My Black Hole

I really am fearful to share things to people around me, especially that I, myself, don't even understand these things that make me anxious all time. I feel so sad today though I don't know the exact reason why. My life sucked, I guess.

As human as I am, I try to figure out the possible solutions that I may get from the surroundings based from what I see and what I perceive. I may be able to give a solution or a specific answer to every logical form of questioning, but this time, things seem to have gradually changed. 

I don't know if it's pride that swallowed me or what. But since this kind of drama is not allowed in the house, I can't freely express it in front of my loved ones. So, I decided to keep these things inside myself. If I may burst it out unexpectedly, I rather jot them down here in my personal blog. In case, what happens to me, there is an anecdote available for them to read upon. 

Sadness conquers me as I go along each day. A kind of sadness which no doctors nor any scientist could ever heal. And because I don't want the people around me to feel that I am really that sad, I wear my favorite mask to give them an unconditional smile, as if I am really okay. Nothing is going on. 

If they have been that observant, they would notice changes I guess. For example, my sister is now trying to convince me to eat, because I have gradually lost my appetite. And I like the complete silence as I feel the soft tears falling from my two eyes. 

I don't want to sound dramatic to everyone, so I am here writing and silently crying in depths of despair which I really don't understand. I am so sad not because I feel embarrassed to the fact that I am not what the person everyone expected me to have become. 

Well, maybe a part of it devours me and my pride but that does not complete the entirety of the whole sadness that I really truly feel. My boyfriend always remind me to be confident. But I somehow lost it. I do even forget the feeling of true positivism that I had once thought all the time. Every thing's in place except now. 

I really feel I'm a total worthless person. Nothing special. I am like a stone where everyone just either being thrown away or treated as nothing. I am nothing. I wanted to fight this kind of feeling all time, but it seems that there is a black hole, where the entire energy sucked the entire mass of my positive feeling which has affected me in this moment. 

I really don't know what changed people that I truly loved. Am I getting boring? Worthless? It seems like. I don't excite them anymore. I am not that interesting anymore. I am useless. I don't earn that much as everyone does. I don't have that power that once I have had. I don't have that name that gained so much attention. I don't have that "snap" to catch the attention of everyone. I am getting worthless and boring, might as well an uninteresting woman. 

It's okay I guess. I have to accept. I keep these things all alone as I have been trained for. Keep all the dramas with me and let them devour me all throughout. It's up to the people around to figure out. I'm taking the foot steps towards my dungeon, and in that same place I dwell and keep my silent tears, no one could ever hear. 

No dramas outside. Keep them all inside and confidently say "hi" to everyone I meet with my big smile as if nothing is really going on inside me. I will keep that sadness with me, and bury it with me until death. This is my black hole. 

6 Reasons Why I Don't Know What Family Means

Family. Big word. However, it is the basic unit of society. Without it, there would be no community, no society, no nation, no country. Nothing.

What I know about having a family is that these persons belong to this particular circle are the same persons whom you can rely on. You can share everything to these persons whether your bad day or the happiest moment of your life. Everything. You can laugh together with them, or at least can give you comfort especially when one undergoes their respective blues.

Yes, I have a quite nice, small family. I am the eldest. My sister is 17 years old. We should be much closer if you think about it since we are just four in the house. But, unfortunately, we don't.

My parents, yes, they make the rules. They are the masters of the house because they know the absolute truth since they have been to the situations where we are just about to begin undertaking. But what I really don't understand is that why my own parents don't make us feel home.

As I am writing this post right now, tears begin to fall from my eyes. I have to make several pauses as I go along every sentence here to paragraphs. Trying to calm myself.

It may sound odd but I feel jealous to how other family does go along with each other. Children treat their parents as their primary barkadas, considering the parenting sector. That's normal. They should maintain their state as parents to mold us to become better persons. But not necessarily the "total boss" of your life.

1. We never felt comfortable when they are in the house. 

Why? Imagine, we are not allowed to show any form of emotions and any form of disobedience. Or else, you will be scolded like hell. The result? Masochism. We managed to hide this part from them since they don't care anyway - at all. We don't have any outlet to our emotions especially to the daily events at school and to elsewhere we do surround ourselves with.

