#JustExertDedication

#liveaNATHsoordinarylife

[jnvnamuco]

I will live my life to the fullest

With integrity in everything I do;

With hard work and passion;

With courage of risking it all.

I will live my life to the fullest

With positivity and strength of character

To turn every failure as a stepping stone

To achieve my goals and my dreams.

I will live my life to the fullest

With respect for my fellow men's dignity,

Opinions, beliefs and principles

With clean heart to serve for the common good.

I will live my life to the fullest

With the desire to share blessings from my cup

To those who have little and none,

So that I'll have space for new blessings to come.

I will live my life to the fullest

To bring the best out of my loved ones,

To contribute to the development of society,

Through simple acts of kindness and love.

I will live my life to the fullest

For my existence to continue to endure,

Even though I had uttered my final words.

I will live in the hearts of people whose lives I touched.

I will live my life to the fullest

With complete faith to His will.

So that when I face Him as the Supreme Judge

I can say "I lived a life worth living."

#PersonalMissionStatement

#Revised

[jnvnamuco]

She's the one: My one true love

What was true love like?

How did it arrived?

Let me share mine.

It was October 19, 2019 when I can truly say that the search is over. I was standing in the waiting shed in front of McDonalds PRC. Passers by can easily notice that I was waiting for someone important to arrive. I don’t know what to do. I was trying to calm myself by listening to music, but I know that the nervousness that I felt can make me pee in my pants. Luckily, it didn’t happened.

A woman of exquisite beauty and grace walked towards me. I was mesmerized. I felt like I was in the movies when everything was in slow-mo. And as she came near me, I was convinced that Chronosphere was possible, because I experienced it first hand. Everything went still and were blurry, except her. 

She looked like an angel. No, she’s really an angel. I can clearly remember what she wore that day. Black blouse and trousers. Beautiful, decent but scorching hot. She gave me a clear picture of what Maria Clara will look like today. I hope she saw me as Crisostomo Ibarra and not Pilosopong Tasyo. But I guess she did. She told me later on in our relationship that she had a crush on me. 

She’s cold and her eyes looked like an assassin who was ready to kill. And if she’s the one who’ll take my life, I will never fight back. She’s freaking scary to the point that you’ll just behave. For the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to approach a woman. I looked like a fifth grader that was beside his crush. Frozen solid. 

Despite her coldness, she’s damn demure and I never realized how attractive a demure woman can be. She gave me a shy smile and I felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart was beating fast like a racecar running at full speed. I started asking myself the question “Lord, is she the one?” And in a split of a second, I know He answered “Yes” because I felt goosebumps all over.

Our first date was in Rizal Park. I can clearly remember how we walked around the park with none of us talking. We sat in the grassy field in front of the Quirino Grandstand. We opened our selves to each other. It was a very simple date, but very romantic and memorable. I can clearly remember that as the sky started to turn purple, we confessed our feelings for each other. I remembered how you blushed that time and how you buried your face in your hands. We walked holding hands in the outskirts of Manila. There were trucks honking around us but I never heard anything except your voice. It was exactly 12mn of the following day that you gave “us” a try. The rest was history. 

This woman prefers to be called Peachy because if you call her in her real name, you are in trouble.

Am I right, Baby?

Hey, I am just joking! 

She’s six years older than me but she looks younger. She loves Taylor Swift and Sarah Geronimo. She has a lot of friends, despite being introverted. She sings and dances well when no one is around. She can play Tekken 7 and beat you perfectly. She loves to travel in different places. She loves hard because her love is pure and unconditional. 

Her wisdom is simply amazing. How she views life is refreshing. She knows what to say at the right moment at the right time. She’s the type of woman that will understand you even if you don’t understand myself. She’s a genuine person. She’ll show whenever she’s happy, sad, angry or frustrated. She’s someone you can rely on when times are rough.

She’s bossy and intimidating at times. She can be annoyingly forgetful sometimes. She’s really hard-headed when she wants something. She’s brutally frank and a bully. She’s silent, yet her presence can be felt all over. Yet, despite all of this, she’s still my last and my only one. 

