(From the Editor, the editor's letter in the December 2007 issue of Sense&Style, under the theme "Festive Families," with Tingting Cojuangco and her grandchildren on the cover.)
What a year it has been and we have yet a month to go before we can tuck it away in our memories! It has been a rollercoaster ride, but I love 2007! If I were Charles Dickens, I would describe it as the best of the times and the worst of the times, although I do not wish it would lead us to anything like the French Revolution.
BLURB
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and, behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. —Norman Vince Peale
Still, a revolution appears to be a necessary evil. Over the past few months, following the lead of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the Discovery Channel and the National Geographic, as well as both BBC and CNN, have decided to draw more attention to Earth in distress with Emmy Award-worthy productions that, with hope, will by now have conveyed the message effectively. CNN’s Planet in Peril, for instance, is a searing look at some of the planet’s most urgent troubles, such as deforestation, species loss, and overpopulation. It’s a continuing campaign, with CNN sharing green tips during breaks, and I hope it will build up further in 2008.
Philippine media has yet to extensively train the spotlight on environmentalism, but Sense&Style has in its humble way given the planet an important place in its agenda since last year when we ventured to repackage this five-year-old magazine (“The Year that Was,” page 70)!
Already, the calls of nature are beginning to sound as desperate as an emergency bell and it’s at once good and bad. I’m happy that more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon for whatever reason. Whether they do care about the environment or they simply think it is fashionable to do so, I believe they will make a difference and that’s what counts.
Without a doubt, the environment will play a starring role in the saga of life that will unfold with all of us on the cast in 2008. What role do you wish to play? Why don’t you consider some of our recommendations (“New Year (Eco)Solutions,” page 65 and “Will Earth Survive Our Lifetime?,” page 68).
But it’s the season of joy and our troubles notwithstanding, we have every reason on earth to celebrate. From this desk, I am quite in a celebratory mood, thanks to the inspiring essays on volunteerism our “Making A Difference” campaign has generated from our readers. Adjudged the best is the tale of breast cancer survivor and ICanServe volunteer Carla Paras Sison, who wins for herself a chance to inspire others like you and me through a published essay, along with a special pampering gift package from Rustan’s and Sense&Style (“CarlaCanServe,” page 37). Indeed, sometimes, all it takes is one person to make a world of difference.
The good news is we don’t have to be alone. This month is as good a time as any to be reminded of this precious gift, the gift of friends and family. In this issue, we invite ourselves to some of the most heartwarming family get-togethers, including those of Tingting Cojuangco and her grandchildren (“Ring-Tingting,” page 126), Ambassador Joey Antonio and his army of four (“Father and Sons,” page 56), and Discovery Suites’ GM Bobby Horrigan and the three most special people in his young life (“A Family Affair,” page 39).
Nature’s balance of earth, wind, water, and fire is doubtlessly worth walking a few blocks instead of driving a car to get from point A to B if the latter will save energy and reduce carbon emission. Trees and forests, ponds and oceans, bugs and elephants are all worth embarking on a major lifestyle change to save from extinction.
But there’s no more compelling reason to be earth-friendly than the people we love. There is no more urgent reason than family to do what we can to keep the planet a wonderful place to live and build a future, especially now that there are more and more of us sharing our diminishing resources.
In this season of hope, here’s wishing the planet and everyone of us in it a better, brighter, healthier, happier, and more prosperous year in 2008!
Happy holidays!
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Saturday, December 1, 2007
PARTY POOPER
(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekend, a weekend special every Friday in Manila Bulletin, 7 December 2007)
A bunch of renegade soldiers crashed our months-long shopping party and, for a while there, just for a fleeting second or two, our holiday fervor turned to fear. My first impulse was to call the bank and pull out some investments, but thank God it was followed quickly by the thought that neither our economy nor our government nor our spirit, by all indications, was that volatile.
BLURB
It’s a very small price for us to pay to live in a democracy. —Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines
But Makati, the centerpiece of our holiday revelry, was the center of the drizzle, which nevertheless rained on some of our parades, such as what would have been an exciting pageant of holiday collections, from Gucci to Prada, at Greenbelt 4 just across the street from the Peninsula Manila, where the useless, pointless drama unfolded, spoiling a lot of other parties, a big wedding with guests flying in from half a world away included.
