Got this from Lifeteen.com, and I thought I’d repost, so I can refer to this when I write about this particular aspect of my life.

Single Life

God calls many people to live a single life. What’s it like?

Commitment

• You are not committed to a spouse or any of your children, so you can commit your time to whatever you’d like. But, this freedom from commitment also means that no one is committed to you. You have to be comfortable with living solo.
• You will remain committed to your family: brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, cousins, etc.

Sex

• In the single life, it is immoral to have sexual or physical relationships with others.
• You focus your sexual energy on serving God and His church more.

Joys

• You give when and where a married person cannot: time, money, and attention. A married person is bound to serving their family.
• As a single person, you have a unique independence that married people do not.
• If God calls you to serve elsewhere, you are free to travel.
• Although you may not have any biological children, you can have many kids by staying involved in your church’s youth ministery, religious education, or in local sports teams.
• As your parents age, or as a relative becomes ill, you will be able to help them in ways that married siblings cannot.

Hardships

• Since you don’t have your own family, you’ll need to find positive ways to find company and spend your time.
• Most of your friends will eventually get married and they’ll wonder why you aren’t doing it too. You have to find confidence in your vocation and be ready to explain it to people who don’t understand.

Lots and lots to think about.

Today at work, we had a meeting that discussed some of the changes that will be coming in the team. They’re BIG, EXCITING CHANGES

(yes, the emphasis is necessary), and this means career advances for everyone in the team, including me.

My first reaction?

UGH UGH UGH NOOOOO.

Okay, it wasn’t as violent as that, but I knew I have been feeling very uncomfortable with everything that may happen. It’s not that I do not want them; it’s just that the thought of change, the thought of shaking up things, the thought of having to go another extra mile on top of the work I’m doing is making me nervous to the point that I resist, that I don’t want to move. Hello comfort zone, I do not want to leave you.

But what can I do? I can’t stop this. This is when I follow the advice I got from watching Looney Toons back when I was a kid: If you can’t beat them, join them.

I guess the only reason why I felt uncomfortable is because these new opportunities mean extra work, and I’m feeling lazy. That, and change is never really comfortable. And maybe it’s because it’s high time I move out of this comfort zone.

It’s not like I’m going to be alone in this.

Hold on while I take a deep breath.

I am not one who thrives on competition. I don’t hate it, because I admit to liking the adrenaline rush with winning — or at least, attempting to win — but I don’t live for it. I avoid it if I can, because I don’t like the tension that’s there with competition.

This fact should stop me from being competitive with other people, particularly my friends, but it’s not. Odd, right? But I can’t help it! I guess maybe that stems from my dislike of the things I love going mainstream. I can’t exactly define what mainstream for me means, because sometimes even if everyone else loves something, I like it too. Sometimes, if no one else knows about something, and my friends got to know about it and they loved it too, the affection I have for that thing starts to wane.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit competitive over some things, some very shallow things, and I find it completely ridiculous because I shouldn’t be even feeling that. Let me give you some examples:

Boys.
Okay, this may sound like your typical teen drama, and it probably is. What sucks is I’m not a teen. The thing is, I’m a single, 24-year-old woman who’s never had a boyfriend, whose friends are all having boyfriends left and right. It would be nice if there’s someone, but no. Nada. No one over the horizon.

I shouldn’t be complaining about this because I feel it’s a petty thing to complain about. I honestly don’t want to complain about how no one asks me out or I don’t go on dates…how high school is that? I can’t help but feel lonely sometimes, though, and wonder: why do my other friends get to have new boys in their life so easily, while mine is mostly silent?

Ah well. This is for another blog entry sometime in the future, when I’m feeling all emo and lonely and such again. But for now, I will leave this at that.

Books.
Even more ridiculous, right? This is bothering me because this isn’t something to be envious or competitive about. But why oh why do I feel like I want to one-up other people with the books they are acquiring? Why do I want to feel like I want to be the one who’s better at book buying, book choosing, book hunting and all things related to books? Why do I feel so protective over the books I love and want to not share them with others because I don’t want them to love it the way I do?

See? I told you. Ri.di.cu.lous.

I think these are rooted in some insecurities that I should address and pray for, because this is making me feel almost hostile towards everyone. When I feel hostile towards people, I tend to hide and disappear, and before I knew it, I’ve drifted apart from some friends, and…well, it’s not pretty. It’s lonely, for sure.

I need to get over myself.

Last Tuesday, my best friend arrived from his two-month trip from UK for this exchange program he joined, and I was more than ecstatic to see him again. Despite the storm Basyang, I went to the inn they were staying at just to see him before he leaves for Cebu for the second part of their program. That is in the middle of a shift, mind you — friends, this is true friendship.

