Stop! But Don't Give Up
Life is like a running marathon. An endless marathon that some of us just choose to take it slow, a walkathon perhaps? I don't even know if the word walkathon exist. Maybe, yes. Or maybe it is just an informal name invented by someone. Knowing our modern world, there are many words that were created but were never acknowledge in any dictionaries.
Setting aside, let's tackle down my title, "Stop but don't give up". A little complicated phrase. But isn't giving up is already a synonym of stop? Literally yes it is. But understanding deeper, I only wanted to say is that, you can stop for a while before you continue. Stop and rest, gather your strength up, then go on.
Life is tiresome that we also need to take a rest for while and regain our lost power. Just like any electronic gadgets that we are using. We also need to power up our drained energy. So, stop but don't give up.
If we are too exhausted from dealing life's crisis, it is okay to stop, lie down, and rest. Cry, laugh, ask. Cry to release your emotional baggage. Laugh off your clumsiness, there's no point on crying over your wasted time. Ask for help when you know you need to. Set aside the pride that most of us have and stoping us from grabbing a helping hand.
When you sense that you are almost drained but you still can not figure your way out, just stop and let it rest. But don't give it up. Just put it aside for a meantime and start to do things that you know would help you regain your will and motivation. Don't let your self stuck on that situation where you know you won't be able to figure how to finish it soon. Instead think of something new or work out on another thing that you needed to solve too.
Life is like a box of countless puzzle sets. If we can not solve the current puzzle, get another one and solve it first. It is because sometimes when our mind is too busy solving the next problem, a possible solution to the former one that we set aside will just pop out. Who knows it might work on you. So stop but don't give up.
When life is too cruel to us, we most likely just stop and give up, true right? But if we stop and just give it up how can we continue to our next step? Sure does that when reaching our goal, we should take every step right, no matter how difficult it is. Because having our goals succeed is not easy as enumerating the alphabet. Everything has a step to follow. So, when you stop and give up you won't be able to take your next step. Thus when you stop but don't give you still have a chance to make your next step.
We have all the chances in life, it is just that making a decision for the next step is too hard. But if we really look at it, it isn't that hard to decide. What's making it hard is the consequences and possibilities that lies ahead if we stop. But what's to fear to stop if we knew that we won't give up? It is just that we stop for a while and rest. Life isn't a race. There is no rule that you can not stop midway and rest. Take your time, find some time to rest before you continue your battle on your life journey. Stop but don't give up.
Will you choose to stop and just give up? Or will you stop to rest and continue once you power up your courage and motivation?
Life is our lifelong adventure that we need to wander. Sure does for most of us life is not easy. But we always have an unlimited choices and options. It is up to us to choose wether we give up or not.
But if we really give up, how will we answer our what ifs? How will we able to handle our regrets. Regrets is one of the consequences that comes after giving up. Followed by what ifs and I wish I just; i wish had; I wish did this and that. These thoughts are just some of thousand possibilities that we may think if we lost our courage and just stop and give up.
So, whatever life may lead you, stop and rest when you are drained and exhausted. Gather your strength, power up yourself, and charge ahead. Life may be tough but it is our greatest teacher of all. It gives us multiple experience and unforgettable lessons.
Don't just give up on yourself and on your dreams. You can stop, but don't give up.
To all who read, like, upvoted, and tipped my article, THANK YOU very much for spending some time at my article. God bless and have a good days ahead.
TRUST: Fragile, Handle With Care
Why trust is important in our lives? Why do we need to take care of this word? What is trust anyway?
Trust is a word that contradicts to the word betrayal. But often times trust is always accompanied by betrayal. Just like in any kind of relationship, trust is one of the basic foundation of it. When trust is ruined, everything breaks and collapse. Trust is as fragile as a glass. Once shattered it is imposible to put back together.
Have you ever trust someone so deep that it tears you up after it was broken? Have you thought of trusting again after falling apart? Is trust as important as love?
Most of us trust too easily and ends up broken. But broken once isn't enough for us to learn our lessons. We always believe in second chances. As a result, we are shattered into tiny pieces more than once, more than twice, and so on. Why? Simple reason, we give our trust way too easy.
We trust again and again without trying to gather and build up ourselves first. Trust is one of those simple and short words but too fragile to handle. This four letter word is more sensitive than the word love. Because love is somewhat patient and stronger.
Love can stand a strong backlash from its own storm. It can survive many life calamity as long as its foundation is as hard as a stone. But trust? Once cracked, it will definitely shattered when hit on the second strike. Unlike love, that can take as many strike as it wants. As they say, we tend to do everything in the name of love.
BEING BROKEN
What do we usually do when someone ruined our trust? Certainly it is hard to build it up again. But will we able to fully trust someone who broke us once?
I've been broken for countless times by different person. The last one really hit me hard. For three times I tried to trust him again but I just can't build it up. I am too scared to try again. Though its been years I admit I still cares for him. He is happy now, anyway.
It took me eight years to let go. Eight years to forgive. But I can not forget the feelings. Do I really can't forget? Or it is just the memories that I can not just leave behind? Nevertheless I wish him happiness. One thing that I am sure of, I will never trust my love to someone again.
