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Dreamlist – The Gifts of a Quarter-life Crisis

Courtesy of Dreamlist.ph

This was the article I have written for Dreamlist.ph.  You can also access the article here.

 

Away from the sound of the partying bass, the tipsiness from the booze, and the good side of the typical college rollercoaster ride comes the inevitable hangover.  Suddenly, after living it up while chanting YOLO one realizes that yes, we all live once, but a lifetime is a one long period to live.   This realization creeps in a metaphorical hangover that leads asking basic, but hard questions to answer.

What am I to do with my life?  What is my niche in this society, or this world even?  How will my love life be in the future? Will I continue to depend on my family for me to live?  Will I get my dream job or dream career?  Welcome to the quarter-life crisis.

Most people, when hearing the word crisis, think how it seems to be a big, scary word that no rational person would want to take part of.  Contrary to intuition, a quarter-life crisis at the soonest possible time is one of the greatest blessings in disguise we can have.  Here are gifts we can personally receive as we tackle our personal crises.

 

The gift of clarity and vision

It can make us continuously re-question where we want to be decades from now, and consider our desires to leave legacies.  In my case, I envisioned a world where business persons and entrepreneurs become stewards not just of economic prosperity, but creating social value through innovation.  However, to get there, I decided that ditching the traditional corporate track and aspiring career involvements in education, research, and eventually social entrepreneurship is the fit for my personal agendas.

 

The gift of defining priorities

I do not want to give up precious time with family, friends, and loved ones.  Yes, I definitely want to be rich, but not at the expense of society and my family.  This gift forces us to stay true to what prices we are willing to pay for the visions we want to achieve.  We should never give up the greatest yet priceless commodities we have – values.

 

The gift of mission, purpose, and advocacies

We all want money, fame, glory and power.  I do not see anything wrong about that as long it doesn’t harm anyone.  What makes life worth living is doing something for a personal mission.  Nothing beats doing concrete things to make the world a better place.

 

The gift of “innovative idealism” with the guts to take a leap of faith

The greatest disservice one can do to one’s self is to forsake realizing dreams for financial security.  However, forsaking financial security for the pursuit of dreams is just as unfair.  Tackling a quarter-life crisis forces one to stay true to ideals and personal missions, while recognizing the need for money and material things.  It takes guts to innovate, take a leap of faith, and pursue both material wealth and creating good for society.  This is hard, but not impossible.  The sweet spot between being practical and ideal is being innovative.

I firmly believe that those who will embrace this crisis will find the freedom to fulfill one’s biggest dreams and goals.  Because running away just leads to settling and leading a life filled with regret; while resolving personal crises lead to the path of guts and eventually, glory.

Embrace your personal quarter-life crisis and receive its gifts worth treasuring forever. The fulfillment of dreams is only reserved for those who have the guts to pursue them.

 

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At the Convergence of Dualistic Natures

Courtesy of Google Images

This blog post is directly lifted from one of my reflections on a paper I have read.

Perhaps the insight that struck me the most is that managers, whether under business, academe, public, or any organizations, have complex motivations, goals, and objectives.  After all, managers are human beings with different wants and needs.

Stripping down the titles and labels, human beings at their core already have complex and conflicting desires.  When at their lowest and the need for survival is imminent, we recognize the mentality of the needy called “kapit sa patalim”, wherein they will do almost, if not, everything for themselves and the betterment of their family, even at the expense of others.  Ironically, when people are at their highest and as you quoted in your paper, people with power tend to be corrupted.  Maybe these people’s characteristics revolve more on self-preservation at all costs.

There are also human beings, such as genuine public servants and social entrepreneurs who truly practice the Christian “servant leadership”.  Perhaps these people value selflessness more and giving value to society.

I have always pondered on the complexity of human behavior, particularly on the dualistic natures that exist in us.  To cite a few examples, idealism vs pragmatism, helping society vs making profits, subjective vs objective.  The easy way for these things is to isolate a half, and use them as exclusive lenses in viewing the world.  We create assumptions that disregard the other half of the “dualistic nature”.  This has advantages and disadvantages, but I’d like to focus on the disadvantages.

By constricting ourselves too much within one frame of mind or assumption, we commit the error of disregarding the whole truth – dualistic natures need NOT be mutually exclusive; there are plenty of overlaps.  I remember my Unilever internship wherein my supervisor told us in the culminating presentation that ethics IS black and white; but until now I respectfully disagree.  There are always gray areas, and there will always be because human beings are innately relative, innately subjective.

