder if I am a clairvoyant. Another incident was when I got back home from Japan this year and on the way, I asked my mother how my long forgotten godmother was doing. I asked her out of the blue. My mother wondered why I did when we haven't seen her for almost ten years.

Two weeks later, at our shop (we own a drugstore) my godmother's son came and informed us that my godmother had passed away only a week before. I was shocked. I told my mother and though my mother didn't want to go to my godmother's wake, I insisted. Something told me that she, my godmother wanted us there.

I learned why my mother have avoided meeting with my godmother. My godmother never broke away from poverty and she died poor. My mother didn't like to visit her because she lived in a different world. She tried to tell my godmother to break away from poverty, but my godmother was stubborn and she died from depression and other physical complications.

I saw her in her coffin and I felt bad and I felt frightened, as though she were still alive. I told her that we have come. I told her how much she had changed. We didn't stay very long. My mother and I felt out of place and uncomfortable in the shanties. On the way home, in the car, my mouth involuntarily moved and formed the words, "Thank you." I shivered and tried to say, "You're welcome." And soon after, I relaxed and felt happy. I smiled.

At that moment, my uncle teased, "Your godmother will thank you tonight."

I replied, "She already did."

It was so strange. Even I surprised myself. Am I a clairvoyant?

I must be because I've recently noted that even if my family or people around me never say or speak of the things they feel bad about; even if no one say which person within the room they hate, I could tell. I'd get a serious case of migraine especially when I am in close proximity of the person in question. I would know that something isn't right when I get a headache because I am extra-sensitive to the thoughts of other poeople especially if it's negative.

I must be a clairvoyant.

And because of the possibility that I am, I try my best to avoid unhappy people or unhappy situation because it can seriously damage my health and affect me in undesireable ways.

What are friends?

Aside from them being the most entertaining companion(s) one could ever have, friends are people who will listen to your problems and raise your self-esteem when ever you're despondent. While it remains true that friends could serve as your counselor, abusing that expectation could result to isolation from them.

True friends are indeed supportive, however if one is morbidly consumed with negativity, blind to possibilities and denies any real solution to their current problems or take any significant actions, these friends will leave him/her. It is unfair to see your own life falling apart and lament in front of them and not consider the problems your own friends may have. If they never mention a word of it, perhaps it is too painful for them to even discuss it and that brings to question how serious your problems are in comparison. Perhaps it's not half as bad as their problems and you making a scene of it whenever you meet them or hang out, could annoy them.

You hang out to have fun. You want confessions? Go the Church or a temple, mosques -- whatever your religion is. At Christians and Catholic Churches, they have confession boxes there where you can talk to the priest on how you have sinned by hating your boyfriend/boss/sibling/parents/grandparents/jobs for whatever reasons you may have. Don't expect your friends to listen to your rants about your miserable life, how nothing is going your way, etc., for hours on end. It's just too much responsibility. Your problem has nothing to do with them and they're not responsible for your own happiness. YOU are. If you want to rant, talk to your God. If you're an atheist, talk to a hole on a ground and hope it'll reach the other side of the world where your bad vibes are vanquished like vapor.

So what are friends? Friends are your companions and sometimes they can prove be your life-support when you need it most. Yes. True friends could lend you money, material goods, a roof to sleep in and more with a condition that you can bring your life back on your own two feet. In short, friends are temporary supporters when you're facing a crisis. One must never, ever depend on them for too long. They're not your parents.

Endless Possibilities

I've apparently been blogging off and on for the past 3 years after college and I never knew that I can profit from this activity.  Having realized that I could even earn a smallest salary of $5 a page, I am most eager to start.

I am a blessed child and only recently I've learned to accept that fate: I am blessed with loving and devoted parents who only wants my own happiness and are willing to sacrifice much of their achievements in support of my personal pursuit.  Well, despite my position I seek to earn my own capital even of the smallest income, to gain control of my own life. Having parents who supports you doesn't give you much freedom and are quite stuck to their vision of good life rather than your own.

Sorry mom and dad! I love you both but I really need to earn my own money. So, having said that, I need help.

I want to start blogging and earning at the same time, but I don't know how or where to begin. I thought of creating my own ebooks filled with illustrations that I, myself created. I thought of applying to companies and sell myself as a writer, but I am short of a story to include in my portfolio.

I thought of many things and possibilities and with them came series of obstacles that I have to solve and it's been a nightmare on my part.

Perhaps if I could have someone direct me, step by step, I could avoid straying from my path and be persistent.

What should I do? I could even create short comics and post them online for all to see!

Which should I do? I have so many talents that sometimes I wish I could only do one. It is so much better to be a master of one profession than a jack of all trades.

What to do? Where to start? I am so confused. All I know is that I need to earn capital and I need them fast.

Which talent could I use to achieve that?

Signs of Depression

Must I search for work?
I should; I could
I of golden spoons and silver forks?
I would and I should!

Despite the blessings and the gifts
from the heavens I insist,
that I use my spirits till the day I wilt.
I will!

For though I have no worries or liabilites to date
I have neither power, money or any regulates

So, must I search for work?
I should; I could
I of golden spoons and silver forks?
I would and I should!

For I can't live another day
Wasting all my hours away

And I'm praying for a task with good pay!
Good day!

Surprise Party

My darling mother, surprised was she
When strangers entered our humble abode
"Surprise Ma'm!" sang the five wage earner
And smiling she blew out the wishing taper.

"Oh, what did you wish?
Was it success or love."
"Hush! It's a secret
'tis for the heavens above."

And so the night ended with merriment and content
And away the wage earners, their hours well spent.