New York, care free days, and blue skies.
Someone please give me an excuse to go back and see New York again.
I’m still not done pondering about last Friday night’s trip to Cubao-X. I don’t know what happened to me there, but somewhere in the middle of looking through the glass window displays of those boutiques that already closed for the day, and being in Vintage Pop as it closed its doors for good, I realized something about myself that I’ve been trying so hard to deny for a while now.
I’m a coward.
It sucks, being thought of as successful in what I’m doing, but really, I feel so far behind. I’m too attached to my comfort zone, and it’s sad, because I know that I could do so much more.
Lately, I would try to absorb as much words of wisdom and inspiration from random strangers, thinking that I need all the courage-booster I could get for when it’s time for me to take the leap. But often, instead of being inspired to be better and to do something about this wealth of knowledge I’m exposed to everyday, I feel frustrated instead. Why can’t I just do it? What am I waiting for? What am I still doing here? Why can’t I, like her, just take the leap into the unknown? Why why why?
Questions, questions. I have lots of them.
I hate that about myself — having too many questions all the time. Must be rooted to my pessimism. Yep, that’s me. Pessimistic to the very core. My natural instinct is to see imperfection in things. Show me a beautiful picture and I swear, I’d see something wrong about it. Offer me a brilliant opportunity, and I’d see complications, and problems that might arise, and unimportant reasons why it would fail. Put me under pressure, and the best solution I could think of is to back out.
I’m not sure when I started to become like this. I wasn’t like this. In the words of a former boss, ”Cynicism is not your thing. You’re sunshine, you’re guitar music. But cynic, you are not.” I remember feeling insulted by those words before, but now, tell me I’m that and I’d be, if anything, proud of myself. At this point, I’m a coward hiding behind my sunshiney, I’m doing-exactly-what-I-want-to-do-with-my-life, oh-hai-I’m-going-to-chase-my-dreams mask.
Today, I arrive at the conclusion that if I stay a coward like this, I will surely fail. But I don’t want to fail! Which perhaps makes me more of a coward. (No wait, chicken or egg? I got lost, too.)
I may be pessimistic alright, but my Dad used to tell me that I can be very passionate about some things too, if only I would put my head and my heart into it.
And so I promise to be better. (Shut up, I know you heard that already. I’m not talking to you, I’m reminding myself.)
Notes-to-self to start the week, maybe you’ll need them too:
It’s not too late to start again somewhere. Bong Salaviera, the owner of Vintage Pop whom I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting last Friday, is migrating to Canada with his family next month. Along with this comes the difficult decision of closing down his lovely store. Just when he’s already established something remarkable, he’s got to leave everything behind and start from scratch in an unknown place and culture without a clue how to do it. He’s in his late-thirties or early-forties. And here I am, at 26, frantic about my career, and my life, and what direction I should take. Stop worrying, Riz.
Stick with what you love to do. One of the things I learned in the 5-years that I was a corporate slave is, I can only excel in what I love doing. When you start to feel like you just have to endure being there, then that’s the time to go, no more prolonging the agony. There’s gotta be something in the job (more than the income) that’s worth being there for. At this point in my life, I have pretty much imagined what kind of ventures I’d like to invest my time and money in. While there are a bunch of opportunities out there — some seems more profitable than the others — you have to choose that one opportunity that makes your heart flutter. It just won’t work without passion, and love. Bank in on love, Riz.
Don’t be afraid to fail, coward. Admitting that I am one, I’m starting to feel good about myself already. Acceptance is always the first step, anyway, and now, I’ve accepted the grim reality why I’m stuck where I am. See, I’m making progress already. It’s okay to fail, Riz. That only means you tried.
*Photo credit: Creampuff.tumblr.com
It’s been a while since I last scrapped something.
Can you blame me if I can’t stop thinking about destinations at a time I’m under strict compliance to be locked up in my batcave?
Credits: JM Kaleidoscope Elements, LDD Vintage Dreams, HAL Vintage Buttons, NKUBO Cupcake Doodles
Three things that I love doing that I haven’t done in a while: Digital scrapbooking, photography, and traveling. I have been a bit unsure about the three lately, because of the constraints of time and finances, but given all the time and money in the world, I wouldn’t mind doing these the rest of my life. Let me travel the world with my camera as a profession, and I’d die a happy woman.
