The Rule on How to Live your Life

"How am I supposed to live my life?"

                                           "Live your life like, a sandbox game.

                                             You, know, like Minecraft."

"What are the rules of the game?"

                                           "Rule number 1: You make 

                                             your own Rules."

"Sounds boring."

                                           "It sounds cool."

Do we really need to follow a rule, or guideline on how to live our lives? 

Some people love having a rule to life. It's a safe anchor to the turbulent seas in life. It makes life easier.

Some loathe being chained to some idea. To live is not to confine yourself to some stupid saying. To live is to go out there and live as you please. 

I'm the person who falls on the first option: I like having guidelines in my life. It provides me a sense of normalcy and security, an anchor the turbulent seas. 

I have been told to live and embrace its antithesis. "Why are you confining yourself to some rule that other people make?" "Why are you so rigid? You won't enjoy your life!"

I know that people have differing views on how to live their lives. I use to think that people thought the same way I did, but experience taught me differently. I used to shove my beliefs in other people's throats. Now I know better.

What works for me, doesn't work for others.

Let me get it straight. I acknowledge that both concepts are the sides of the same coin. The coin is how to live life. The sides are to follow the rules and ditch the rules. 

Now here comes me, trying to be conventional yet unconventional at the same.

Is there a way for me to marry these two sides?

Can we follow a rule, yet at the same time, ditch it?

It's like this saying I once heard:

                A: Love is unconditional.

                B: I beg to differ. It's conditional.

                A: How?

                B: The condition of having no condition, makes it unconditional.


It sounds stupid, yes? But think about it. What happens if we rephrased it?


                A: I live my life with no rules.

                B: I beg to differ. You live your life with a rule.

                A: What makes you say that?

                B: The condition of living without a rule, makes it a rule itself.

If there's one thing I've realized in my existence, it's that people will justify and defend their views on how the live life. They will protect it and snarl at people who have something to say against it.

So what is the rule on how to live your life?

My advice: 

Keep it to yourself. Practice it yourself. 

And most importantly, be true to yourself. 

Refrain from shoving unsolicited views on other people's throats.

Complainypants will be Complainypants

"The world is full of Complainypants."

I was enjoying  lunch with my graduate school classmates.... until they transformed into the dreaded "complainypants".

Now, what exactly is a complainypants?

Meet Mr. Money Mustache, a.k.a MMM, the dude who has converted me to the Cult of 

Mustachianism. MMM has a knack of creating amazing and memorables terminologies such as: 

hedonistic sukka, car clowns and complainypants.

....anyway, back to my topic.

The complainypants classmates are mad because of this certain professor's "poor" decisions which affected us.

To make the long story short, that professor could have saved us a lot of trouble if he followed option

"X". However, he went with option "Y". After the succeeding semester, he tells us that it was option 

"X" all along, and we have to comply with it within 3 months, or else we repeat the subject.

Because my classmates were fed up with this professor's antics, they blamed him for whatever misery

they experienced. "If he could have done this and that instead of this, we wouldn't be in this 

predicament." 

I have my own issues with our professor: I do not like his teaching style. I also do not like that it 

takes him 10-15 minutes to have a morning prayer. I do not like that he injects unnecessary and 

irrelevant matters to discuss during lecture hours to kill time. But since I do know that we are 

different styles and opinions, I try no to hate him that deeply. I understand that we are all humans, 

with our differences and shortcomings.

I can't help but laugh as well, for I also share the same predicament with them. School requirements 

are piling up and I have yet to study for our exams. 

But right now.. I'm behaving as if I don't care a shit. No pressure.

I guess this is one of the effects of reading Augusten Burrough's "This is How". 

"This is how the past haunts us. We think about it."

"When somebody experiences something truly horrific and shocking or so unimaginably 

painful and ruinous and they survive, all you can do is wonder, "But how?". 

This is how: By living what exists in our life right this moment. And by recognizing that the

 origin of what we have or do not have is irrelevant."

Since something happened to us by circumstances beyond our control, we expect the other party who 

offended to pay compensation. When we are unjust and unfairly treated, we demand we treated 

otherwise.

... and what did Augusten write?

" The truth is that life itself is brutally, obscenely unfair."

"Avoid self-pity by taking responsibility for everything that happens to you, even if somebody

 else is at fault. By taking responsibility, I don't mean to play doormat. I mean, repair yourself. 

Love forward. Move on. Then, only then, see if you can wrangle some empathy."

Even The First Noble Truth in Buddhism agrees. "Life is full of suffering."

And we suffer more by living and blaming the past, hoping it could be different.

 We can stop haunting the past by living in the present.

My present right now, is not what our professor did to us, My present is the decision on which task to prioritize and act on. 

I've been a complainypants myself, and I still am. 

I can decide to blame the professor entirely....

...or I can create my Escape Plan and plan for my next action steps.

That's more appealing and optimistic than trapping myself in the shoes of a complainypants, isn't it?

Criticsim, even constructive ones, hurt!

"...Some technical errors and a few writing choices are weak..."

Ouch, now that hurt!

