This is perhaps a sharing about my daily life. For starters, hello, my name is Rhodora. Most people call me Rhods or for those who are really close they call me Ida (this is more of a family thing). How and why did I end-up on steemit is such a long story. All I know is that this website works like social media but you get rewarded "coins " if your content, well, becomes famous.
As I write this content, I am now sitting in my office desk, yes, a generic one - white desk surrounded by semi-wooden walls with 1/8 inch mirror mounted on top. You are probably guessing what am I doing in life and why am wasting my time writing this stuff about myself during working hours.
.png)
I am a regular employee.
Okay?
Yeah?
So what exactly do you do?
I, well, let's just say that work involves advocacy campaigning to achieve equality and empowerment. How and why did I end up in this line of job and why am I exactly writing this blog is the whole point of the discussion.
Growing up, I was trained to be a scientist. Yes, lab work, math, science, chemistry and everything you have and can imagine. I studied in a science high school wherein, majority, if not all, of the graduates are expected to take science related courses in college and pursue a job in the fields related but not limited to science and technology. Of the 267 graduates of my batch, I was a defiant one who decided to pursue an undergraduate degree which is either a science or an art - Development Studies.
Four years of math and sciences, turned into piles of readings related to philosophy and advocacy promotion. Quite a complete 360 degree turn of table. Did I regret it? No. I did I love it? Yes, because it was a breakaway from a world of standards, numbers, and computations. Development Studies is a world of freethinking, logical and free speech. I loved it. I was in love with it. I believed in the advocacy and the high of changing the world - saving one woman at a time, changing mindsets, influencing the structure little by little through the efforts of the agency - so much that after college graduation it has been my life goal to pursue a career in it.
Given such big and ambitious dream of changing the world and contributing to development, where else would I want to be? The government. Through the ever so influencing voice of the fore running figures in the field, which also happened to be my mentors, I worked my ass out to be where I am now. From the lowest level of the rank-and-file chain to the second level of the civil service professional salary grade chain, I go. No regrets. Pursue your dreams, they said. Work hard to be where you want to be, they said. I am where I want to be now...
But....
Am I happy? Is the question I asked myself everyday as I curl out of bed and walk my way to the breakfast table - Rhodora, are you happy? In my standards, I made it. I am where I have to be for the next 5 years. Where I am right now is the place where I should be to bring about change and contribute to the development of my country. But why am I unhappy?
Expectations VS Reality
Where I am right now is the place where the beating heart of the advocacy promotion lies; the top chain of the influencing power, but what is missing? Why am I not happy?
Months of searching, I dug in the answers then, finally, woke up and realized - it was all technical work at the core of the advocacy without a...heart. Where is the heart? Where is the culture of peace? Where are the REAL principles of equality and inclusion that must be in the very core of the advocacy? Where are the concepts that I learned in school which made me fall in love with this area of study in the first place? More than the technical aspect of the advocacy, where is the heart? Beyond the tools, where is the real concept of equality and empowerment?
Why do we spend hours squabbling over definitions of technical terms for a standardization certificate? How does this directly impact our stakeholders? What is the purpose of this?
When I stumbled upon those questions - primal questions of employment - I started to think even deeper if this job is really for me. All the while, I tried to distract myself with "fun" things being - extreme activities/sports, travelling, getting a boyfriend (which, by the way, I truly fell in love with, quite unexpectedly), and painting among all others.
But HAPPINESS IS A STATE OF MIND . No matter how "fun" the activities you are doing, if in a daily basis you feel that you are not in the place where you are supposed to be, let alone, you are doing the things you do not feel any fulfillment in doing then, happiness will not come along. And no matter how many adrenaline pumping bunjee jumping rounds you did over the weekend, it would not change the fact that, 40 hours a week you do the same old thing that does not bring you happiness.
Hence, through months of thinking and broken relationship (with my ex. I miss him a lot), I finally came up with this realization - this job is not the perfect match for me and all the more that I try to hold on, all the more that it will break me.
This is blog is my journey. To a new life. To a fresh start.
Welcome to my life.