My college friends and I, busy for weeks organizing a costume get-together at Fraser Place in Salcedo Village, kept our party spirits up and did not entertain the possibility of canceling on account of Trillanes et al. At 5 p.m. on that stupid Thursday day we were still exchanging SMS to each other to keep going: “Where to find Absolut Peppar in this town?” and, since our theme was New Wave, “What to wear? What to wear?” Not one to don costumes, I was happy to settle for a pair of Topman socks in the pattern and colors of the UK flag, which, to me, was all I needed to get in the spirit of The Cure’s “Lovesong” or Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” although, more than music, I was listening to the news on AM radio, hoping that the standoff would be over before it became a major party pooper.
But a party pooper it had to be, at least for the night. Just as my friends Richie and Gina sent a “Siege is Over! Another Reason to Party!” message to all our guests, the curfew between midnight and 5 a.m. was announced, something new for our generation. If half of our guests could still pull an all-nighter, like we used to do only a decade ago, this new development would have been the perfect excuse to “have some fun until the sun comes up” like Sheryl Crow. Alas, the next day was TGIF and a holiday, too. Siege or not, even a party-‘til-sunrise and, worse, a hangover could not compromise our individual plans for the long weekend, especially since none of us thought the trouble at the Pen could be any more than a little hiccup in our holiday schedule.
Indeed, all’s well that ends well, even if to make it home before curfew hours, I had to crawl through two-hour-long bumper-to-bumper traffic, from just past Airport Road all the way to the end of Coastal Road. Midnight caught me behind the wheel, but no sign of policemen, no sign of any checkpoint, at least where I passed.
Whew, it could have been worse, but it will take more than a few aging officers and men bearing personal grudges to take us all back to step 1 on the road to a safe, stable, progressive country. An opportunity to practice constant, tireless vigilance and a reminder of the need thereof, last week’s surprise, suprise, to look at the bright side and to borrow from Kanye West, only “makes us harder, better, faster, stronger…” Or does it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
A bunch of renegade soldiers crashed our months-long shopping party and, for a while there, just for a fleeting second or two, our holiday fervor turned to fear. My first impulse was to call the bank and pull out some investments, but thank God it was followed quickly by the thought that neither our economy nor our government nor our spirit, by all indications, was that volatile.
BLURB
It’s a very small price for us to pay to live in a democracy. —Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines
But Makati, the centerpiece of our holiday revelry, was the center of the drizzle, which nevertheless rained on some of our parades, such as what would have been an exciting pageant of holiday collections, from Gucci to Prada, at Greenbelt 4 just across the street from the Peninsula Manila, where the useless, pointless drama unfolded, spoiling a lot of other parties, a big wedding with guests flying in from half a world away included.
My college friends and I, busy for weeks organizing a costume get-together at Fraser Place in Salcedo Village, kept our party spirits up and did not entertain the possibility of canceling on account of Trillanes et al. At 5 p.m. on that stupid Thursday day we were still exchanging SMS to each other to keep going: “Where to find Absolut Peppar in this town?” and, since our theme was New Wave, “What to wear? What to wear?” Not one to don costumes, I was happy to settle for a pair of Topman socks in the pattern and colors of the UK flag, which, to me, was all I needed to get in the spirit of The Cure’s “Lovesong” or Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” although, more than music, I was listening to the news on AM radio, hoping that the standoff would be over before it became a major party pooper.
But a party pooper it had to be, at least for the night. Just as my friends Richie and Gina sent a “Siege is Over! Another Reason to Party!” message to all our guests, the curfew between midnight and 5 a.m. was announced, something new for our generation. If half of our guests could still pull an all-nighter, like we used to do only a decade ago, this new development would have been the perfect excuse to “have some fun until the sun comes up” like Sheryl Crow. Alas, the next day was TGIF and a holiday, too. Siege or not, even a party-‘til-sunrise and, worse, a hangover could not compromise our individual plans for the long weekend, especially since none of us thought the trouble at the Pen could be any more than a little hiccup in our holiday schedule.
Indeed, all’s well that ends well, even if to make it home before curfew hours, I had to crawl through two-hour-long bumper-to-bumper traffic, from just past Airport Road all the way to the end of Coastal Road. Midnight caught me behind the wheel, but no sign of policemen, no sign of any checkpoint, at least where I passed.
