How to Get Unstuck in One Easy Step

MOOD | itching to study
CRAVING FOR | a more productive study day tomorrow

RANDOM | i was sipping on chamomile tea at 1:30 in the afternoon

The best way to start a blog is to write something hopeful. I'm not a superstitious person, but perhaps there's something to this belief. It can only do good, after all-- a hopeful entry is an invitation for inspiration, a refreshing beginning for what possibly may be good times ahead. While there may be appropriate times to write an emo-centric post, the first few entries are definitely not those times.

But I have to make an exception this time around. I just need to get something off my chest.

I move on easily. This is a characteristic I am grateful for. I have always been a forward-looking person, and it shows. I did not cry during my high school graduation, for instance, because college was just around the corner. What use were tears over parting times when you could get excited about moving to Manila, studying in Ateneo, and meeting new and awesome people, instead? In the same 'unfeeling' manner, no tears were shed during my college graduation. With a job as a management associate in the number one insurance company in the Philippines-- why weep? And just to drive the point home further: I did not lament my fate when management training ended and I got rotated into the actuarial department (the profession of my dreams!) and I did not bawl when I left my previous company to pursue another (closer to home! higher pay! less stressful life!).

How I act in my academic and corporate affairs, I do the same in other aspects of my life. Being heartbroken is a fact, but so is moving on. Losing someone you love is a fact, but so is recuperating from the pain. Living your days feeling lonely and alone is a fact, but so is coming out stronger in the end.

Half-empty, half-full.

Circumstances may dictate where you are now, but you always have a choice to see things in a different perspective. Think you're stuck in a bad place? Being stuck is actually an active choice, one that involves holding on to a past that no longer fits with the present. The title may be overly presumptuous-- we cannot possibly get unstuck in one easy step-- but at the same time, that one step is all it takes to start moving forward. I think it was Lao Tzu or Confucius who wrote that a "journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step," and wouldn't you know it? A practical proverb that makes sense. Why pin your hopes on uncertainty? Why bear the pain longer than necessary? Why wait?

And gosh, wouldn't you know it? I think I wrote a hopeful post, after all.