Over the months since 2012 ended, my team has dwindled from 5 to 3 then to 2, until me and Tish remained. Together we managed to meet the research demands for the IT deployment task we belong to. It has become a routine exercise for me, and I guess same for her, that we could do our job with our eyes closed even while listening to a damn Justin Bieber song and solving a Sudoku puzzle. We were joking each other "Don't resign yet, let us wait for them to fire us" so we could have employee benefits that comes with getting laid off. One random afternoon our boss, who shows up once every three months from the States, chatted me over Gmail. He wants to see me and Tish privately. A few weeks prior, I sent the big boss an email requesting a salary increase for Tish as a reward for her years of service working for the company (5 years without a pay hike), so I was kidding her that "this meeting could be it" the day they finally would grant her a salary hike.
 |
| the writings on the wall: enjoy your freedom |
Our boss started the meeting with an 8 minute monologue on how the company is in deep shit. Meaning: no salary increase for the meantime. However, he followed it up with a 4 minute moving speech about how grateful the company is to the services we have rendered. Towards the end of his speech, I somehow got the drift of what the meeting was all about. I looked at Tish and she seems to have the same idea as well. More than five years on the job is no means easy to walk away from. There are the friends we made along the way whom we shared breakfast, lunch and pantry conversations with to consider. To make the long story short, we signed exit documents and eventually gotten a good 'redundant termination' package.
I guess it's because I don't have a family of my own yet. That's why I looked at it differently than most fathers who lost their jobs would. It is what I envisioned it to be. I told myself not to rush into a giant responsibility until I've done even half of the things I desire to do. I always wanted to try long-term traveling and losing the one thing that cuffs me to a chair and confines me to a cubicle might just well be the best thing that ever happened to me.
While the jury is still out, I am having a blast at my new found freedom. Gone are the three-day and four-day travels. It is now being slowly replaced by trips such as a week-long Mindanao trip, an 8-day incursion into Northern Vietnam and a planned month long India sojourn. All of a sudden it has become a big world out there and now I had the time and a bit of resources to see a huge chunk of it. Gone are the corporate worries of getting fired, falling off the corporate ladder as opposed to a simplified existence and a smaller yet convenient way of earning in the world wide web.
People ask me "how much you earn with online jobs" I always tell them "just enough, but surely it won't make me a rich man". But there goes a follow-up question. This time I'm the one who asks them "what do you consider as being rich? the bank account? or in terms of experiences?" I guess, being rich with experiences is where I feel secured at right now.
My father died doing all sorts of businesses, even to the point of becoming addicted to gambling to alleviate the pressures. But he wasn't able to fulfill what he always told me he wanted to do. He craved on tracing his roots in China and take us with him to see some surviving distant relatives. He had that dream which eventually became just a fantasy. I don't remember him taking a vacation in his life. Same thing with my mom who always spent her time being a housewife until she went to the United States shortly before my father's death and after they separated. The 10 years she lived in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego were among her happiest years, because she experienced a different world outside her comfort zone.
I will never make the usual mistakes people make in their life. I won't go into my deathbed and murmur my regrets to a nurse and telling her a thousand "i wish I did this and that". For 7 years I braved the rush hour, got broke a few times when payday came a day or a week delayed. Like the rest of the working class, I struggled as well. However, the safe promise of a fixed salary also made life easier. That is the kind of risk I am willing to face in order for myself to live the kind of life I always wanted to have.
So far so good, I'm floating by with intact plans for the future. I may be heading to an entirely new territory, but I know in my heart that it is the right direction for me. You don't just build a future so you can wake up and witness its days. You make a future so you could live on it and experience it the way you wanted it to be, without getting locked up in the trappings of life.
2013 is also the year I struck out for the third time when it comes to a relationship that went long distance, gotten friendzoned a few times as well and my five year old dog Jack died while I was away. There are other drawbacks that happened for sure, personally and around me it has been a difficult year, especially if you think about what super typhoon #Yolanda brought to our country.
That said, 2013 shoved me towards a direction God knows I always wanted to go. The longer I venture that path, the more I'm erasing from the list of regrets I will make the moment before I inhale the last breathe of life.
 |
| 2014 is the year I will wear the captain's suit more |
*************************
This is my entry to the PTB DECEMBER 2013 BLOG CARNIVAL: Let the Curtains Close on 2013. A Year-End Post hosted by Brenna of the The Philippine Travelogue