2. We treat them as our "managers" or "bosses."

When they arrive in the house after work, me and my sister tend to be anxious to how the entire things that exist in the house. Because we do fear that they will scold us from their daily house inspection. From the food they eat to whatever, they are all examined. Yes, I do understand that this is part of discipline. But I really don't like the way we are told. We are like slaves without feelings at all. No power to reason out. If we do, we will be fired out from our so-called "workplace."

3. We don't have to show our "true" self.

They don't like any form of dramas. From my first heart break to failures in exams, etc., they are not supposedly shown to them or else instead of being comforted by our own parents, they scold us, judge us. Instead of listening to what caused our depression, sadness, they tend to say "Why did you do that? Why aren't you able to manage to pass? Are you stupid?" If you hear these words from your own parents amid the blues you are now, do you think you still like to open up with them? I don't think so.

4. We don't express how we really feel about the situation. [We should pretend we are okay.]

Quite interesting that happened today is that I tried to open up what I do feel about the situation we are now to my mother. My boyfriend asked me to ask her to know what they are thinking about. So I did. I tried [with all my courage and strength to do such act.] But I already know how she would respond. And yes, she did. This is also the main reason why I don't open up stuff like this as it would make me sound stupid in their eyes.

If I express what I really do feel, they can really tell me I am that damn stupid to be a dramatic queen.

With our conversation we have today with my mother, she told me even that she is wondering why I am not talking to them anymore.

Observe these conversations.

**Via SMS
"Ma [Filipino way of calling their mother], do you feel proud of us?"
"Yes, we do. We love you."
"Although we do mistakes?"
"What mistakes? Don't tell us that. Stop that."
"Mistakes like I don't have work, I can't manage to help you with the house hold payments, etc. Unable to pay this bill."
"Nah, we will be disconnected from the internet. Why can't I connect to the home phone?"
"There is a dial tone. You can call."

**Via Phone Call, continuation after text messaging. 
"Hallo."
"Why made you say that? Are you in drama again?"
"Yes, I am."
"You should not do that. It's nonsense."
"Why? Am I not allowed to do so? [Why can't I express my emotions here?]"
"See, what happens if you don't read the Bible, go to church. You're thinking stupid now."
"Anyway, just help me pay the bill if we aren't able to make it on time."
"I don't want to have conversations like this. It disturbs my work."
"Okay, fine. Bye."

She jumped out to conclusions without really examining what is really going on inside me. The same thing with my sister when she had back pains. Instead of helping her ease the pain, she scolded her like a "pain in the ass" without bothering at all. She concluded that my sister had that severe back pain because she is too fat. Well, she is bigger than me. But not necessarily the main reason why she still has that same pain until now.

If I would tell her I do feel dizzy like hell, palpitating chest with matching pressure all time, I guess I would end up the same. So, in my case, I kept these secret with her. From the smallest pain to an increasing rate of severity of pain, I am not telling everyone. I have to manage it myself. Anyway, they wouldn't care.

5. We should be nearly "perfect."

For 23 years of existence, I have been trained to be perfect of everything. From every mannerism, the way I smile, the way I should stand, sit, wear my clothes, etc. EVERYTHING. There is no space for mistakes. If there are, always prepare for consequence.

6. We should think of 70% happiness because tomorrow sadness comes. 

This might sound stupid but yes. We are not allowed to laugh in the house. We can but in a minimal manner. We can't say things that loud as it would annoy them. We can't do things we want to do normally in our everyday routines, because it would distract them. And so on. Everything has rules. RULES. RULES. I am getting sick of them.

In general, every house rule is this. As kids, when you are still living under the roof of your parents, you should follow their rules all time. But in this situation, what should I do?

After living this kind of roof for more than 20 years now, I have countless times thinking about suicide. Several masochistic acts to seek inner pleasure. Others would label it as an "exaggerated drama series."  The most recent is when I tried to do painful and hard rubbing of a dead pen.

I don't know how exactly a family means. Is it about the quantity of things you are able to provide to them or the quantity of emotional intelligence (EQ) you can give? I guess there should be balance.