Whew, it could have been worse, but it will take more than a few aging officers and men bearing personal grudges to take us all back to step 1 on the road to a safe, stable, progressive country. An opportunity to practice constant, tireless vigilance and a reminder of the need thereof, last week’s surprise, suprise, to look at the bright side and to borrow from Kanye West, only “makes us harder, better, faster, stronger…” Or does it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
A DAY IN THE SUN
(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekend, a weekend special every Friday in Manila Bulletin, 23 November 2007)
In fashion speak, resort is a long-selling season, the pieces of which sell around the end of the year, but people wear them, as Calvin Klein has observed, until the summer of next. Cotton, of course, has its day in the sun in this hot, hot season, but only where the winter chill is sending people to the sunny parts of the world, such as the Caribbean and the tropics.
BLURB
What, besides khakis, is worth buying to take away? —Issac Mizrahi
Here in our all-year-round resort community of 7,100 ++ islands in the sun, the swimwear stores, along with the Boracay-bound flights and resort hotels like Whitehouse or Pearl of the Pacific or, especially, Chalet Y, are packed! Woe to those who did not think of booking their vacation back in July if they were hoping to end the year with a splash. From the third week of December to the first few days of January, Boracay morphs into Manila, albeit with white, sandy shores and alluring sun-sea-and-sky. Practically everyone is there, from your nosy neighbor to your fussy client, and the only way to hide if you’re tired of screaming “Hello! How are you?” along the length of the four-kilometer beach or while relishing your lycheetini at Hey Jude is to crawl under the sheets at your beachfront resort suite. Make sure you hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, if you do not wish to get up every now and then to let in a sunshiny hotel attendant bearing a bottle of Grey Goose or two from a friend next door.
Here in Manila, the cold months from December to February provide a rare opportunity to layer clothes: jackets over vests over shirts, with maybe a woolen muffler around the neck just for effect. Lately, with fashion gaining an upper hand in popular consciousness, Manila is more open to “eccentricities” and elaborate projections in style. To a growing number of Manileños, fashion, after all, has become its own excuse and, with your head up, you can wear a tank top over a voluminous tulle skirt, whether or not it is as passé as pre-movie comeback Carrie Bradshaw, at an end-of-the-year party aboard M/S Vianelle, whose cruise parties are legendary in Boracay, especially during the New Year countdown! Besides, if you do wish to show off your Hermés scarf-turned-head wrap in the middle of the beach, you can always say your SPF70 sunscreen is not just enough to protect your from UVA and UVB in this age of climate change.
In Manila, the New Year’s Eve destination, I believe, is going to be Embassy, especially now that it has expanded into the next-door building formerly occupied by the MTV office. I heard over the grapevine that the superclub, which opened its new side last Friday, is refurbishing the old one, so that pretty soon there are going to be two Embassies, one heavy on hip-hop and the other heavy on lounge music. An underground bridge will connect the two, so you can go from hyper to chill anytime you wish, unless two factions emerge out of this demarcation line, whose two sides have every potential to be determined by age or clothes or character or depth of pockets or sophistication of alcohol preference.
In places like the Hamptons, resort season is all about casual chic, but in Manila where resort season can last 365 days, depending on whether or not you can afford the hotel bill or, better yet, if you can afford at least a bahay kubo-on-stilts on the bank of the Mactan Channel, the season is best spent on your boot-clad toes hopping from one party to the other.
Defying the season’s forecast, whether for resort or for the holidays, black is, of course, the staple and how nice, indeed, to sit around lounge chairs sipping sweet white and nibbling on risotto balls while watching all the ladies air kiss one another in a million shades of black-is-beautiful, crinkled as crepe, taut as taffeta, shiny as silk, lively as jersey, and charming as cotton toile.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
In fashion speak, resort is a long-selling season, the pieces of which sell around the end of the year, but people wear them, as Calvin Klein has observed, until the summer of next. Cotton, of course, has its day in the sun in this hot, hot season, but only where the winter chill is sending people to the sunny parts of the world, such as the Caribbean and the tropics.
