To someone I can't lose

Dear New-Found-Love,

It was an accident. I never meant to seriously like you the way I do now.  I never intended to fall in love deeply with you the way I am about to. We’ve known each other for months now and have become close to each other. And the more I get to know you, the more I get drawn. Your personality may not awe all the people around you, but for me, it’s perfectly fine. I like every inch of it, actually, though there are really some parts that you have to tone down and augment.

Why we don't fit

Dear Princess,

I remember the first time I saw you. You entered the room, looking uncertain and seemingly feeling awkward about your new milieu. Something about you caught my attention. Something that got my eyes stuck on you the whole time you were there in front. Something that until now I haven’t completely figured out.

Being a naturally shy person, I whiled away some time before I finally mustered the courage to talk to you. But even before that, you’d already heard of rumors about me having a crush on you. Rumors that turned out to be true.

#7: Daydreaming about the future

When you see me staring blankly at a distance, I'm in some sort of a trance, dreaming about the future and thinking of where life will take me several years from present. I'm silently planning things in my head and building up strategies on how to turn them into reality.

Have you ever done that? Daydreaming, yes. Perhaps, a thousand times. But planning your life while in that state, I don't think so.

Many people don't follow a plan in living their lives. Either because they don't believe in plans and they think that they just complicate things, or because they just want to play it safe and they think that when they fail to get to where they intend to go, they will just feel disappointed and live the rest of their lives in despair.

Others are just too lazy to plan, so they just live life as it is without any goals of making it better. Still others think that planning makes life boring. For them, doing what they feel to do at the moment gives more thrills and sends them to great euphoria.

They're not seeing the point. Planning doesn't necessarily mean that we must follow a pattern to reach our destination. We plan to discover more opportunities and explore other possibilities that are greeting us on the way. Plans are reference points, the starting line of the track towards our goal. If we don't get there the way we want to, at least we know where to go back. We won't have to start from scratch.

There are a lot of turning points along the way. Life is not a straight line. It has curves and forks and winding roads. So, if you don't device strategies in taking your journey, you'll get lost.

Take some time to plan your life and plot points where you can return to when all else fails. When you have a plan, you are sure that you're not crossing the Rubicon. A life that is played safe is more boring, you know.

How would you know?

If you're taking too long thinking about what will happen when you do something, then you're wasting your precious time on doing that which results in nothing. Take risks. Step forward. After all, plans are meant to be carried out; not to be kept as souvenirs from somewhere you haven't even gone to.

Why, are you afraid that you won't get the result that you expect? So what? A thousand chances for the right decision are still in line. Taking risks and getting bad results is better than sitting for quite some time thinking about what you will get and getting nothing at all in the end. At least, you tried. You can prove how strong you can be when you stand from a bad fall.

Just shut the hell up and act because...

-How would you know how exciting it is to be lying face down from up above and zipping across your way from the top of the hill down to wherever the cable ends if you would just cuss because of your fear of heights?

-How would you know that you could awe someone around with your singing even with those flats and sharps if you wouldn't hold that microphone in front of your mouth and sing your heart out?

-How would you know that you could create a masterpiece out of those creative juices in your head if you wouldn't even make a stroke with the pencil you're holding?

-How would you know that you could persuade someone into agreeing with your thought provoking and well laid out arguments if you wouldn't utter a single word in front of your audience?

-How would you know how deep the swimming pool is if you wouldn't plunge into it?

-How would you know that you could reach an unfamiliar place alone if you wouldn't even lift your ass from where you're sitting?

-How would you know that you could be the most graceful dancer if you wouldn't groove those feet?

-How would you know you could edit a video, or a photo, or an audio if you wouldn't grab that mouse and perform some basics?

-How would you know how wonderful a world a novel creates if you wouldn't flip its pages?

-How would you know that he/she is the right one if you would focus on your silly doubts and irrelevant confusions?

Here's the catch: There are loads of things you can do and be good at, and you will never know unless you try. Come on, you only get to live once and you don't even know when The Time will come. Regrets come rushing in at the end of the road, when there's nowhere else to go, when there's nothing left but your silliness and stupidity.

So, get yourself to work. Time is too precious to waste on endless planning and empty thinking.

Life of a video editor

Viewing my life from afar, it seems perfect. All the smiles and laughter, the good grades and achievements, the strong personality I show—they can be deceiving. But watching it closely, it has a lot of imperfections.

My life is like a flawed video clip. A series of cuts has to be done to eliminate the unnecessary elements. They have to be weeded out. A touch of effects has to be applied to patch up the mediocre parts and make the good areas better.

But no matter how much you try to hide the imperfections, they can still be seen once the video clip is scrutinized well. They cannot disappear totally. They’re all present, things you cannot detach from reality.

Am I hiding my imperfections? No…and yes. I’m not the type of person who sends double meanings about my personality. I’ve shown people my weaknesses and never have I been ashamed of them. I admitted my wrongdoings and did my best to rectify them. But like everyone else, there’s still a skeleton in my closet. A bunch of things I wish I never did. Or, do I?

I will never try to justify them, but I will not look down on myself, either. Because like a flawed video, my life still has a chance for improvements.