So True

Last February 15 or was it 14? I'm not sure, but I finished reading Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage. Since I'm writing this about a week later, I'm recalling how I felt reading it and what my thoughts were after. Like any other person trying to blog about finishing a book four or five days later. Before The Alchemist, he wrote The Pilgrimage which set the tone for the kind of novelist he would be - introspective, moving, and spiritual. (SPOILER ALERT) Coelho took me with him in his pilgrimage and since I'm also Catholic, it was very interesting to know about his particular route since I was only familiar of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land which most Catholics from the Philippines take. In any case, I also kept on wondering if those exercises really had the effects which they claimed to have once you performed them. In fact, I even wondered how the author noted his thoughts, exercises, conversations, and experiences throughout the journey. Now that I'm thinking about this novel again, the tabs on my browser depict my regained interest on Coelho's Tradition and other mystic or cryptic things he mentioned. When his guide told him in the latter part to create something to express his entire experience during his pilgrimage, I truly felt impressed and inspired. This novel is the product of his pilgrimage. (SPOILER ENDS HERE)

Coelho gives out thoughts in the novel which I find to be universal truths, but his observations, especially the deeply moving ones are said at such great moments - which is of course mostly due to this special pilgrimage or search he had to take - that I could not simply dismiss them to be average observations. I'll be treasuring how The Pilgrimage taught me that having a dream or goal is one thing, but knowing what to do with that dream is quite another. You may not ever be able to realize your dreams or even if you do, those would be useless unless you have a purpose for them. They say that "the road to success is often lined with many tempting parking spaces" (Will Rogers), and the search of Coelho for his sword was quite like that. Likewise, in my own 22 years of existence, I've been feeling like I have a big dream of becoming a lawyer, but along the way there are a lot of opportunities that I also want to take. So I often ask myself, am I really destined to become a lawyer? And if being a lawyer really is my goal or destiny, then what will I do with it? I mean I know that I've always wanted to help innocent people come out of legal battles successful and assist those who cannot understand the complicated words of our laws, but now that I didn't really start law school as well as I had thought before, I feel like I've really stepped on a quicksand. So when the author mentioned that we seem to know about how others should live their lives, but we ourselves have no idea how to live ours, I felt how germane that was to me. I think I also had to close the book at that time and ponder on that particular line because it was so true.

Anyway, I'm slowing trying to recover because I want to. I hate living in a shell and that means hiding at home with an online job (that because of Paypal I didn't really earn from immediately), missing out on pursuing what I am supposed to be (which I'm still figuring out). Since I became nocturnal for the past two months, I decided that I had to first adjust my body clock again to sleeping earlier which in my 2016 standard meant around 11 PM to 1 AM. That would prepare me to begin again my early morning jog with yoga in alternate days. Next is that since my latest salary won't be available until the next month, I'll have to exhaust the $20 which I have been saving from last Christmas. With it, I'll be reconnecting with old friends from elementary school and really aim to lessen spending unless it's something productive. I also decided to really go back to studying law but continue it here in Iloilo, in spite of the many negative thoughts hounding that. I just feel that if I don't get back, I would be regretting not going back and finishing the battle or at least fighting a good battle. Let's recap. I stopped because we lacked money for my tuition, for my accommodation and other survival needs in Manila, plus I felt so down after getting my first ever legit failures in my academics. So those aren't really noble reasons to stop. I can do better.

Other than meeting old friends and going back to school next semester, I have more or less four months to spare so I figured it would be good to do something worthwhile because this period could be turned into an opportunity to get to know what it is that I should be. Hence, I listed becoming a host for Project Iloilo or pitching a video series feature of all things Ilonggo to the Project Iloilo team which I did two nights ago via Facebook too (haha!). The Project Iloilo representative who was anonymous since it was a like page I was messaging said that they'll keep me in mind. I don't think they would, and I'm slightly regretting now that I approached them the way I did, but I hope that they would really consider creating the webisodes/vlogs/video featurettes.

Quite embarrassing how pushy I've become; excerpt from my chat with Project Iloilo

My clock says it's 1 AM now so I have to wrap this post up. I'll close by mentioning how I'm also hoping to venture successfully into business with good and reliable partners. It's four months. Anything can happen. I'm excited.


For my next post, I should be talking about what went on with the small reunion I had with the elementary friends, how people keep bringing up boyfriend for me, and business shenanigans.