I am grateful to have them as my parents in terms of being able to be the great providers. But, not really as persons whom I can rely on in terms of emotional need. Without my boyfriend and my sister as my support, to whom should I seek to? No one else except my God.

How To Explore More For Your Self-Discovery: Ways to Make it Possible

Self-discovery comes along in a very unexpected manner. Nothing about life has been more interesting except when something unplanned just happens to you. This same thing also becomes a channel to the pathway where you did not expect that it will go along like that.

This seems weird for you if you try to think about it. But then again, life is filled with several possibilities and opportunities that no one expects they are going to occur at least once in your life. You ever wanted to be this, but that other one happens. It may have resulted to a heavy drama of yours but surely if you just try to embrace these changes, it will surely come out so fruitful and joyful all throughout the years.

Personally, I have never expected that being an artist will become something that I will become passionate about. However, I have already loved sketching anything in my piece of paper. Since I was a young girl, I really love to draw and draw and draw. Everyone in the family knows that. But because of the heavy demands of academic achievement in the family, I chose to forget that passion and drove myself to something else. Because this is what I should do and not wasting my time for something I cannot benefit from it.

That was my kind of thinking since years then. That continued until I graduated in college. Albeit the fact that I have not received flying colors when I finished my studies at 20 years old, still I did make a lot of achievements for the last 16 years of focused study. Yes, I did what the society wanted me to do and achieve. Absolutely, I felt really good. Then, the usual, as a fresh graduate, I needed to have a job. So, I applied to a lot of jobs both online and office. I gathered around 50 resumes, but still no work.

Depressing times of my life came, until I landed to a small school and taught there for a year. There, my field of expertise, the talking, the teaching, the drawing, and all those stuffs that I am required to do were all set and challenged. But then, though I have already thought about achieving all of these things after 23 years of my life, as I looked backwards, there still something lacking.

Yes, I did forgot my passion. Arts.

Currently, I am working as an online Game content writer in one of big websites, part-time. So, I have enough time to do stuffs that I needed to do and earn at home while doing the artistic stuff that I ever love to do.

Through the help of my family and my ever-supportive boyfriend, I was able to re-define myself more and more each day. Amid the doubts that covered my whole self about my capacity of doing it, I have never thought that being in love with my passion is something that I could also earn, too.

Just some months ago, I started to try making journals the first time. It was hard. I watched tons of tutorial videos via YouTube and learned itty-bitty of their methods of making them every day. While doing so, it required so much patience from me. And because it was my first time, I still did not know the measurements and whatever needed for such estimation needed for each of the journals I made. But still, they looked good.

I tried selling them piece by piece. I was still doubtful if I could really able to sell them. Yet, with the help of my sister, I was able to make several pieces of journals every day and sold them to her friends and classmates at school. All of their feedback are more of "Nice, cute, make more." These words really sparked me much more. Even my family loved them much, although they doubted my ability to be the next Hallmark and Sterling in the future for me. My boyfriend, who was also an artist himself loved what I make [not because he loves me, but objectively assessed].

Because of these remarks, I continue to make more and more and more journals. Later on, I created them label to acknowledge my work. "La Simero." This is the sample business name that my sister used for her projects. Then I used it for my journals and online selling.

Slowly, I am able to sell them. The kind of determination and persistence were reaped and all the efforts I did to every speck of the details of these journals are made with love and passion. This is something that I really loved to do.

As the day passes by, I already think about exploring more about my artistic capacities and think about of that particular thing that I forgot during the last years. Arts. And I will go back to it again. This is my road to a new self-discovery.

For those who are interested to have a look for my journals made, you can see me though the following

Facebook: La Simero journals
Twitter: @Lasimero
Tumblr: LaSimeroHandmade

Contact me through:
Blog: This blog. Leave a comment or message
Email: lasimerohandmade@gmail.com

To have a look of the first set of videos that I have watched for my journal making, you can search Sea Lemon's official YouTube page through these links below:

How To Make A Sketchbook: Coptic Stitch
How To Bind Single Sheets: Bookbinding Tutorial
Perfect Binding Tutorial

Have fun to an artistic self-discovery, folks!

