I almost legit drowned yesterday.

My friends and I went to visit the hidden wonders of the Tinipak River in Tanay, Rizal for a short weekend getaway. We were frolicking in the river banks when someone (aka ME) thought it would be a good idea to let the current of the river carry us across the stream.

It wouldn’t be so bad, right? I mean, you’ll just float and ride the rapids. What could possibly go wrong?

So I decided to go ahead and walk to the area between the rocks (where the water was constantly flowing) and jumped right in.

Nope, there was no ground to step on.
Nope, salinity was not on my side; I wasn’t buoyant enough.
Nope, threading is of no use. The undercurrent was just. too. strong.

So I did the next best thing and flailed and gulped a huge amount of freshwater. Repeat this fierce stupidity three more times.

I remember thinking, so this is how people die huh

But I snapped out of it. I CAN’T DIE HERE. I just can’t. Not this way. So I kicked off my sandals and held my breathe for the last time and just stopped flailing and panicking.

Luckily, the undercurrent felt my resolve and stopped pulling me down. I remained as steady as a log, and allowed the river float me back to safety.

Moral of the story: The first step to not dying of drowning is to actually choose to not die, and not let the water take you. The technical skills are merely secondary.

“I love meeting new people”, says everyone who wants to appear friendly and open-minded.

But what most people actually mean is: I love meeting new cool people.

Consider this:
That arrogant, condescending boss in your new job qualifies as a new person.
Your loud mouth, next-door neighbor who just moved in? Part of the new people.
That demanding client you just acquired? Yep, still part of that group.

If you like meeting new people, don’t be selective. Welcome all sorts of people. Good, bad, better, worst. Try to see what you can learn from them – about humanity, or about yourself.

“There is no perfect job. There will be days where you’ll get tired of doing the same old thing, or be pissed at your boss for being unreasonable.”
“At this point, it’s more important to know what you do not want, than what you want.”
“Blue Ocean strategy!”
“There are no mistakes. All these opportunities for growth will eventually lead you to where you’re supposed to be.”

These are just some of the many advice that have been graciously given to me by college friends and law firm partners alike. This article has recently joined this roster. Professor of Law John Manning ’85 states that:

“Your tummy is your best advisor.” Students should do their research and arm themselves with the facts, Manning said, but ultimately, they would have to trust their guts, and know that if they make the wrong decision, they will be able to fix it later.

After having received multiple offers after a full month of ruthless job-hunting, I had the good problem of deciding which career opportunity to choose. I was already leaning towards a particular offer but there was just one thing holding me back: it’s not what most lawyers are expected to do after passing the bar.

But tonight, I’m shutting all these voices out.

This is it. I can feel it in my gut.

Whenever someone posts a seemingly trivial question in social media, at least one internet lurker is quick to think: that’s what Google is for.

But there are times when posting a question is not intended merely to get an answer. Sometimes the question is in itself a form of expression – an expression of interest over the subject matter, an expression of curiosity. It’s a public display of “Hey, has anyone else thought about this?”

So, no. Google is not the answer to everything. It’s possible that people are just looking for some good ol’ human connection, a sense of belonging an algorithm can’t provide.

Looking for a job could be exhausting, both physically and emotionally.

You hand in your resume. You come back for the interview. You sell yourself short by gradually lowering your ask. Do this a couple more times. You stress over the fact that they have not called back. And then you ponder, maybe I should just start my own soap business?

I’ve had my fair share of this kind of negativity recently. But every uncomfortable situation is a possible source of growth if you look hard enough! There are certain perks I get by looking for employment .

I get to talk to the experts.
By experts, I mean the people who have been in this industry far longer than me. Their time is precious. Most of them are billed by the HOUR. Yet they gave me the opportunity to meet with them, to deliver my pitch as to why I’m right for the position, and to casually ask for career advice. All for free.

Conversing with a person hones my speaking skills.
Public speaking is not my strongest suit. Being scheduled for an interview forces me to prepare and practice my answers to anticipated questions. I have no choice but to speak up and answer the best way I know how. When you’re thrown into a pool with sharks, you have no choice but to swim.

I am exposed to different types of lawyers.
At this moment, my career track is not yet dead set. But after talking to a handful of practitioners, I now have an idea of what not to become.

–

It must be said that this is my first time looking for a job. (I went straight to law school after getting my undergraduate degree.) The novelty of the experience could be the root of my optimism. Nevertheless, I believe that any source of discomfort should be viewed as an invitation for growth – whether it’s learning how to face it head on or learning how to live around it.

With a little nudge from our house help, I finally decided to fix my post-bar study table. A bulk of the review things are still there, but I’ll be giving away most of them soon. Pay it forward.