Tying all of these thoughts to your paper, I can sense multiple hats in you that compelled you to do action – both as a “rational” and “irrational” manager, and as a compassionate human being.

Rational, in the sense that a manager or chair must do what is best to reach the bottom-line (in this case, to serve students at the least cost possible), compelled you to act perhaps due to the fact that the inefficiencies of the predicament of secretaries affected faculty workflow and serving the needs of the students.  If I may rightfully borrow economics thinking, solving this problem is the logical thing to do to smoothen out inefficiencies and help the department “serve its customers better”.  You eliminated the “cost” of inefficiencies by acting on this manner.  Moreover, this stayed true to the dept’s thrust of “Bridging Faith and Management Practice”.

However, in an “irrational” perspective, if I may again take the liberty to use these terms, the ff insights may surface.  It is “irrational” to “waste” time solving this problem when you could have stay put and focused on doing research and preparing lesson plans.  It is “irrational” to hire secretaries as full-time vs contractual as they add cost, in a purely economic perspective.  But still, you acted “irrationally” and had the initiative to care for your fellow even though it will cost you precious time and energy.

To conclude my reflections and synthesizing what I have realized in your example, managers and human beings are better moved to do things that are mutually beneficial for themselves and others when placed in the gray areas, where dualistic natures converge.  Perhaps there must be motivations from both an “idealistic” and “pragmatic” side that are compelling enough to move beyond the boundaries of rational thinking, beyond the boundaries of our preset defaults.

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Glorifying the Lifestyle of Kings

Courtesy of Google Images

At the wake of the very controversial pork barrel scam, there have been a flood of reactions and exposes that can be found in different websites and blogs (I’m taking the liberty to direct you to a blog that is filled with very engaging comments about this issue.  Click here).

On a somewhat different note away from the activism being thrown all around, I was left thinking about this issue: how can people stomach practicing downright avarice, greed, and lust for money amidst the existence of world’s pressing social problems?  Is the concept of conscience dead already?

One thought that keeps on reoccurring in my mind is the glorification of a king’s lifestyle, from way back the time when monarchy and slavery were the dominant system of this planet.

Looking at this vantage view, who would not want to be kings and queens?  Who would not want living an extravagant life?  Who would not want to live in a world where you’re the protagonist and all the other persons’ sole purpose is to make your life greater at their expense?

This can be seen by the continuous patronage of media to the lifestyle of stars, “living the life”, as they would show.  At this point, I am not anymore certain whether it is the fault of the viewers for wanting to view programs featuring lavish lifestyles; or the fault of media for continuously feeding this to the masses.

Perhaps, our society has been glorifying the lavish lifestyle of kings too much.

But is it not time to rethink our purpose?

Should we imitate and emulate a lifestyle of kings, why not trying to live the life of the Christian King?  No, I am not talking about living a life of religious hypocrisy; I am talking about what the Christian faith stands for in essence – servant leadership.

Maybe all these are happening so that people may begin to go back to what is really more important.  Yes, money is power.  Yes, money can almost buy every material thing in life.

But money can never be an enough price to pay for fulfilling a benevolent dream capable of self-actualization.

Money alone cannot realize our Personal Legends.

And most of all, the kings we remember are not the ones who were the richest in money.  We remember those who made our lives richer through lessons and leadership by example.

Please, let us stop glorifying the lavish lifestyle of Kings of the Material.  What we should glorify is the humble lifestyle of the King who made a positive, memorable difference to our world.

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“Being Your Own Boss” is not “Having No Boss”

Courtesy of Google Images

It seems that the idea of  “being your own boss”, or starting up one’s own business is gaining more traction today.  Some people fantasize on the thought of relaxing underneath the shades of a palm tree in a white-sand beach while money  keeps on pouring in.  Some daydream of the day they would not have to answer to a micro-managing boss whose life’s purpose is to make a subordinate’s job miserable.

If your passion to pursue entrepreneurship or be your own boss is as similar as those listed above, then by all means, I believe you should find a deeper purpose.  Because being one’s own boss is not the same as having no boss at all.

The reason why it’s not “having no boss” and “being your own boss” is as explicit as that – entrepreneurship requires more self-discipline, more self-mastery, and more self-management or “self-bossing”.  Perhaps a better term is “self-leading”, or the ability to lead one’s self.

