Perspectives

              We live in an information-dense world where we’re continuously bombarded with so much of notifications in real life and especially through the greatest discovery of 21st century, social media. Facebook showing off your friend at a vacation spot; Instagram highlighting your colleague’s candlelight dinner with her fiancée; Twitter show-casting your humorous college mate posting about his sudden promotion. Sounds familiar? Ever reflected the aftermath of encountering such information? How does it make you feel about yourself? Like everyone else is better off having the time of their lives while you’re picking yourself from and cleaning yourself of the mess you are. It is the easiest to be ungrateful especially in this era where you can consciously choose to scroll down your feed to make you feel crappy about yourself. It is the easiest to be ungrateful when you can beat yourself up when you failed to achieve the impossible standards...

                     Fear of failure has always been a part of everyone’s lives as long as humankind existed. Fear is an essential part of evolutionary science as it has protected our ancestors from extreme dangers for survival. Failure on the other end is just the opposite outcomes of success. But for far too long, society has engraved the idea of how success is more preferable and historic than failure. The successful was always deemed worthy and celebrated, while the failure was neglected. Thus, the inability to achieve success does not just mean you failed, but you are a failure too. And that my friend, is where fear of failure came from.               Elizabeth Gilbert, the bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and also an advocate for creative living through her book Big Magic, took vows when she was just sixteen years old. She vowed ...

            Growing up I have always believed in the importance of being there for the souls in need of a shoulder to cry on regardless of whether the help was asked for. I simply relied on my instincts to let them know I’m here if they are in need of it. Whether they accept or reject it, it came down to their own choice. The reaffirming belief on how I was able to reach out to the hurt and the broken and give them some hope with my words gave me a sense of responsibility. A responsibility to keep doing it regardless of the consequences itself because, don’t we all want to live in a better world? The broken phase that I have been through developed deep compassion for the broken that led to the responsibility to carry the weight of the world. I had this compelling drive to always be available to whoever needed me whenever they needed me. In a way, helping someone to get a different perspective of their issue that eventually...

Road to recovery is never a straight line. There are days you feel liberated and like it is the end of your sufferings and dark days. You will come to believe that finally your prayers have been answered by God and the space in your chest does not hurt anymore. But the next day you're crying your lungs out like it is the most pain you’ve felt in a lifetime. You begin to question if any attempts to be better, any effort put in to be better, all energy invested to be better was ever worth it or even real to begin with. But that same night you’d be laughing out loud again with you best friends cause of the sarcasm filled conversations and jokes. You will have a “life is good” moment. This is life. This isn’t a movie. It doesn’t feel all happy and perfect the moment you start healing and getting better. You’ll relapse. You’ll question your self-worth. You’ll give up. You’ll get back. You’ll laugh until you snort. You’ll cut yourself again. You’ll feel grateful to be alive. Y...

               Love is said to be the most beautiful feeling of all. One that upholds life itself and gives it meaning and purpose. One that gives strength to the weak, peace to the unpeaceful, constant to the constant changes. But sometimes, people tend to oversell love. Overestimate its power. Overestimate its capability. Overestimate the value it could add to your life. Because, it is viewed as flawless. Because you have never been taught how the kind of love that makes life better looks like. So, you settle in for the love that feels right in the moment, without knowing what it holds for you in the future. See, that is what I call the unhealthy love. Unhealthy love comes in different forms. It has many faces. But, all of it comes down to this one single thing. It leaves you feeling inadequate. It leaves you feeling like you are not enough. It makes you want to do things that changes you as a person but no...

     We've all been there. At one point, it was all misery. You barely go through your days and your only goal will be to successfully drag yourself through the next day. Without failing, without losing it, without falling apart. You convince yourself to have enough faith that you'll make it. You sometimes lie to yourself too, knowing making out alive of this can be nearly impossible.       And one fine day, you come to realize that you don't feel that way anymore. You don't feel that invisible pain in your chest anymore like your heart is literally broken. You feel the most peaceful you have been in an eternity. Your heart is filled with love and happiness. You'll realize that your path to this point was definitely a mess, more of a blur too. But you made it, like finally. Time heals they say. Don't ask me how. Don't ask me how long. Just pure faith that it does.      You're in your absolute 'A' game. Everything you ever ...

                How many times have you questioned why is something so brutal and bad is happening to you? How many times have you told yourself that whatever you’re going through is unfair and you don’t deserve it? Or simply why do such bad things happening to good people like me? I get it, you’re tired. You feel like your struggles are endless like how the water waves crash onto the rocks endlessly, with such force. And you desperately wish for once that God will notice your cries and misery and put an end to them. Cause you can’t go on anymore. Cause you can’t keep fighting anymore.                I don’t blame you, you see. But I can’t blame life either. Because all that you go through is no one’s fault. It is just life happening. Before you get all defensive saying, “Well, I wouldn’t have to go through this if it wasn’t for a chea...