Someone I know recently deactivated her Facebook account for the simple reason that she got too depressed, because of hearing and knowing about what other people are doing with their lives. “Everybody else seems to be having a great time, busy with their own affairs…everybody else except me.” Does that sound familiar?

Call it a Facebook-induced depression. Compared to yourself, others may seem to be having the best time of their lives, may it be personal or work-related. The comparison becomes more acute when they post photos of places where they have recently traveled (where you haven’t been to), talk about scrumptious delights they’ve tasted on the other side of the continent (at a place you can only dream of), discuss excitedly parties they’ve been invited to (and unfortunately you weren’t), etc., etc.

Of course there will always be comparisons. It’s the way it’s always been. How different is that from bumping into one of your friends and hearing about his recent promotion at work? Or bumping into your girl friends and hear somebody discussing her future travel plans? The only difference is that now, we are being passively and speedily updated with the affairs of other people’s lives, and all those activities will automatically appear on our walls whether we like them or not. (Unless of course you’ve resorted to hiding them from your wall forever. Life is too short to be bugged by people with annoying online personas.)

The thing is, it’s quite hard for me as well to identify which ones are “sharing” and which ones are mere “flaunting.” There is a very fine line between the two. Perhaps there are indeed “genuine” posts whose main objective is to simply share. But no matter how innocent the objective of those posts may be, no matter how pure the intents of the poster could be, it will never be that way in the eyes of the person at the receiving end. We are all guilty of looking at other people through colored glasses, each tinted with our own prejudices and biases.

And then there are the so-called subtle posts. For instance, why should I change my status to reflect which airport I am currently in? What will that piece of information actually mean to somebody among my FB contacts? If they were my family, they didn’t need to be informed about my whereabouts; being my family they are already supposed to know. So it seems to me that the object of those status reports is to passively inform others how “hip” one is, say for being a jet-setter (side note: hip is when only few persons do it. If everybody else is into it, then it’s not hip; it’s ordinary!). Or perhaps to impress upon others about how hectic your schedule is, to gently remind your so-called ‘friends’ what a very important a person you are. Personally, I find it annoying that people would even bother to post status updates on their FB wall on how busy they are, to the point of noting down every single thing they had to accomplish in the coming days/weeks/months. If they’re so busy, then what the heck are they social networking for?

What we need to remind ourselves is that FB only provides a snippet of how people want others to see them. And even that is a very, very unbalanced projection of their real lives. Just take a look at the majority of photos uploaded everyday: travels, parties, happy family affairs, all projecting that warm and happy, fuzzy feeling. Does everybody feel that happy all the time?

We also need to remind ourselves that everything that gets posted online have been filtered. Only the good stuff goes. And besides, nobody really wants to read about the negative stuff anyway.

Fortunately, there is one good thing we can rely on when we become too exhausted from trying to decipher the fine line in FB: go OFFLINE. Believe it or not, the world will go on. Who knows, you may even find a better thing to do with your time.

A few days back, a memory from my high school days came back to me, out of the blue. I wasn’t even thinking about anything in particular. It was the time when somebody brought a supposedly miraculous Sto. Nino to school, much to the delight of the Catholic teachers and students. I, being non-Catholic, immediately felt out of place amidst the palpable excitement that gripped almost everyone else in our class. It can perform miracles, they said. One of my teachers then promptly urged me to go forth and be healed, and never mind that I wasn’t sick or anything like that. He was referring specifically to the fact that I, being exceptionally nearsighted, wore eyeglasses, and supposedly even my nearsightedness could be cured by the miracle team that came to town.

I have nothing against Catholics, mind you, but you have to understand the context of the environment I grew up in. I was raised in an entirely different dimension of faith that didn’t involve worshipping stone images of anything, much less a purportedly miraculous one. And in fact it was a challenge to grow up having a different “religion” from everybody else’s. But I got along well with everyone, or at least that was how it seemed to me.

I immediately raised my objection to the idea. It wasn’t just that I didn’t believe that it had healing powers that could cure my myopia (I was already a budding skeptic way back then), but precisely because it would go against everything I was raised to believe in. Daddy would surely disinherit me, for sure.

But my teacher insisted: “What would you lose if you tried it? You have everything to gain.” Not exactly his same words; note that this happened more than two decades ago, so the memory is a bit rusty, but the message was essentially the same. Basically, he was telling me to just suspend my beliefs (or lack of it) for a brief second and just take a leap of faith. After all, if I did gain my normal eyesight back, then I’d rise out of the situation as the real winner! That would even make a believer out of me, who knew.

Well, I didn’t let myself be coaxed into it. I was too stubborn, or perhaps even scared. It would have been great to actually put it to test, now that I think about it. I just buried the incident within the deep recesses of my memory, and didn’t even think about it anymore.

Until now.