When one becomes an entrepreneur, there’s no more fixed monthly salary that one can cling on to or use in planning credit.

When one becomes an entrepreneur, it may not be an 8 to 5 job, but rather, an 8 to 8 job (and I mean 8am to 8am!).

If you are part of a corporate job, imagine this – all the benefits you receive from the company, you should be the one to prepare for yourself.  No one will withhold your income tax, no one will forcibly save money for a “retirement” fund.  You will now be the one to establish the structure of the organization and make sure the organization does not violate any laws.  You are your own boss – you should be the one in charge of doing this for yourself now.

With great power of freedom comes a great burden of responsibility.

Please rethink first the true meaning of “being your own boss”.  When an individual is capable of digesting the repercussions of being one’s own boss (vs the wrong notion of having no boss), is only when he is ready to reap the true rewards of entrepreneurship.

 

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Pro-Poor and Social Entrepreneurship Bills (Reaction on Sen. Bam Aquino’s Filing)

Courtesy of Google Images

There has been news from Senator Bam Aquino’s Facebook account that he has ” filed seven bills that aim to empower the poor through jobs and livelihood opportunities”.

Disclaimer: I am not proclaiming this to advertise Sen. Aquino’s initiatives and endeavors – this is merely to give insights, reactions, and comments on what he endeavors to do.  After all, these are the advocacies that are indeed close to my heart as an aspiring entrepreneur, educator, and as a current researcher on the said field.

I know that as a fresh graduate from DLSU, I still have much to learn when it comes to CSR, social entrepreneurship, and the policies that may or may not help these movements achieve their intended benefit: progress and solving society’s most pressing problems.

Although some people in the web and even in media doubt Sen. Aquino’s intentions for running in office as Senator (some stating that this may just be a ploy to extend the “Aquino dynasty”), I support Bam because of his track record as a practitioner of social entrepreneurship.  This is why seeing news from Facebook that he has filed pro-poor bills instigated somewhat a kind of relief in me; that this man perhaps indeed has a plan to bring the synthesis of his social entrepreneurial experience into influencing policy-making.

I am hopeful that this is not just a ningas-kugon attempt; only time will tell.  Let time be the one to test Sen. Bam’s resolve in influencing social entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation through policies.

Onto my humble insights.

I want to zero in on two  particular bills that Sen. Bam filed below:

2.     The Fair Competition Bill, which aims to “protect consumer welfare, advance domestic and international trade and sustained economic development by… regulating monopolies, anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant power, and anti-competitive measures.” It also establishes the Philippine Fair Competition Commission;

7.     An expansion of the Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship Bill (PRESENT), filed in the 15th Congress, which supports the creation of social enterprises and offers incentives and benefits to business that genuinely help the poor.

 

First, let me acknowledge my practical limitations as I admit that I still have a lack of experience in terms of doing actual social entrepreneurship work.  However, I am an avid learner of the field and have read researches and books that may perhaps arm me with enough tidbits to utilize in making comments or insights.  Should readers agree or disagree, feel free to discuss via the comments section below this post.

First bill

Personally I believe that the two bills are benevolent in spirit.  On the first bill, I would just like to raise Muhammad Yunus’s insights on social entrepreneurship, which he wrote in his book “Building Social Business” (2010).  Yunus propagates that since social enterprises are true businesses, then ideally, there should be minimal incentives or support from policy – social enterprises should let market forces or the “invisible hand” of competition determine whether a social business idea is viable or not.

I have two conflicting opinions on this one.  On one vantage point, Yunus’s claims are meritorious; a social business enterprise must be viable and should not have to rely on incentives to be truly viable.  If a social business enterprise needs to rely on incentives, then what happens if the law is changed for whatever reasons?  What if political factors crush the incentives?  Then the social business enterprise loses its crutch… then becomes crippled?  These are indeed valid points of view and my recommendation to Sen. Bam is to not “baby” social business enterprises too much that should a law be ramified or lose its implementation, the business would invariably suffer and need to close.  This view emphasizes the need of true sustainability, meaning the capacity of a business to be at an on-going concern without the need to rely on policies as crutches.

On another vantage point, since social enterprises chase not one but two bottomlines (even three, if they pursue financial profits, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability), it is only fitting that there should be separate incentives that can aid their growth.  Social business enterprises can be different species if compared to traditional corporations; and perhaps different rules and policies must govern these enterprises.

