REPOST: New Year, New Challenges

(This is a re-post blog, I created at the end of 2010.  I was reading it again and I felt the need to share it one more time because I am so proud and blessed with this experience)

Year 2010 has been a struggle yet fruitful year for me and for my family. I would like to sum the whole experience into three important points.  1. I was blessed with a very good, understanding and forgiving wife. 2.   I was gifted with amazing friends.  3.  I realized that I was much stronger than I thought I was.

1.  I was blessed with a very good, understanding and forgiving wife.  Early this year I drifted into my past memories and caught in a hallucination of unreal, self deceiving relationship with my ex-girlfriend.  This matter has been going on for two months.  I was overwhelmed of the situation that I almost forgot, I made a lasting vow and promise to my wife.  I almost forgot, I am a husband and a father.  I must admit, I was weak. I must admit this caused my wife's heartache and distrust but I was strong and (trying to be) mature enough to admit my mistake and I was willing to do anything to start all over again.  This was a self awakening.  Tap on the shoulder. At first, I thought this was the end of my marriage.  I thought there was no second chance.  I was wrong.  I guess I under-estimated the capacity of my wife to love and to forgive.  She was truly a blessings.  I will always be thankful for God has given me a wonderful person to be with for the rest of my life.  To my wife, Riza, I would like to thank you so much for everything.  I love you. I would like to journey with you this year to come and for the rest of my life.

2.  I was gifted with amazing friends.  It's been 5 years since I came over England and in those 5 years, I have met and made friends with people.  I was very lucky to have really good friends.  I would say with out them my 2010 would have been a real struggle.  Coping probably is gonna be a concern. 

Great Britain and whole of Europe were hit by the global crisis.  We were hit badly.  Our economic status has been a real struggle.  Everyone was struggling.  I, would have been a self employed person, was affected by the recession.  My business just went down the drain that in the end I was forced to pack it in.  I lost money on that business venture. (Never mind, It could be worst).

Cost of living is still climbing up high.  The daily commodities, the rise on taxes, the petrol price increase and the exchange rate of pounds to peso added to everyone's burden.  It wasn't easy. 

Going through it has been a lot easier with good and generous friends around.  Truly, good friends are tested in times that you are in need.  I will forever be thankful and grateful for them. (to Valencia, Razon, Baldonasa, Latayan Families.  our 2010 was fruitful and a blessing because you guys had been massively became part of it.)

In the middle of the year, we were also blessed of having our own home.  We finally settled in our own house.  A place that we can call our own.  It can't have been too bad then.  A new house in the midst of the recession.  Yet again, KUDOS to the same friends and some other good friends who helped us to make it happen.  (Thanks to Ate Bing Atkinson and his Lovely husband Craig, thanks to Angelo and Vida, thanks to Manners and Harrison specially Paul our mortgage advisor, again thanks to Jehan and Monette, Mareng Jenny and Pareng Val, Adel and Mhy, Kuya Edgar and ate Lhyn, and to all my friends who, in one way or another had been part of our ups and downs, successes and failures, thank you so much.)

3.  I realized that I was stronger than I thought I was.  There were times that I wish I could change the struggles I and my family have been going through.  There were times when the burdens and pressures, and financial struggles were too much to handle, I felt like giving up.  I felt like I am drifting.  I felt like this was the end yet in the end that didn't happen.  Instead, I came back positive and fighting.  I learned to go back to the basic.  1. Things happen for a reason.  2.  Always be positive.  3.  Lean and trust God for everything will be fine. I wasn't wrong.  I am still here standing and fighting.  Hoping that the coming year will bring positive things to our lives.

This year, the last quarter of the year, I lost my job and yet again thanks to the goodness of God, I found one.  This quarter again, I and my family have become a member of Couples For Christ England.  I guess this is another blessing that my soul has been longing for so long.  Praise be to God.

There are loads of things I have been through this year, I made mistakes, business venture failed, financial struggles, etc and yet I am still holding on.  I am stronger than I thought I would be. 

My 2010 was a blessing.  I am very thankful.  I am very grateful. 

2011 is coming and another story on the pages of our lives will be written. I only wish that at the end of the year, I could share the joy and sadness, the success and failure, the laughter and crying, the good and the bad of the experiences which they will always be a manifestation  of the perfect Love of God. 

All the best for 2011 guys!  I pray that everyone may have the blessings they truly deserve.  Lets write another page in the dynamic history of our lives.  Happy New Year!!! I love You all!

N.B.  before I forgot, this year I quit smoking again.  Thank God for that!

Creating a Life from Failures

I have suffered so many disappointments in life and I still do.  I have often question why is it so hard to live a life the way you wanted it to be.

When I was a child, I grew up in so much hardships and forget to live the life as a child.  From the very young age, I thought playing is for rich kids alone.  I longed for my father to buy me a toy gun, new toy cars, new kites but it never happened.  I made my own version of those things I was longing.  I never question my dad because I know he will only say "because we don't have money son, sorry".

I studied with so little support from my parents, maybe because they are so busy feeding 10 more siblings.  They have no more time to sit with me and teach me my home works after school.  Actually, I myself didn't get to sit on my home work because after school I have to help them preparing all the things they are going to cook the next day.  ( My parent used to sell Cassava Cakes, Caramelised young Coconut, banana Q. Etc.)  I figured out that it was my obligation to help them because I am the eldest.  It is my responsibility.  But sadly, my studies were left aside.  (  I remember going to school 3 times a week and going to work with my dad for 4 days at very young age of 9.)

Then after so many years I have come to reflect on all my experiences in life, that question of why am I so frustrated in my failures in life?  Why is it so hard to sometimes deal with it and move on?  Why most of the time I felt so discourage and just pretend nothing had happened? Why am I always looking for someone or something to point my fingers at?  These real questions from time to time are confronting me.  It is sometimes hard to pretend that yes, they are real in my life and eating me alive.  It is actually destroying my being.  I was digging myself into a deeper hole and I felt stuck in it.  I felt so hopeless.

It is hard when you are 34 and you are looking to yourself and you have not achieved your possibilities in life. It hard to look and watch your contemporaries doing well in their lives. It is hard when you plan something and yet you can't achieve it.  It is hard you think you planned your life and it is getting ruined.  It is hard.

But looking and evaluating myself from the past experiences in my life, I discovered that it is all because of the way I was brought up.  (I am not blaming past now, I have overcome these, thanks God) I have less confidence because I have never been out there doing my own thing. I  have always been thinking and helping my family, my parents in particular.  I have never played any games when I was a kid, no wonder why I never excel in any sports.  I have never been given much responsibility in life, that's why I take responsibilities lightly.  I have never felt how to get high grades and good results on my educations, that's why I am no achiever.  NO WONDER I HAVE FAILED SO MANY TIME.

I guess, knowing yourself and knowing your past and linking them to your present is vital in rebuilding yourself.  It is important that you confront your history because that what makes who we are. It is necessary that we face our old selves and not avoiding them so that we could pick up little broken pieces and make ourselves whole again. Only when we managed to patch ourselves we could get healed.  Healing ourselves from the past is opening  new doors of the future for us.

I am on my way to rebuilding myself.  I am not quite there yet but I am determined to get there in the end.  It may take a life time but, I am willing to travel a life time in order to create myself from failures.