As I expected, after reading his review I could feel my defenses build up.

I readied to justify the fact that it was something I left unwritten 4 years ago.

Then I stopped.

What the heck was I doing?

Owe it up, girl! The writing sucked!

It's a hard truth to swallow, but yes, my writing was weak. Could or might have been weak.

Anything we give birth to and gets criticized? It hurts.

But you know, it doesn't have to be that way.

Keep in mind, why did I even write that anyway?

I always remind myself, "You have a choice."

A choice to quit and abandon the project, or a choice to persist and continue.

But still, the feeling sucks.

Deal with it. Well, better yet, get used to it!

The immediate response to criticism is to defend ourselves. That's a fact. 

We try to flinch from pain. It's normal. Who doesn't abhor pain?

But feel the pain. Allow yourself to feel it for a couple of seconds. 

Allow yourself to to think and justify.

Then catch yourself in third person observing whatever you are doing.

She's offended.

She's trying to make excuses.

She's trying to defend herself.

She doesn't want to be hurt.

She's being defensive. 

She doesn't want to accept that someone's opinion differs from her.

Weird, yes?

But it helps diffuse the tension and fixation of being hurt. 

Right now, I feel better and grateful. 

Why? Because this comment came from someone whom I never expected to correspond with. 

He asked for a link to my fan fiction, even telling me there was a possibility he might not read it. 

But he still did. He took time, and I respect that. 

My 2012 writing sucks, but I can make a difference for 2016.

I will persist.

Thank you the_rpgenius for unwittingly motivating me to improve my writing ability! 

You might never read this blog, but again, I would like to say thank you!

A Chameleon with No Ambition

"You have no ambition."

I was not surprised. No ouch or anything. I just laughed.

Deep down, I knew it.

She was like a polished mirror who revealed what I had rejected all along.

"You have no ambition, whereas he has the ambition to be a General. But you're the kind who's okay with anything. You're not the choosy. If you were to select a wardrobe, you'd pick anything, whereas he would carefully choose his."

"You're the type of person who can play the role of a poor and rich girl. You know how to adjust. *Kung pobre, kaya mong makibagay. hindi ka namimili. Pero kung mayaman, kaya mo talagang makili-level at kumilos ng mayaman."

*translation: you can mingle with those less fortunate than you. you can also mingle with those way above you on the income level

(the context of the conversation involved a guy I dated in late 2015)

***

Great, so I'm a chameleon with no ambition. 

Am I supposed to be proud of that, or what?

That explains why, ever since as I was young as 6, I didn't know what I exactly wanted to be.

My classmates wanted to be policemen, doctors, successful people.... and I just picked whatever were parents were.

Before, I wanted to be a comic book artist and a videogame developer. Suddenly I wanted to be a writer. 

My ambitions, or a lack of ambition thereof, is like a double-edged sword.

On one end, it gives me the flexibility to adapt. On the other end, I look like a Jack-Of-All-Trades-yet-master-of-none.

I envy people who know what they want, and pursue what they want. I really envy the ones who have the guts to realize their dreams. 

They aren't just dreaming dreams , they are MATERIALIZING their dreams!

Dreams? 

Even my dreams aren't ambitious. 

Just low-key ones.

I dream of the day I will stop working, the day where my little green employees savings will work and multiply themselves for me, the day I can wake up and do whatever I want, the day I don't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck.

But that's b*llsh*t. We live to work.

Well, at least it's an ambition, nevertheless, yes?

A Tale of Two English Teachers

Once upon a time, I had 2 English Teachers. 

The first one loved me. 

The second one hated me. 

One loved my writing and told me about it. I was flattered. God knows what I wrote for her like it. 

But the second one... my God, she told me my writing gave her a headache!

Not only did she tell it to me, but she also blurted it in front of the class. I was so embarrassed!

That incident made me doubt my capability to write. 

***

We all have these people: those who love you, and those who absolutely hate you. 

You can't please two masters at the same time. 

You will either love one, or hate the other. 

In my case, I hated the second one, not because she told me my writing was horrible and gave her a headache, but with the way she told it to me.

We need to deal and accept these people.

They don't like you and what you can or will do. 

Period. 

Yet it also humbles me to know that I have been someone's "hated person". 

Their black sheep. The bane of their existence. The pain in their neck.

The truth hurts. It's hard to swallow, especially when someone tells you about it or gossip tells you.

                What do you do with the ones who love you?

                                  Thank them. 

                    Genuine friends are hard to come by. Value and treasure these kind of people.

                What do you with the ones who hate you?

                               Pray for them, if you're a religious person.

                 But how about for those who seek a non-religious answer?

                                  Thank them as well.

                     Because these people ground you and make you humble. 

                     You can't please everybody, and they can't please everybody. 

Once upon a time, I had 2 English Teachers.

Despite my unpleasant experience with the second one, I know that I'm still grateful to her.

I learned that I still have a wide room for improvement. 

For as long as I live, I will persist.

So thank you, my Second English Teacher, for telling me that my writing gave you a headache.

Have you thanked your own second english teacher?