How to Overcome Competitive Nature: 5 Easy-to-Remember Steps Unveiled

Amid this much competitive world, everyone is required to cope with their every day routines, stresses, requirements, and so on which the usual corporate demands. As an outcome, the most noticed is by having the attitude of competition is now a norm. As being competitive is now being taught to young kids.

I was a kid, ten years ago. I graduated in grade school with flying colors. How? Because my mom forced me to. Personally, I don't know much why I should do, but in order to please them, I should do what they wish me to do.

So, I did. I competed, I forced myself to gauge my entire childhood to my studies. Proof? Limited time to play with my friends, to stay and to talk with them, sharing funny thoughts and even to enjoy the laughing part with them.

My mom always told me, "These friends of yours will not be with you when you go down. So, don't waste your time being with them."

I can't forget that.

Why could I? If I can clearly recall how I exactly felt when my friends are enjoying their games, laughing out loud out of total joy, while I was kept in "dungeon" locked inside the house. All I could do is to see them happy through my locked doors and closed windows.

I cried. Yes, out of pain. An excruciating pain I couldn't even forget until now.

Afterwards, with all these sacrifices, I did graduate with honors, medals, and stood up in front of my classmates, friends, parents, school administrators, as well as my teachers while giving my first speech during my graduation day. It was memorable. At least.

I thought it would stop. But as far as I could remember, my mom told me, "You should be the valedictorian in grade school," which I sadly didn't make it happen. I even hesitated to tell her that I really can't make it since my classmates were really that good.

So, I tried to make it possible during my high school. I did my best. All perfect scores. Earned lots of medals, certificates of honors, fame, power, and above all my name was totally established in the school.

I did the same thing as I did in grade school. But this time, I was the class valedictorian. Finally, I was able to make it. But, I asked myself this time -- once again -- Why?

When I got to college and graduated with no Latin honors as I expected. With just 0.18 lack from my general average, I wasn't able to reach the required from the university, I felt totally sad.

Being an achiever, to have nothing at this very moment, is something terrible, and what's worse, I felt I like to jump in a 10-storey building.

What is really sad about how I feel, which is until now, I still do feel it, is I can't get rid of my competitive nature. This has been sickening me, too, for a while.

In everything I do, to anyone I work with, to someone I relate to, to everyone, I feel all time the same competition installed in my system. In order to cope with this negative feeling, I tried to figure out how could I overcome this innate nature.

As I searched, I figured out that I need to do these 5 easy-to-remember steps in my everyday routine - which I could share to every reader:

1. Make it a drive to motivate yourself.
Since this is already innate, you can't stop it. But when you say you wanted to stop it, it doesn't mean that you can't control it. You can! It's just a matter of choice to stay motivated through your competitive nature or not.

2. Make other people your inspiration, not a tool for comparison.
Everyone's unique. This is an overused adage to describe humanity. Yet, sometimes, it's hard to absorb especially for those who are living life with a rush race. But, instead of making others your destruction, make them your inspiration.

For example, your co-worker has a promotion. Instead of grumbling, and getting depressed why you weren't chosen, try to identify why she has the promotion, and make it a drive to improve or to change strategy to get what she got.

3. Make yourself proud, in a good and gentle way.
How is this possible? By simply re-think your accomplishment done in your lifetime and then asked yourself then, how did I manage to make them? Do others achieve the same as I do? For sure, achievers achieve a lot of stuff in their lifetime.

4. Make some boosts to your hidden confidence, and show them off!
At times, the culprit behind the negative competitive nature is their hidden insecurity. This negative feeling usually resulted to negative competition. As a competitive woman myself, I can confidently say that I needed to boost my confidence to overcome this not-so-good competition [I felt].

5. Make your miserable life worse from negative competition.
Yes, you can dig your own grave yard. This is what other people could say to me. Because of being so negative when it comes to other people's achievements, such as promotions, etc. I usually feel down and stressed. The outcome? My editor noticed my mediocre outputs, etc. Simple as that.

The point here is, in order for a person to cope with his competitive nature is to change the way she thinks before stepping to another level of emotions which would create problems later on. These problems include pessimism, insecurities, negative competition, and etc.

Take these simple notes from a competitive woman like me, and let's see if these are good pieces of advice are good enough.

