current song in mind: bill labounty's livin' it up

There really comes a time in a month when you just feel like sulking about everything. This week, I have been spending almost 15 hours of my day in Makati—either for work or for some dinner with friends. It is just today that I’ve gotten the chance to let all my emotions sink in and reflect on them.

Yesterday, on our way to a production house, one of my bosses and I had a pep talk about work—more about how his life has become with work. Sadly, he admitted to me that the advertising industry’s work is hardly manageable, and the salary is hardly livable. But why stay, I asked. Well, maybe it’s the fulfillment, or the excitement--to a very high degree and frequency, and most importantly, the inspiration you get from the people you work with in the office. My dream last night was something similar to this, hence, this morning, while taking a bath, this was running through my mind. Forward to one year from now, if I were to be asked, why advertising? I guess it’s just really my passion for it. A lot of my friends have been questioning my goal to work in this industry, but money is not what I am firstly looking for in work. I don’t really see myself working in an industry that does not offers me genuine fulfillment, genuine happiness. Amidst the glamour and the high-profile, I see advertising as one of the best ways to communicate to the world my ideals for it.

Over dinner, my boss invited us to eat with him and the representative from the production house. North Park—need I say more? The topics of discussion were all about love, happiness, and commitment. In spite of the many instances where he made me admire him, it was with this conversation that he got me dumbfounded. There were some things he said that struck me a lot. He declared that, to him, there are just some people who are not born to have relationships, or are not capable of having one. He points to himself as an example. He said that he doesn’t want to be unfair to his partner especially that he knows that he doesn’t want to be responsible for another’s emotions. And contrary to popular belief that romantic love is the most important of all types of love, and the only form of love that can complete any individual, there are other forms of love—the ones that you share with your friends, family, music, career, etc. He also said that everyone that enters your life is there to do you something good—especially your friends. While he was saying this, I came to ponder about how my life would have been without my friends. More than anything in this world, it’s them who I can’t live without. They have been giving my life meaning ever since. Although I have lost a lot of them because of complicated circumstances, I still stand by them, hoping that one day, things will work out, so I can be complete again, happy again. Even if I meet a lot of new people everyday, it’s still not the same with someone who knows you inside out, and someone you can depend on. It’s still not the same with someone who knows you too well and someone who you can just spend more than ten hours on the phone with, talking about everything, or talking about nothing, and being able to read, feel, sympathize, or empathize what that friend is feeling.