Seventh bill

I wholeheartedly support social enterprises as vehicles towards poverty and even environmental problems alleviation.  However, my only concern is the measurement of how a business “genuinely helps the poor”.  In light of the sickening pork barrel scam that used bogus NGOs as puppets of politicians’ puppets, there is indeed a concern on implementation.  What is the meaning of “genuinely helping the poor”?  Will it include multinational or traditional corporations with CSR programs?  Will philanthropy be considered?

I am coming from the point-of-view that there is no universal social entrepreneurship definition as of the moment.  Some entities may use this bill to put a facade of authentic social entrepreneurship wherein they’re indeed traditional profit-maximizing entities with social responsibility on the side.  I believe the spirit of this bill is not on traditional businesses, but more on actual for-profit social enterprises that have a hard time balancing financial and social objectives.

My recommendation to Sen. Bam is to develop transparent measures that will decipher whether an existing enterprise is truly a social enterprise.  We do not want incentives, funds, etc to go to greedy businesses that will utilize this bill and wear on superficial masks.  There must be a strict way of determining whether a social enterprise qualifies for benefits under this bill.

Final words

I hope my humble thoughts can help people recognize the value of social entrepreneurship and how policy can influence their existence.  This blog post is written in the spirit of pursuing the Common Good, in the name of practice, continuous learning and education, and research.

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Lack of Policies or Lack of Execution?

Courtesy of Google Images

Another corruption and graft related issue has surfaced in the Philippines.  According to Inquirer.net, there are officials who allegedly directed their pork barrel funds to bogus NGOs so as to pocket their assets.

This is a bit frustrating, especially since this gives NGOs more negative publicity.  Yes, perhaps there may be some organizations who are merely tax shields or are indeed “ghosts” that suck the funds out of the tax-funded pork barrels for the personal gain of those in power.  But the true NGOs suffer from this as well; those who pursue social good with integrity and sacrifice.  Perhaps social enterprises may suffer from these kinds of things as well as this may destroy reputations of organizations that pursue the common good.

On to the topic of this blog post, is it about the lack of policies or the lack of execution?

According to my professors in DLSU, the Philippines have good laws related to preventing corruption.  However, there is indeed a lack of implementation – a lack of execution.

I think it is time that the public be the one to execute the law through public demand, or public pressure.  If we can find a way to utilize, harness, organize or even systematize the People Power phenomenon, then we can be the watchdogs of corruption.  The dawn of this digital era amplified with smartphones capable of using social media, cameras and digital recorders can serve as the country’s CCTV in looking out for undesirable actions from those in power.

Perhaps there should be pressure for every organization to be transparent.  If we can harness the all-seeing eye of this becoming increasingly digital world, then we can demand transparency from all kinds of organizations.  This will make covering the tracks of corruption harder.  This will put pressure to those in power to really invest in projects that contribute to the common good.

Let the mass media news always show a regular update on transparency reports from officials.  Let social media news websites raise discussions and fora related to these kinds of issues.

For far too long we have been searching for the medium by which we can amplify our eyes.  We have wished for Superman-like x-ray vision to determine proofs of corruption looming behind those promises of those in power.  Let us use the power of our digital era and be the ones to execute our policies.

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Proving Believers Right

I stumbled upon Seth Godin’s blog and he posted something about proving skeptics wrong.

For basketball fans, one might be accustomed to superstars having the mentality to prove doubters wrong – people are motivated by those who disbelieve and bash them.

As you read Seth’s blog, you will notice that he used to keep track of the skeptics, the doubters. But then he stopped, perhaps having this insight:

Why focus on proving skeptics wrong when there are true believers worth spending a greater time on?

Seth continues to state that these believers would even be the evangelizers that will spread your word and thus, it is more productive to focus on them.

I know for a fact that proving others wrong, especially the pesky doubters or even the cheapest of haters is such a very powerful motivator. I have sometimes used it in sports when playing basketball (just as how MJ and Kobe used them), and sometimes it leads to one having that sudden burst of energy. In the vernacular, I think it’s translated as “gigil”.

But come to think of it.

What then, after we prove doubters and haters wrong?

What then if one gets vindication, redemption, or even revenge?

As Seth advocates in his blog post, is it not more appropriate to prove the fans and true believers right? For those who kept the faith?