BLURB
What, besides khakis, is worth buying to take away? —Issac Mizrahi
Here in our all-year-round resort community of 7,100 ++ islands in the sun, the swimwear stores, along with the Boracay-bound flights and resort hotels like Whitehouse or Pearl of the Pacific or, especially, Chalet Y, are packed! Woe to those who did not think of booking their vacation back in July if they were hoping to end the year with a splash. From the third week of December to the first few days of January, Boracay morphs into Manila, albeit with white, sandy shores and alluring sun-sea-and-sky. Practically everyone is there, from your nosy neighbor to your fussy client, and the only way to hide if you’re tired of screaming “Hello! How are you?” along the length of the four-kilometer beach or while relishing your lycheetini at Hey Jude is to crawl under the sheets at your beachfront resort suite. Make sure you hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, if you do not wish to get up every now and then to let in a sunshiny hotel attendant bearing a bottle of Grey Goose or two from a friend next door.
Here in Manila, the cold months from December to February provide a rare opportunity to layer clothes: jackets over vests over shirts, with maybe a woolen muffler around the neck just for effect. Lately, with fashion gaining an upper hand in popular consciousness, Manila is more open to “eccentricities” and elaborate projections in style. To a growing number of Manileños, fashion, after all, has become its own excuse and, with your head up, you can wear a tank top over a voluminous tulle skirt, whether or not it is as passé as pre-movie comeback Carrie Bradshaw, at an end-of-the-year party aboard M/S Vianelle, whose cruise parties are legendary in Boracay, especially during the New Year countdown! Besides, if you do wish to show off your Hermés scarf-turned-head wrap in the middle of the beach, you can always say your SPF70 sunscreen is not just enough to protect your from UVA and UVB in this age of climate change.
In Manila, the New Year’s Eve destination, I believe, is going to be Embassy, especially now that it has expanded into the next-door building formerly occupied by the MTV office. I heard over the grapevine that the superclub, which opened its new side last Friday, is refurbishing the old one, so that pretty soon there are going to be two Embassies, one heavy on hip-hop and the other heavy on lounge music. An underground bridge will connect the two, so you can go from hyper to chill anytime you wish, unless two factions emerge out of this demarcation line, whose two sides have every potential to be determined by age or clothes or character or depth of pockets or sophistication of alcohol preference.
In places like the Hamptons, resort season is all about casual chic, but in Manila where resort season can last 365 days, depending on whether or not you can afford the hotel bill or, better yet, if you can afford at least a bahay kubo-on-stilts on the bank of the Mactan Channel, the season is best spent on your boot-clad toes hopping from one party to the other.
Defying the season’s forecast, whether for resort or for the holidays, black is, of course, the staple and how nice, indeed, to sit around lounge chairs sipping sweet white and nibbling on risotto balls while watching all the ladies air kiss one another in a million shades of black-is-beautiful, crinkled as crepe, taut as taffeta, shiny as silk, lively as jersey, and charming as cotton toile.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
EXCHANGE GIFTS
(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekend, a weekend special every Friday in Manila Bulletin, 16 November 2007)
What globalization really means is a constant exchange of gifts among nations. Finland, along with Korea, presents the world with a great way to stay in touch through mobile technology. Paris, Milan, New York, and London keep the rest of the world in step with the latest in fashion. Seattle’s gift is coffee, hot or cold, and a new hangout for the young. Brazil’s timber is building homes elsewhere on the planet.
BLURB
We predict a scenario in which people and nations are threatened by massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters, and deadly disease outbreaks. —John Podesta, former US President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff
Unfortunately, most of these gifts that we so proudly share with each other, whether from the Pantanal or from Guimaras, come from one and the same source: nature, whose miraculous ability to heal and replenish itself cannot quite keep up with the demands of a global community, if only because we give back too little as we take too much.
At a forum held early this month in Washington D.C., national security experts predicted the end of globalization by 2040 on account of climate change. In their report, dubbed “Age of Consequences,” published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, scarcity of resources could disrupt international relations. Rising waters and drought could make refugees out of whole towns or cities, causing conflict, and nations or units smaller than nations would hold on to what little they could during such a crisis of global proportions.
“Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalization as we have known it,” said George Washington University’s Leon Fuerth, national security adviser to former US Vice President Al Gore and one of the principal authors of the report. “Different parts of the world [would] contract upon themselves in order to conserve what they need to survive.”