Should there be a moral lesson in this story? Well, for one, it’s that teachers don’t know everything. I’m quite appalled to realize that the principal of our school had even allowed something like that to happen in the first place. Was there anything remotely academic about it, that it had to take place within the hallowed grounds of our public school? Was the student body even consulted about it? If I were to go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would probably raise a ruckus.

Ah, the things that you learn in two decades. Or, the things you lose in two decades.

It’s so easy to fall into something, as long as there’s a promised gain. Faith is believing that there’s an eventual gain somewhere, sometime, somehow. An afterlife without sorrow or misery, pain or death, suffering or torment. A life full of blessings, because nothing happens without a reason, and everything is preordained. A life in a capsule entrusted to the care of a higher Being.

It’s all yours to gain, as long as you believe.

As for me, I have indeed remained myopic and I’m still wearing my eyeglasses. My eyesight has probably even worsened over the years. But one thing I know, though, is that where faith is concerned, I am now willing to shift my focus on what is immediately in front of me and try my best to see beyond.

I’ve been thinking a lot on how I can possibly apply some of the ideas I’ve learned at the women’s forum I attended late last month. I chose two workshops to attend in that forum, one of them was on assertiveness, and the other one was on work-life balance. One of the things I learned in the workshop was that successful women who seemed to "have it all," in real life, actually have to make compromises in their lives. The "have-it-all" idea is just…an illusion.

I don’t know how I may seem to appear to other women, but I don’t think of myself as one of those successful women who seem to have it all. I’ve made compromises along the way myself. And if I were to make a chart of my life now, it would probably look like this:

That is roughly based on the number of hours I allot to my daily concerns on weekdays. Weekends are of course devoted mostly to family/home affairs, because I opt not to work on weekends.

If I were to make my "ideal" chart, it would probably look like this:

Haha, good luck with that one. I did say "ideal"; I didn’t say it was practical (right now). Still, it’s nice to think of ways on how to achieve that kind of balance. And hey, who knows? Priorities do change as you get older.

A huge chunk of my time is concentrated on work. I feel kind of guilty because my work gets the best of me, and the rest goes to my family and other stuff. I do manage to snip off a few hours per month for my so-called "Me-Time." I usually devote it to blogging, photography, and what-have-you. And I just wish I had more time to devote to things I really enjoy doing – things that do not have the word "work" tagged on them.

And yet, in spite of the fact that I devote so many hours to my work, I still feel that my efforts are not enough. How much more severe would the consequences be if I were to redistribute my hours so as to achieve a more "balanced" life? As it is, there will always be colleagues who would perform better in terms of scientific output and impact. There will always be those who can be at the laboratory virtually 24/7, and whose brain cells never stop working on their scientific problems even when they get home. There will always be colleagues who would have the luxury of time, those who don’t have to take occasional breaks from work in order to take care of their sick children. While effort doesn’t always translate to productivity, it can lead to a significant difference over time.

It makes me wonder about this. Choosing to have a family life is a purely individual choice, but does it necessarily mean that those who do will inevitably have their career trajectories severely affected? Are they doomed to mediocre careers because they just can’t devote themselves wholly to their disciplines anymore? Like it or not, when you become a parent, your priorities shift drastically. It’s just the way it is.

On the other hand, does having a career condemn you to become a less effective and caring parent to your child? Are you doomed to have your child say to you one day, "You just weren’t there for me"?  Ouch.

Life becomes akin to walking on a tightrope, where a slight perturbation can cause you to dangerously keel over to the other side. Now that’s something you don’t learn in school.

Let’s say you own a house in the Philippines. Just your average house in an average middle-class subdivision in Cavite, say. It’s not the best-looking house in the block, but heck, it’s proudly yours and you have spent quite a fortune having it built.

Unfortunately, you are still abroad and couldn’t quite yet decide on whether to live there permanently or not. You don’t like the idea of having it rented, because you want it ready for you each time you go back for short visits. The concept of having other people live there is just…ghastly. You want the place all for your own.

So for the moment it’s just sitting there, unoccupied. And because the subdivision has tall perimeter walls and gates guarded 24/7 by security guards, you sort of feel assured that nothing will happen to the house.

One day, your caretaker informs you that there has been a forced entry into your house. How would you feel?

Continue reading Burglary! →

As they say, sometimes it is necessary for us to get out of our comfort zone in order to grow. Sometimes, in order to grow professionally and personally, we have to go to a totally new environment and learn about new things.

Everyone needs training. There is always room for growth and improvement. And I think that women, especially, should always take advantage of opportunities that would enable them to grow. For a woman, the choice is always a difficult one to make, because there is a delicate balance between career and family. Going outside for training is definitely bound to perturb that delicate balance.

Having said that, I would like to officially announce that I will soon be embarking on a new adventure in my professional/personal life – out of Tsukuba, out of Japan. Heck, even out of Asia. Into the Queen’s territories!

Continue reading Time to Fly →