Random trinkets have found their way to the bin. Little frames, old notebook pads, friendship bracelets. When was the last time I cleared this table anyway? Until I’m finally able to embrace and practice Minimalism, I’d have to do occasional trip down memory lanes such as this to open up space for more seemingly relevant stuff.

It’s a little therapeutic actually, throwing things away. More than the emotional catharsis brought by cleaning, I get to see what things I considered worth of shelf space the last time I emptied my desk. I am amused by my method of evaluation: will I be able to use this soon is replaced by do I really want to remember this time in my life. I hoarded material things because it was my way of holding on to the memories.

The little tokens you throw out don’t become irrelevant. It’s the memories they represent that usually do.

Last week, I wanted to text my friend about a particular law firm she’s currently working for. She was my co-intern in the summer internship I had two years ago.

It took me a long time before I could formulate what message to send her. I wanted to ask her how she’s doing, what the culture of the firm is, and to casually inquire if I needed to submit particular documents for my application.

I didn’t want to look opportunistic. We had a good working relationship but it’s been a long time since we last conversed.

That’s when it dawned upon me: I didn’t have to send her just one text message. I could break it up to parts.

If you want to cultivate a relationship with someone, text messaging is probably not the best way to do it. But if the need arises, or that is the only reasonable means that this person, do not be pressured to put everything in one text message. You don’t have to compress your long time no see greeting with your current inquiry. Sending a series of messages just might do the trick.

The target release for the bar results was at 11:30 AM.

I was refreshing my Twitter feed every minute. #Bar2014. The news came in little trinkets. Big mistake.

Crowd gathers in front of the SC.
Bar chairman takes the podium.
18.82% passing rate.

That’s when I lost it. There’s no way I would’ve made the cut, with a passing rate 2 percentage points lower than the last year’s. I kept trying to load the results page but to no avail. So I did the next best thing:

I started to cry.

While I was busy with all this drama, my friend, who is currently in the US, unbeknownst to me, continued refreshing the page. She then messaged me: you passed.

I passed. I made it.

:)

Our goals in life are mainly classified into two: to gain pleasure or to avoid pain. Passing the bar squarely falls on the latter.

There are plenty of factors involved in this licensure examination that passing it doesn’t only require hard work but a dash of luck as well. Not to mention damn good handwriting.

This road to success is suddenly paved with painstaking uncertainties! Your motivation dies. You lose the drive to seek pleasure from it. The waiting game for the results becomes a countdown not to the Greatest Moment of Your Legal Career but denigrates to the day when you find out if you have to take it again.

After knowing that I passed, a wave of relief engulfed me. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go through with that again. Relief more than joy. The part about gaining pleasure, I wholeheartedly left that for my family and loved ones.

Numerous self-help books highlight the importance of loving yourself so that one can lead a happy life. It asserts that you have to embrace yourself first – the good, the bad, the ugly – before others follow suit.

But the idea is so abstract that sometimes we just take it at face value not knowing how this concept really works.

Today I discovered the connection.

Loving yourself is the antidote to all your deep-rooted insecurities.
Learning to let go of those little imperfections, not caring on what other people think, gradual appreciation of one’s quirks – all of these eradicates that voice inside our heads that tells us we’re not enough. Loving yourself means not being afraid of falling short of society’s expectations.

No insecurities means you treat other people better.
I’d like to think that no person is inherently bad. An adverse response to a situation is merely triggered by an unknown insecurity. If one is plagued with countless of insecurities, it’s easy to construe a mere inconvenience as an attack to one’s persona. Such attack is then countered with a negative reaction which, if not addressed, perpetuates the cycle of insecurity. Reducing these insecurities means you don’t dig up and over think any hassling situation thrown at you. You don’t think the world conspired against you for being so and so. You simply shrug it off and move on.

Treating other people better leads them to loving you.
This way, everybody wins!

Insecurities act as a barrier to our connection with other people. It is anchored on a profound level of fear (of being irrelevant, not good enough). This idea deserves its own blog space altogether.

—

This post is brought to you by the happy hormones I got after a good gym session. And also partly by Brené Brown.

“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.”

Breaking a seemingly insurmountable task down to little steps removes the overwhelming sense of what’s laid out before you.

You see the goal, and you trace it back the best way you can. In concrete, actionable steps. One foot after the other. Goodbye, Armor of Overwhelm!

Additional bonus: These small steps will inspire you to keep going. You see the dots leading to a certain path and you know that if you continue to do these little increments, you will be able to reach the grand goal you were too overwhelmed to consider pursuing.

Bonus #2: In the event that you are again engulfed by paralysis (because let’s face it, certain physiological triggers are hard to shake off), the steps you wrote down will act as a guide, a productivity compass. The risk of getting stuck is reduced to a minimum.

The first step is knowing that it’s made up of a lot of little steps.