Dear
P
rof.,
I am re-sending my RP 3 with my journey's key moments in discovering my passion.
Regis Cebu Leadership
Leader Melissa Abarrientos
Reflection Paper 3
Discovering My Passion
What is my passion? – I remember this question way back after I graduated high school. I was so overwhelmed choosing what course to take for my college degree. Then I thought of taking up Accountancy like my mother. Most of my classmates followed their parent's footprint so I wanted to follow my mother's. When I told her of my decision, she immediately objected and told me to take a course I am good at. She knew I do not love math or anything with numbers. She cited a litany of my attitude, strengths and weaknesses that will precede my success in the course. She knew what and which things will bore me out my enthusiasm; and she concluded that conversation with "take a course that you will love to practice and will perfectly suit your personality and interest so you won't feel like going to school was a task". She was right. I took up a course that I interested me all throughout and I learned my lessons by heart. My mother was the first to open my awareness about myself and introduced me my first passion: Communicating with people. By studying Psychology my "Inter and intrapersonal relationships were better.
This passion to connect with people was further enhanced and intensified when I joined the art group. This time, communication was a bit more challenging. In verbal communication, it's easier to communicate and articulate to people what you want to express and say compared to visual presentation and communicate what you want to express and say hoping people will understand what you want to convey to the society. A picture paints a thousand words. (Below was a picture of my artwork way back 11 years ago.)
I engaged myself not only in visual art. I tried to learn the piano, joined a dance group and even joined dance competitions; and I was a very active student leader in the campus where I immersed myself in social awareness and participated in community development as volunteer until I graduated my college, then studied law – and eventually quit. I got tired of studying and I was undergoing a bit of personal crises in my life and I wanted to find more meaning in my life. I wanted to work. I wanted to be self-sufficient. My family wasn't well off although my mother wanted me to reach my dreams and provide me the best education there is but I wanted to be more practical about the situation. So, I left everything and journeyed to Cebu where the path to finding myself wasn't an "ALL happy moments and experience". Rather, it was a story composed of tragedy, heartaches, struggles, defining moments, happiness and fulfillment.
Before we were tasked to write the call to arms speech about passion I admit that I am really uncertain to where I am heading. I'm already 32 by age yet I still couldn't see my end. This thought has been my boogeyman for over a year when I realized I was already 31. My partner and I even came to the point where he told me that if I really feel empty and unhappy with him and with where I am now and with what I do. He will give me the privilege and he will support me financially and with whatever I need just to seek out what I really want to do with and in my life – try another job, travel anywhere, hang-out, live like a teen, try having another boyfriend or whatever for 2 years and if I think that I couldn't find more happiness than the happiness he gives me? Then I should come back. A year passed I haven't moved out yet and I had been living everyday with things holding me back to master things until my first reflection paper in self-awareness.
I couldn't reflect more about myself so I've asked my partner and some people around me to give me their opinion about me and how they see me. I've tried to recall things when I was a kid, teen and when I was younger than now. I tried to recall my dreams my thoughts and what did I hope for before? What made me decide what I decided before. I recalled not only my experiences but also the pain and how it all hurt. The RP1 was a shattering one and made me feel so vulnerable myself but it gave me a clearer view and understanding why I'm here now and what I want. It made me appreciate what I already have and reminded me that what I have now was what I had been hoping for before.
The team building broke my walls and cleared my head. I didn't have to seek out where I should go because I'm already where I wanted to be. I just need to re-discover myself to work on what's holding me back. Perhaps it's true. "People tend to kill the things that they love" –Paolo Coelho.
When I was a kid at the age of 7, I convicted to myself that I'd be a career woman, a business woman. I've envisioned a strong and competent one. I wanted to become a boss. That was all. A childish and selfish dream; But, as a child I always had a warm and soft heart as my mother said.
Reflecting on the Genogram also gave me the key to understand more about why I'm here. I do remember fully when I was a kid whenever my grandaunts tell me the tragic story of how my grandfather's wealth collapsed. It made me dream more and wish I will become a business woman. It also made me conclude why I do not like gambling and why it has always been very difficult for me to play cards.
