This may be a hard pill to swallow.

We’ve been fed with many stories of success, heroism, and breakthroughs accomplished by protagonists who found their true purpose and have it all ‘figured out’.

We look up to these people and imitate their lifestyle, follow their morning routine, and even look up their zodiac signs. We hope to achieve as much as them because we believe that we are also destined for greatness.

Ever since we were kids, we aspired to do great things. Some of us wanted to be a wise wizard who magically heals everyone or a forest fairy…

My parents shaped my relationship with money. When I was a kid, my mom made a piggy bank out of an old plastic bottle. She would drop extra coins and bills when she can and hide the piggy bank in our dresser. “Don’t tell your father,” she would tell me. But somehow, he always figured out where it was.

My dad had a gambling problem. For a long time, he saw it as his ‘way to fortune’. It got pretty bad that he would ask me for a part of my money allowance during high school. …

HUMOR

It’s laundry day again.

Probably the highlight of my week because I can’t go anywhere.

I load a week’s worth of stinky clothes and of course, the struggle starts. Should I set it to 30 or 40 degrees? How many rotations per minute? Are these all cotton?

It’s a new washing machine and I don’t have a degree in fabricology. Don’t judge me.

After pushing random buttons, it’s time to start the mystical washing machine. The clicking sound marks the beginning of a trance. …

Revealing our deepest emotions can be one of the scariest things to do. It’s difficult to be vulnerable in a society where expressing our feelings is seen as a weakness, an overreaction, or worse, something self-inflicted. We are expected to get a hold of ourselves and simply get over the things that bother us. In this world, resiliency is admired more than the ability to be vulnerable.

Friendships Almost Always Happen Unexpectedly

“Do you listen to The Cure?”

“Yes! I wish Robert Smith was my dad.”

“Me, too!”

And just like that, you have a new friend. Frankly, it might not always be that easy…

It was my last year in college and I honestly didn’t know what life would be like after getting that supposed ticket to the real world. I spent a lot of my time hanging out with guys from my university. On Fridays, we would grab a couple of beers and hang out in local bars. Sometimes, we would smoke cigarettes and occasionally, some good weed at a friend’s house.

It was the typical college TGIF.

Our hangouts usually lasted until the wee hours. When I get too drunk to even walk properly, I would spend the night and face the wrath of my parents the next…

I came across the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) right after high school. I took Psychology as my major at a local college and around this time, I was consumed by the concept of understanding your personality and discovering your true self. From Carl Jung’s Archetypes to the Enneagram Types, humanity has been driven for hundreds of years to work for the same goal — to encapsulate the complexity of human personality into simplified models. Basically, a simple and better way to call ourselves.

When I first found out my MBTI type at 16 years old, I was ecstatic, to say…

On most nights, I have vivid dreams. I remember dreaming about fire-breathing dragons in my former high school grounds. The following night, I flew a Nimbus 2000. I played for Gryffindor even though I was sorted for Ravenclaw. The characters and the setting felt too real. Sometimes, the scene shifted from one story to another. It was a mesh of different worlds in just one night’s dream.

I used to dream a lot in the third person but now, I mostly experience them firsthand. I can always recall with much detail the intensity of emotions I felt during a dream…

I’ve been told a lot of times that I’m being too hard on myself. It probably started 19 years ago. Kindergarten. Big Crayola. Nickelodeon lunch box. Annoying boys who open restroom doors for fun. I got my first report card. I was top of the class. Not everybody liked me for that but they liked me enough to celebrate my fifth birthday party at school. They even came with presents.

Two years in kindergarten and six years in elementary school. I excelled each year; joining quiz bees, speech contests, junior press conferences, science camps, and yes, even pageants. …