Feel free to give comments below. I appreciate them a lot! Thanks!

Fed Up With Overtime? Try These!

We know that overtime work is often not within our control, but sometimes it can be. Just try your best to make your overtime workload a minimum. 

Employees are often tasked to do a lot of work which leads to stressful and long hours. Yet, they are doing it for the sake of higher payments. Thanks to the high product demands of most companies, employees have better chances to be paid on an overtime-basis and get higher payments all together.

Employees around the globe think that working beyond 40 hours per week will make them more productive and help them finish more work. In general, working beyond 40 hours per week is simply unproductive.

However, CATO Institute, an American public research organization, revealed that overtime hours are highly more taxable than those regular working hours in a week. According to this research, the higher the number of hours worked by an employee, the higher the tax bracket an employee belongs to. This is another burden for both employees and employers.

On the other hand, having overtime will be a burden to the employee, too. It makes the weekends much stressful and not relaxing. Therefore, any hired individuals should avoid working overtime. Therefore, work in a regular number of hours. Here are some ways to avoid overtime:

1. Be early to work.

There's a famous saying, "An early bird catches the worm." If an employee goes to work as early as he can, thus, he can also finish a lot of stuff early, too. As simple as that. In most cases, employees goes to offices tardy, that's why, they usually make their 8-hour work longer since they have to finish stuff needed to be done in a day.

2. Be organized.

What wise employees do to save time amid tons of work to finish in a day, they usually have a to-do-list. This is really important to organize the job to do without procrastinating everything and at the same time, one can meet deadlines in a very hectice schedule though there are still lots of them are left unfinished.

3. Make a priority list.

Aside from making a to-do-list, make sure to make a list of things needed to be finished earlier than the others assigned. In this way, it will make work more systematic, fast, and punctual to the deadlines of each work.

4. Be wise in spending your breaks.

Having a break time does not mean doing unnecessary chats and dilly-dallies with office mates. This is good to be nice to colleagues but make sure it doesn't consume much of your vacant time. Make your vacant time more productive since this is the perfect time to freshen up and to relax a bit after hours of stressful work.

5. Weigh your meetings to attend.

By having an invitation to the meeting, does not mean that every time, an employee should always say "YES". Weigh the agenda and the importance of the meeting over the assigned work to be finished in a certain deadline. Not unless if the meeting is related to the work assigned. That would be okay and substantial.

6. Learn to say "NO".

This is a wise act by an employee. No need to be a superhero who can do every thing assigned. No one can do that especially if the deadlines are really hectic. By saying yes all the time, it will make your work more chaotic and unorganized. Before saying yes to a certain assignment, make sure to check your to-do-list and your priorities set in that day or in that week (stated in number 2 and 3). If the new task is already unmanageable, just say no to it and let others do the work.

7. No "Facebook-ing" at work.

This is a big no, no. Doing Facebook-ing, Twitter-ing, and so on really make big procrastination to the work and at the same time in the work place through wasting much of the time doing useless things and reading unnecessary posts from friends instead of reviewing the work or doing the assignment to meet the deadline.

8. Make your worktable clean.

If your worktable is clean, it will also clear up your mind midst very hectic work schedules and tons of work to be done.

9. Go home on time.

If your work ends in 5 o'clock in the afternoon, then go home in that hour.. No need to waste time extending more minutes or some hours after the regular working hours. Well, you're trying to avoid overtime, why doing so?

10. Don’t do other stuff besides work.

If the goal is to finish work in a certain time, make sure to have it in mind to achieve that goal. Therefore, don’t do other unrelated stuff to the task. For example, if the assigned responsibility is related to the communications of the company, just focus on responding emails, answering calls, and other tasks related should be accomplished.

Working more hours in a given time make any workers sound more hard working, determined, and interested in the job. But this is a wrong view of achieving 100% success in work. 

In order to achieve the set goals (that each company reminds their employees), make sure to do smart working instead. 

To do this, each employee should be focused on the given job and not doing tasks apart from the assigned. It’s good to be helpful but not all times. They are hired to do the job, therefore, they should be acquainted that they are employed to attain the aim. This, too, applies to you as an employee. By doing these, for sure, you can avoid working overtime.