It’s not at all difficult to imagine this dire scenario. To call it a prediction is like sweeping the issue under the rug. After all, it has long been happening. Just over the past week or two, world weather has been worse than unpredictable. It has been apocalyptic, with the Santa Ana winds keeping much of Southern California ablaze for almost a week, with Bogota drowning in ice weather, with Haiti swimming in mud, with the Arctic ice melting…
And climate change has barely begun. In fact, it has yet to be wholly accepted as a fact. In the Washington D.C. report, the forecast for global warming by 2040 is a difference of 2.3 degrees F or 1.3 degrees C, “with a sea level rise of about nine inches.”
The good news, however, is that we are all burdened by this problem, which could end life as we know it now, and therefore we have no other choice but to share in its resolution. That is if we all first agree to recognize the problem, no matter what the consequences or inconveniences.
Nature is wise and even in its rage it hopes to impart a lesson, so that weird weather is affecting not only the poorest of nations but the superpowers as well, the United States and China, particularly.
Our forefathers used to sniff the air to detect the pouring of rain. They would look up in the sky to tell the time. They would count on certain sounds from frogs or lizards or birds or insects to tell the changing of the seasons.
Maybe the best gift we can give each other as well as ourselves in this season that celebrates the birth of hope and salvation is to learn to heed the signs of nature again. After all, 2040 is half a lifetime away, but, thanks to global TV, we can all see it happening now all over the planet.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
What globalization really means is a constant exchange of gifts among nations. Finland, along with Korea, presents the world with a great way to stay in touch through mobile technology. Paris, Milan, New York, and London keep the rest of the world in step with the latest in fashion. Seattle’s gift is coffee, hot or cold, and a new hangout for the young. Brazil’s timber is building homes elsewhere on the planet.
BLURB
We predict a scenario in which people and nations are threatened by massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters, and deadly disease outbreaks. —John Podesta, former US President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff
Unfortunately, most of these gifts that we so proudly share with each other, whether from the Pantanal or from Guimaras, come from one and the same source: nature, whose miraculous ability to heal and replenish itself cannot quite keep up with the demands of a global community, if only because we give back too little as we take too much.
At a forum held early this month in Washington D.C., national security experts predicted the end of globalization by 2040 on account of climate change. In their report, dubbed “Age of Consequences,” published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, scarcity of resources could disrupt international relations. Rising waters and drought could make refugees out of whole towns or cities, causing conflict, and nations or units smaller than nations would hold on to what little they could during such a crisis of global proportions.
“Some of the consequences could essentially involve the end of globalization as we have known it,” said George Washington University’s Leon Fuerth, national security adviser to former US Vice President Al Gore and one of the principal authors of the report. “Different parts of the world [would] contract upon themselves in order to conserve what they need to survive.”
It’s not at all difficult to imagine this dire scenario. To call it a prediction is like sweeping the issue under the rug. After all, it has long been happening. Just over the past week or two, world weather has been worse than unpredictable. It has been apocalyptic, with the Santa Ana winds keeping much of Southern California ablaze for almost a week, with Bogota drowning in ice weather, with Haiti swimming in mud, with the Arctic ice melting…
And climate change has barely begun. In fact, it has yet to be wholly accepted as a fact. In the Washington D.C. report, the forecast for global warming by 2040 is a difference of 2.3 degrees F or 1.3 degrees C, “with a sea level rise of about nine inches.”
The good news, however, is that we are all burdened by this problem, which could end life as we know it now, and therefore we have no other choice but to share in its resolution. That is if we all first agree to recognize the problem, no matter what the consequences or inconveniences.
Nature is wise and even in its rage it hopes to impart a lesson, so that weird weather is affecting not only the poorest of nations but the superpowers as well, the United States and China, particularly.
Our forefathers used to sniff the air to detect the pouring of rain. They would look up in the sky to tell the time. They would count on certain sounds from frogs or lizards or birds or insects to tell the changing of the seasons.
Maybe the best gift we can give each other as well as ourselves in this season that celebrates the birth of hope and salvation is to learn to heed the signs of nature again. After all, 2040 is half a lifetime away, but, thanks to global TV, we can all see it happening now all over the planet.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
DESIRE
(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekend, a weekend special every Friday in Manila Bulletin, 9 November 2007)
BLURB
Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire. —Bobby Unser, American racer
I find it hard to advise friends to just do it, to just do what they think they feel like doing.
