Again

         I have a hard time coping with obsession. It gets to a point where it becomes a disease. It consumes me to an extent where my self worth gets a scrutinizing limelight. And we all know that self worth strings a whole mount of issues. This constant urge of mine of succeeding or attaining a goal has been quite draining, physically and psychologically, for the past few months—ever since I graduated from college. That’s roughly five months.

         It’s about time I get to ponder authentically. To actually ponder upon what I was pondering for the past five months... for the past five months I have been asking myself, “why am I not good enough? Why has the path to where I wanted to go suddenly turned into a mirage?” and the question of “what have I been doing?!”

These thoughts have consumed me, as if these were the very questions that I needed to answer. Now I know the appropriate question to ask myself, “Why have I been asking these questions?” And I realized that the questions I was asking myself were reflective of my fears. They were reflective of my anxiety. And most importantly, they were reflective of my insecurities.

      

       I chanced upon this old blogsite I created way back when I was a highschool student by simply google-ing my name (talk about conceited and star complex. haha!). It only had three blog entries. The last post is pretty embarrassing,  having this hideous picture of me, putangina i want to delete that blog!

      Moving on, The first blog was about me introducing myself, that I was a fourth year student and it was my first attempt to create a blog. The second entry was pretty striking to me: I was asking myself, “why am I not good enough?” The very question I am asking myself now. Just a little run back memory lane... you see, I lost most of the contests I joined back in high school. I didn’t make it on the national press conference, the national contest for this website design competition, and the infamous science fair. Most often, I’d be cut right at regionals. It broke my heart that I didn’t break to nationals on my last year in high school, it was my last chance to do so.

Funny, five years after I’m still asking myself the same question. The same issues I had back in high school somewhat disguised itself to other issues, but essentially it has the same elements: my need to succeed and my insecurity whenever I don’t get to where I want to be.

       After realizing these, I came up with four thoughts:

1. I am already an accomplished individual, in a sense that I have gone through a lot of experiences that led me to a lot of realizations. And that should be something to be proud of. The next thing that I have to learn is that nobody needs to know all of these accomplishments, not even the best of the best friend that I have. It has to be intrinsic to me; I need to have this feeling of owning my self. The feeling of “putang ina, akin lang to.” This realization would hopefully cure my obsession to succeed. Which brings me to another issue--the very concept of success must also be put into study. What does it mean to succeed? (hmm.. future blog entry?!) 
2.   I have to realize that I need not fit myself to an ideal to consider myself as an accomplished person. Ideals only serve as a guide, and I have to realize that they will never exist in reality. I have this bad habit of trying to fit myself into this ideal, and I have to unlearn that. Otherwise I’d incinerate from my own burning passion to attain the ideal that I want. Having realized this would entail the unquestioning of my questioned self worth. 
3. I have to realize that there is still plenty of time. This is perhaps the most difficult, as it runs in paradox with my life principle, “every minute counts.” It runs in contradiction with this principle because in a way, I have to realize that there are just some minutes in life that are just meant for us to waste, minutes that allow us to take a break, minutes to remind us that we run the time and not the other way around
4. And lastly, I need to take my own advice.  

Whew, I feel much better now, being a shrink to one’s self, oh the gruelling task  :p

And I am happy to say that I am blogging again. Welcome to TheRalfRivas.