Instead of playing the ruthless god who punishes non-believers by sending them to hell, let us emulate the Christian God who focuses on rewarding the faithful and bringing the believers to heaven.

Somehow, things are more worth the time, energy, and passion.

Sure, proving doubters wrong is satisfying. But nothing compares to the euphoria of proving one’s believers right and exulting one’s success with his loved ones.

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Copy Paste

image

Artists will always begin with a blank canvas; and if Murphy’s law, even in its most little ways of messing with an individual, distorts one’s creative juices then say hello to disaster.

How can an artist innovate when it is downright challenging to invent new things? Can someone really sustain being original all the freaking time?

Painting creative, innovative things to a canvas does not need  extreme originality. At least that’s what some business authors want to say.

No, it’s not finding something to plagiarize. No, it’s not about copy pasting entire ideas and what have you and claim it as an obra maestra.

It’s like doing a paper – finding a passage or quote so compelling that it begs to NOT be paraphrased. It begs to be copy pasted. But take note – only a passage or quote, and the proper source must still be cited.

What I am talking about is perhaps what Kim and Maugborne (Blue Ocean Strategy) advocated as looking across different industries to borrow certain elements that can be implemented to another industry as an innovation. Example would be the subscription model adamant in publications being implemented by software industries as service – like Google Apps subscriptions.

Perhaps it is also what Seth Godin advocated in his manifesto (Bootstrapper’s Bible) about copying business models from another industry and applying it to your own.

Copy pasting, when armed with savvy for creating synthesis of seemingly disconnect industries leading to the birth of a New Truth leads to innovation.

Then, somehow, the blank canvas will then come to life. No amount of Murphy’s Law can now mess with one’s innovative juices. Everything that goes wrong will go wrong, but everything that goes wrong is an opportunity to innovate.

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Carousel (Bamboo Acoustic Cover)

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/96834855″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

This song emits a feeling of liberation, of a journey to one’s home.  The voice of the song exclaims on how excited he is to go back to his roots, and live life anew.  Here is a take on Bamboo’s latest single from No Water No Moon repackaged version entitled “Carousel”.  You can visit the original version here.

Picture perfect
Starting to hold on
To these new eyes
My (my) worlds drawn out in crayon
All the lives we come across
We shine a light to see our own

Remember back to every story told
Who you were
Before the rush hour
Carousel
Dared to see the world
With your own two eyes
So you’ve made mistakes
Now who’s wide awake
It’s a tidal wave

Our worlds collide
Become one in the starlight
Forget perfect endings
Let’s dare and live for the day
Today
Today’s like no other

Words come alive
In the story of our time
Let’s all quit pretending
Let’s dare and live for the day
Today
Today’s like no other

I am home

Hit a wall
But there ain’t no shutting this door
We’re gonna live
Keep faith
We gonna soar soar soar
To a higher ground
We charge to claim our own

Remember back to every story told
Who you were
Before the rush hour
Carousel
Dare to see the world with your own two eyes
Yeah you’ve made mistakes
Now who’s wide awake
It’s a tidal wave

Hello world
Forget what’s the play
But we’re gonna look to shake this rust away

Our worlds collide
Become one in the starlight
Forget perfect endings
Let’s dare and live for the day
Today
Today’s like no other

‘Cause I’m just gonna live my life
Pick up the pieces
Of what’s been left behind
Bring back the memories
Of that special time
No doubt
No fear
No question I know what’s gotten me here
My sweet escape
Hello long goodbyes

I am

Our worlds collide
Become one in the starlight
Forget perfect endings
Let’s dare and live for the day
Today
Today’s like no other

Words come alive
In the story of our time
Let’s all quit pretending
Let’s dare and live for the day
Today
Today’s like no other

I am home

Remember who you are
Remember who you are
I am, I am, I am
Home

Our words come alive
In the story of our time
Between wish and the waiting
Let’s dare and live for the day

 

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Leap of Faith

Status quo
Strangling one’s neck
Preventing destiny cards to be drawn from one’s deck

Leap of faith
May be all that it takes
To greet the dawn of a new life waiting

No, it’s not safe
No, some things one must forsake

The road of kings is a road of thorns
To traverse the latter, not everyone was borne
Would you rather regrets be the cause of mourn
When fate is knocking excitedly at your door?

Take the leap of faith
Take plunge and fail
Then rise up and define your fate
Awaiting is the most yearned holy grail

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