Nike has made it sound as though it is just as simple as, say, stretching out your arm and reaching for the stars, but it’s really not that simple. For one, there’s just too much space between one’s arm and the nearest star, which is not to say one cannot reach it ever. But more important, does one really want that star?
I’m one of the lucky few, who have known from childhood what I wanted. When I went for it finally after testing the more lucrative field of advertising, I had no doubt I wanted it enough to happily undergo a severe salary beating just to have it. From a junior copywriter position at an advertising agency, I set myself back four years accepting a startup position as a staffwriter and losing the equivalent of the combined salaries of two advertising startups.
And so I have since been living my dream! But I can’t deny it hasn’t been always easy, either. That’s where just doing it becomes tricky: Going after what your heart desires presupposes that you know what your heart wants. In other words, it’s a mistake to follow your clueless heart. It’s like the blind leading the blind.
What’s more, knowing what your heart wants doesn’t make things necessarily easier, except that it’s easier to go through the challenges knowing that surmounting them will amount to something. Some say if you love your work, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. It’s a bit of an overpromise, but I cannot argue that loving your work is in itself a great blessing because you definitely have to love your work to survive the many inconveniences, the stresses, the pain, the challenges, the heartbreak that are all part of the work picture, whether or not you love it and especially if you love it. The people who are only going through the motions, when you come to think of it, do not have to hurt as much because they can simply shrug off the frustrations or simply escape or simply give up or simply leave it to others, who care more, to deal with the problems.
I read in a book that to figure out what you truly want in life, you have to remember what gave you so much pleasure as a child and, in the context of your adult life, find out how you can convert it into a job, a profession, or a career. It’s the simplest trick to get paid doing what you love to do.
In course of my life as an editor, I have interviewed so many young aspiring writers who think it pays to be honest and say, “I really don’t know what I want, but I’m here because I want to try it out.” I think it’s such a waste of my time to talk to jobseekers, who have yet to decide what they want to do, especially if they make it appear they’re gunning for the job on offer so they can earn money while taking their sweet time making up their hearts and minds.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
BLURB
Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire. —Bobby Unser, American racer
I find it hard to advise friends to just do it, to just do what they think they feel like doing.
Nike has made it sound as though it is just as simple as, say, stretching out your arm and reaching for the stars, but it’s really not that simple. For one, there’s just too much space between one’s arm and the nearest star, which is not to say one cannot reach it ever. But more important, does one really want that star?
I’m one of the lucky few, who have known from childhood what I wanted. When I went for it finally after testing the more lucrative field of advertising, I had no doubt I wanted it enough to happily undergo a severe salary beating just to have it. From a junior copywriter position at an advertising agency, I set myself back four years accepting a startup position as a staffwriter and losing the equivalent of the combined salaries of two advertising startups.
And so I have since been living my dream! But I can’t deny it hasn’t been always easy, either. That’s where just doing it becomes tricky: Going after what your heart desires presupposes that you know what your heart wants. In other words, it’s a mistake to follow your clueless heart. It’s like the blind leading the blind.
What’s more, knowing what your heart wants doesn’t make things necessarily easier, except that it’s easier to go through the challenges knowing that surmounting them will amount to something. Some say if you love your work, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. It’s a bit of an overpromise, but I cannot argue that loving your work is in itself a great blessing because you definitely have to love your work to survive the many inconveniences, the stresses, the pain, the challenges, the heartbreak that are all part of the work picture, whether or not you love it and especially if you love it. The people who are only going through the motions, when you come to think of it, do not have to hurt as much because they can simply shrug off the frustrations or simply escape or simply give up or simply leave it to others, who care more, to deal with the problems.
I read in a book that to figure out what you truly want in life, you have to remember what gave you so much pleasure as a child and, in the context of your adult life, find out how you can convert it into a job, a profession, or a career. It’s the simplest trick to get paid doing what you love to do.
In course of my life as an editor, I have interviewed so many young aspiring writers who think it pays to be honest and say, “I really don’t know what I want, but I’m here because I want to try it out.” I think it’s such a waste of my time to talk to jobseekers, who have yet to decide what they want to do, especially if they make it appear they’re gunning for the job on offer so they can earn money while taking their sweet time making up their hearts and minds.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
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