She’s a good daughter, a responsible sibling, a professional career woman and a true friend. She’s the woman that every man will call a keeper. I am blessed that she’s my loving partner and she carries my first child in her womb. I can’t explain the excitement that I feel whenever I think that one day, she’ll become my wife.

I met different women along the way, but she’s simply the best. People will always tell someone is better than her and there’s an element of truth in it. But even if I’ll encounter women much better than her , I’ll always choose her. She’s the good woman in the book of Proverbs. She’s a rare treasure not all men can find. She’s simply amazing. 

My Peachy is my true love. She brought out the real me. She accepted me for who I am and inspired me to become better. She loved me regardless of my flaws. She never tolerated my bad habits. She patiently helped me change for the better, despite being hurt in the process. She always trusts in me even without any assurances. She loves me genuinely and without any condition.

She’s my true love because genuine love brings the best out of people. It never tolerates evil and will always be patient in understanding and forgiving. It’s ready to be hurt and to sacrifice. It never ceases to trust and believe in one’s goodness. It never expects anything in return. It is constantly good, truthful and unconditional because the source of it is Love Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. When love makes you feel His presence and when it manifests His teachings, then it is pure and genuine.

True love will only be found if we know Him and we experience how His love feels like. It is only when our eyes will be opened and recognize what is true from what is not. Take your time and don’t rush. Enjoy the gift of single-blessedness. Go out with your family and friends. Make a name in your chosen path in life. Spend each day seeking for Him above everything else. Because when He decides that the time has finally come, it will always be worth the wait. 

Because once you find true love, you’ll never look around. 100% Satisfaction guaranteed. 

PS: Of all the compliments I said, I forgot something. She’s beautiful inside and out, with or without any make-up on.

[jnvnamuco]

Let’s talk about regrets

No regrets! 

It was my philosophy in life back before the Enhanced Community Quarantine. I grew up to have this kind of mindset and took the meaning literally. Just treat everything as something that must occur in life. I had the notion that all of the opportunities I gave up were not for me, and the timing wasn’t right. It was meant to pass me by. It is because it aims to give me an idea of what is waiting for me in the future. Those opportunities will come back when the right time comes. The ECQ period changed that.

There were numerous organizations I joined and belonged to before. All had helped me to grow as a person. However, there were two organizations that I regret leaving. I regret that I didn’t cherish the growth potential that they offered. I always wanted to help my family in any way that I can. This, coupled with personal frustrations, led to a chain of poor decisions. 

I was full of myself back then. I always believed that potential and talent were enough. I thought that through the brief period that I stayed there, I was already capable of many difficult challenges ahead. I came to realize, I was not. I learned the hard way and had gone through situations I never dreamed of. I built the right first impression but didn’t sustain it with the proper behavior. The ending was I ended up with nothing. 

The first organization was where I should have stayed for at least a year or two. Maybe three years would be better, but those were something I cannot go back. That organization accepted me for who I was, even if I cannot accept who I really am at that time. My boss was the type of leader I always admire, and after the challenges she had gone through, I admired her even better. 

I probably had the best colleagues in the L&D team. We compensated for each other's weaknesses. Being with them felt that I was not working, but was simply enjoying an activity. It was there where I experienced being valued and being appreciated for what I do. I never felt that I was lacking with skills because the team augmented and helped me developed new skills. We also had one of the best consultants ever and a management team that really listened to the organizational needs. I felt that I really flourished in that organization, which was evidenced by an employee award and a good performance appraisal score. They even opened up an opportunity for me to become part of a second organization. More of that later.

However, I encountered a handful of problems months before my first year of staying there. I need to have a better income flow because of a family problem. That was the time when I thought that shifting my priority from career growth to better compensation started. I lost my passion for what I was doing because I felt that I was given less than what I deserve. Knowing that the company was just starting to flourish, it cannot give me what I needed at that time. I was in the inner circle of the second organization at that time. I thought that through network and mentorship, I can succeed. As I turned one year in Paramount, I left.