Is there a job that requires you travel the world, take photos, and scrap? I know there must be that dream job somewhere, but that’s just the problem with dream jobs. No matter how desperate you are to be casted for it, the chances for that particular dream job to like you back and to deem you qualified are grim. Hence, they remain just that — the job of your dreams, in your dreams.
So you sit in your misery, and stalk people like Michelle Coleman who’s living the life you’ve wanted. A young mother and wife taking care of her adorable kids, while keeping a photography studio, and a cute little company she can call her own.
Or Liz Tamanaha who spends her days with her Nikon, taking beautiful photos of her kids, and designing cute little scrapbooking stuff that people buy for all their cuteness.
Designer, photographer, mom, and wife. There goes my dream.
But I’m stuck doing SEO (S-E-whut?), and being a slave to internet marketing, because they pay the bills. And there’s nothing else that my curriculum vitae can handle, except jobs that are related to what I’ve been doing for the past 5 years. SEO, copywriting, social media, SEO and more SEO.
I used to think stepping inside Googleplex, or brushing elbows with Matt Cutts and Rand Fishkin, is like, the ultimate dream. But now, I just want to take pictures. And cook dinner. And write. And raise kids. And maybe travel once in a while.
(Do I sound bitter? Tell me, coz I don’t intend to and I’m not even trying).
I’m not at all bitter about Michelle and Liz’s awesome lives, I’m sorry if I sound that way. As a matter of fact, they inspire me. They make me want to make the first steps into shifting careers, and into chasing new dreams.
I’m 26 years old already but maybe, maybe it’s not yet too late.
I don’t know what got to me, I just know that I was restless beyond control last night, and I had to do something I’ve been putting off for so long.
And let me just say, I’m blaming Mae for this, because she had the courage to jump ship and do something I’ve always wanted to do, and ever since, I’ve been anticipating this inevitable day. The day I’d let go of an old domain name, for the sake of starting over (again), and leaving things behind.
Now there were three major things happening at the time of this impulsiveness:
(1) I missed a trip to Hong Kong with J & M because I was sick, leaving me at home pondering upon the tragedy that my life is, while my healthy friends carried on the dream that we happened to have saved up and planned for for so long (fine, Joni did most of the planning, but still);
(2) I was tested positive for a disease that has made the whole world tremble with fear at the sound of its name (say it with me, H1N1); which resulted to a self-imprisonment, or what they aptly call as “self-quarantine”. It kept me as far away from human beings as possible where no one could get infected — again leaving me with a lot of time to think about everything that I’ve always wanted that is not happening and everything that’s happening that I’ve never hoped for or imagined;
and (3) I quit from project 365, exactly two months after I started it. (I did what?) I know, I know, it’s just some silly flickr project and who cares anyway. The only reason I’m listing this one as an important event is the fact that it says a lot about my inability to stay focused and carry on a goal to completion. I feel like such a failure.
So just imagine all the frustrations that lead me to buy a domain, set up a new wordpress blog, modify a template to my liking, and type a handful about why I’m making such move.
Needless to say, I don’t want to be Guitarchic anymore. Oddly, Guitarchic is someone I never was and will never become anyway. I’ve had that domain since February 2007, not really a long time come to think of it, and now, guitarchic has to go. I’ll have to deal with my twitter and flickr handles another time.
Oh and don’t even make me start explaining why I chose this domain name. Quite frankly, I was choosing from a list of annoying, overly cheesy, teenybopper-sounding domain names, along the lines of pastelsky, chasingrainbows, and heartshaped. Ones that remind you of those days when the internet was young, and innocent, and carefree. Days when bloggers have blurtys and livejournals and guestbooks and pretty pastel-colored layouts along with their cheesy-sounding domain names.
My first ever blog’s URL happened to be riz.daydreemz.com, did I ever mention that? It was the Year 2001, and I tell you, that site was a magical place, at least to my seventeen-year-old self. It was a place where I didn’t care what people thought, and expressing myself was the most important thing.
I’m obviously relieving those years, so please, allow me.
Three months ago when I told my then-boss that I was going to resign, he asked me why, and I told him, “it’s time to chase my dreams“. To which he replied, “Okay, I’m not about to get in the way of chasing dreams, but give me a month.”
So yeah, maybe I blame my former boss for this domain name too.
Hello, world. Yes, it’s Riz. And this is my new blog.
*Photo credit: Icanread
I'm Riz. I'm 
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