I also got to meet the other people with him on the program, including their British counterparts. It was nice meeting new people, and they had so much energy despite the 15-hour flight and jet lag, it’s amazing. I was also amazed at how young their counterparts were, and how much they have traveled. Most of them were 18-21, and they have traveled to at least two more countries, not including the Philippines. What was I doing when I was 18? Stuck in school, studying? Hanging out with friends? At 21, what was I doing?

Being with them made me ask all those questions. I know, things are different here. More often than not, students here cannot afford a gap year to just travel, and if you come from a pretty well-off family, you aren’t really expected to work while you’re studying. It’s just not the norm here. When I graduated college, I was expected to find a job — while not immediately, at least I wanted to find one within the year. No school = no allowance = no job = no money. It was simple.

But after meeting my best friend’s new friends that night, I wonder: did I make the wrong choice four years ago? Should I have not hurried to find a job and used my time to do other things, things that I may not be able to do now that I’m years older than I was?

Those thoughts kind of got me down in the past couple of days. Add that with this bored feeling that I’m having recently, I feel like I’m on full quarter-life crisis mode. Where is my life going and what am I doing about it? Should I have chosen differently four years ago? Can I still make those choices now?

I think the thing that’s really stopping me from jumping and doing everything I want is my job. I just always have to put that in consideration. I don’t mind most of the time because I love my job, but I don’t want to be almost married to it that I don’t get to do the things that I want to do because I can’t leave it for more than three days. I’m blessed to have a good boss, to be in a good account and be under a good company that I should take all the opportunities offered to me, but I guess being there has made me so comfortable that I’d rather work than do other things, things that I want to do. And in a way, that’s kind of wrong.

Don’t get me wrong — I still love my job. But I think I have to step back a bit. After all, my job isn’t my life.

So again. What am I going to do about it now?

* * *

I was looking at my email drafts yesterday and saw this one email a friend sent me four years ago, when we were both fresh graduates. Talk about hitting the nail on the head:

I think you should pursue any dreams or goals as soon as you feasiblycan. Yes, two years can establish yourself, but in the end, travel, writing, missionary work and YFC may be the fulfilling thing. We’re young, if we don’t take risks now, we may never again. I mean, God will show you. If you listen, the signs will be there. I’m sure of it so I hope we both have the strength to interpret them and follow them to our destinies and our selves.

Four years. Can I take those four years back and start over? Do I want to?

* * *

I get my best ideas in the shower. Yesterday, after my short work out session, I was still mulling over these thoughts, and for the nth time, I wondered what I could look forward to in the near future. Something to stir up my passion and all that jazz about following your dreams. The only thing I could think of that is in my plans is enrolling for graduate school, but somehow, it didn’t make me feel as excited as I thought it should be.

And then it hit me.

World Youth Day in 2011. Madrid, Spain.

MBA degree can wait, just one more year. Give me 2011 to do what I missed doing in the past four years (especially in 2008).

Madrid, Madrid. I will see you next year.

I’m taking this email I got for Refine Me yesterday as a sign, too:

And today, it’s official (well, semi-officiail, since I have yet to finish the other registration details):

By God’s grace, I will see Madrid and Pope Benedict XVI, with my friends and with other youths in the world who also love Jesus.

I think it’s time to sing Great Adventure again.

Hello world.

I figure I’ll get to this point eventually. Four years of archives is kind of hard to sort through, and sometimes, it’s harder to sort through all the mess and easier to just jump and restart.

So hello, I’m restarting.

There’s always this fresh feeling when you’re about to start writing in a blank journal, and there is something equally fresh as starting a new blog. I like the feeling that the database is empty, that there’s no past that defines your blog, there are infinite possibilities on where the blog can go. It’s not that there was something wrong with Refine Me. I love that place and I will keep that until I see no need to do so anymore. Refine Me has seen me through for almost seven years, and I’d like to think that it can still live up to ten? Let’s see.

But I can’t shake the feeling that in that blog, I’ve said too much. I’ve written too many things not for the sake of writing, but just for the sake of blogging and earning money. I can’t say I won’t monetize this blog, because I know at some point, I’m going to need the little money that my blogs bring. Refine Me has been home for a while, and now I think it’s time to start moving into a new one.

Jump ship, as some friends did.

Again, reboot.

So here. It’s bare, it’s clean, and it’s relatively empty, but I like it. I’m not moving here to take on a new web personality — the domain name says this is obviously me all the way. I’m just going to try to figure out myself, and figure out why I blog and put some semblance of order in my web presence.

Sort of.

There’s no need to plug the new home yet, as there’s no need to say goodbye to the other one, too. I initially planned to let go of that by post 1000, but I saw that I’m just at post 700, so that might take a while, and plans may change. But for now, I have this, and I have that, and along with the other more specialized blogs I have, I’m going to figure out what I need to do with all these and why I do what I do. Might take a while, but I’m not in a huge hurry.

So, reboot. Welcome to tinamats.com.