Looking back, leaving prematurely from that organization cost me a lot of burdens later on in life. I gradually lost the confidence that I had because the load that I took, later on, was more than what I can really deliver. The moment I stepped out from that organization, my misfortunes started to pile up. I lost grasp of who I was because I was overtaken by pride. I thought, during that moment, that I did the right thing, but three years later, I realized that I didn’t. It was one of the worst decisions that I made. I was toppled by my emotions, and I succumbed to pressure. If I can turn back the clock of time, I would have stayed. I would have tried side-hustling. I might be better tenfold times than who I am now, as a professional, and as a person. I regret losing the opportunity to grow with genuine people that are really concerned for me, especially my boss, Ma’am Karin.

Paramount introduced me to my idol, Sir Sonnie, and later on, to the whole HR mentoring community. This community was the second organization that I regret taking for granted. It was where my growth was fast-tracked. I was exposed to different people that acknowledged me as an HR professional. It was there where I met new and genuine people, that I squandered. It was there where I met mentors, who I, unconsciously, took advantage of.

The community’s goal was to develop everyone holistically through blended learning and mentorship. At first, I felt that I was really blessed to be part of the group. I really dedicated myself to polishing my craft but was fueled with the wrong perspective. I thought of being in the community was just an episode of my life. I saw it as something that I need to do because my whole career was anchored on it. I already left Paramount, and my further endeavors didn’t help me grow the right way. I took the gamble, and at the back of my head, the community is a stepping stone to become better.

I was immature at that time and was just starting to experience the freedom of having a stable and adequate financial condition. I traded learning for non-valuable activities. I also became arrogant as time goes by. I rubbed people the wrong way. I was too excited for advancement but wasn’t ready to lay down hard work and dedication. For me, career advancement means money, and for someone who grew up poor, that meant the whole world. That time, I became selfish and greedy. I changed as a person, and my moral compass became lax as days went by. I came to the point that I just wanted to receive without giving back. I loathed doing the simple tasks because I think I deserve better. As I write this, I feel embarrassed and repentant of my immaturity and self-entitlement.  

The community gave me a lot of different opportunities to better myself. It understood my hunger for growth. The best came when I was selected to be part of DISTINCT. (Directorate for Strategic Innovation and Continuous Improvement) It was a select group of individuals that Sir Sonnie chose to perform strategic functions for the organization. It offered different platforms for growth, but because of some sort of problems, I let it go again.

As time passed by, I pursued a different direction that led me to disappear almost completely. My connections in the community gradually weakened. My community brothers and sisters slowly became acquaintances. I fell out of the inner circle. I thought it was okay. I believed that it was just an episode of my life that I must move forward. 

The ECQ transformed me in a way I never expected. I think that solitude can really help us know ourselves better. It helped me gain new perspectives. It helped me look back at my life objectively and with a much clearer lens. It helped me to become a bit more mature. It also helped me to accept who I am, along with my past foolishness and immaturity. It is the inertia that I needed to try and turn my life around. 

Now, I can easily say that leaving Paramount was the first foolish decision I ever made. And taking LODI (HR Mentoring Community) for granted is the worst thing I had done. These are my biggest regrets in my career and are some of the most remorseful mistakes I committed in my personal life. I also come to terms to admit that these decisions sent me down spiral. And these events are the price that I need to pay for the choices I made and the lessons I learned after. 

I might have the compensation that I desired and have helped my family. I had solved my short-term goals, and I am thankful for that. But if I will be given a chance to redo it all over again, I will choose a different path. Indeed, regret is always in the end, and opportunities do come and go.

Living a life having No Regrets must not be taken literally. Everyone must have regrets in a way or another because all of us made bad decisions. It is the sign that we grew from our past and learned from our mistakes. It must be acknowledged if we want to grow and move forward. It might be remorseful and embarrassing to remember. But it's a definite and powerful reminder of what to improve and what to avoid. 

However, do not dwell on regrets too much. We cannot turn back the clock and undo things, just like the movies. In this period in our history, our mental health is of utmost importance. Focusing on our regrets and never moving forward will stop us from progressing in our lives. It is good to take a break and think through, but it's never okay to remain in that episode of our life. Our past will never define our limitations, and our mistakes don't tell the totality of who we are. 

In the end, we are in charge of our life, and we are the ones who create opportunities. And if we blew it up, we must acknowledge it and learn from it. Only then that we can say that we lived a life of no regrets.