In life we only have to options. It is always to choose what is right and what is wrong, the left and the right, to do or not to do. It takes a lot of courage for some of us to trust again even when in doubt and scared to hurt again. Some will just follow their instinct to trust someone.
Being stuck in the situation cause by a broken trust is ones choice. It is always up to ourselves if we live within the pain left by the broken trust. Or we should let go, forgive, forget, and move on. Sure does moving on is not easy as counting from one to three. Forgiving is can't be given immediately. And last but not the least, we can not forget pain as fast as the lightning struck.
HOW TO TRUST AGAIN
How to trust again? Surely I do not know how. Why? Simple, being broken by trust for five to six times, I developed some trust issues. This trust issues is on romantic relationships. Sure does, trust is the one of the foundation of a strong relationship. But once it is ruined, even if love still exist, everything is already broken.
It is hard to love someone you do not trust. It is hard to build up something that was shattered into tiny bits. The relationship is not worth fighting for when one of its foundation turned into dust. Love and loyalty alone can not maintain a healthy relationship.
We can not take back what we already give away, isn't it? And it is hard to gather up again something that we threw mindlessly. Trust is hard as a rock when taken care properly, but it will be as tiny as a dust particle when it is handled carelessly. That is why when someone is trusting us we should handle it with care, because it is **fragile.**
Will still dare to trust again, even if it broke you countless of times?
What's on My Mind?
I had been thinking on what write since yesterday then I remembered this prose I wrote two years ago. It is written for my weekly activity at El Escritor's Esfera writing group. (No worries before I post this article I made sure that I deleted this prose on Facebook.)
The prompt or mechanic of this weekly activity was to write what's on your mind unconsciously. Just let your train of thoughts dictate your hand on what to write. So the prose below, I will not edit it. I'll leave it as is on how I posted it last two thousand nineteen.
Before anything, please forgive me for some typos you will find in the story. Like I wrote ***right*** instead of ***write***. As I have mentioned I will not edit the content and sentence construction of the prose.
**The prose/ Flash fiction**
I grimace as I scroll down my Facebook feds. Boredom strikes as I am killing the time off. I am about to exit my FB account, when a random post from my virtual friend got my attention.
"Hm, sounds interesting," I told myself.
The post says…
"Who am I?
Who I am as a being?
What do you think is the nature of everything?
What are the things I like and what I don't?
Why love is prerequisite and catalyst of every relationship? Be it as a human being or a nature being."
Will, who am I? I am what I am. I am what people sees me and how they judge me. Because I am as what the saying goes, "My attitude depends on how you treat me." Yeah, that is me.
Me as a being? Hm, I believe I am a nature loving being. I see all living things have an important role in this world. Does may answer is making any sense? I guess, yes? Not sure. But thisnis just my opinion and my answer according to what I understand from the questions given.
I know this is just a post. But there is nothing wrong trying to answer this. And moreover, no one will ever know my answer, because I am keeping this to myself alone. So, nevermind.
What's next?
"What are the nature of everything?" I read out loud.
"Does everything has a nature?" I asked myself.
Oh well, I think everything has its own nature. But how will I know it? Maybe because everything is not permanent, but it has its origin and own characteristics or feature. Just like a each person has its own personality and is deffirent from anothwr person. Yeah, that's it. Maybe? Oh, nevermind! No one will know my answers anyway.
"Oh, this next question is a piece of cake." I smile and start to think the things that I like and dislikes.
"I like silence. I like black and white colors. I like to be optimistic and look at tge bright side of life. While, I don't like to negative, it will juat drag me down to the deepest and darkest part of me. And eventually will drown me amidst of my dark emotions. That is why I avoid negativities," I unconsciously voiced out my thougths.
"Next!" I excitedly whisper as I reread the next question. Boredom is slowly leaving me.
"Why love is prerequisite and catalyst of every relationship? Be it as a human being or a nature being."
"What was that?" I ask myself frowning. It took me more than five minutes to think before I vould finaly give a reasonable answer for the last question.
"Because love is the foundation of almost everything. You see, Gem…" And now I am literally talking to myself. Good thing that I am inside my room and no one will hear me at one in the morning.
"What?" I ask back myself.
"You see if we do things with compassion and love, we do it smiling and willingly, everything we does is as light as a cotton. While if we do it against our will, everything wieghs as heavy as tons of rice. Love for us is a natural emotions we feel in everything we do. This our nature as being."
I close my notebook smiling and turn off the light after I reread what I have written in it. I realize on thing, this random post is just test on how far do I know myself and how I understand life and its being.
Time to sleep.
But really, I don't know if any of my answer is making any sense.
Oh well! Nevermind, because this is how chaotic my mind is.
**What I thought after rereading this.**
Well, honestly English is not really my medium. Mostly or most of the time I use Filipino language as a medium in writing. And looking on how I write years ago, I can say that I have a little improvement. But that's not what I am trying to pertain now. Its just that, just like what I came up with the tittle, I just want to share what's going in my mind.
I also smiled when I once again read what my fellow writers feed back on this piece. I felt like a teenager greeted by my secret crush.
Kidding aside, what do you usually thought whenever you saw this, "***What's on your mind?"*** phrase from Facebook?
Have you ever did the same as the character in the flash fiction story did? Have you ever tried to answer random questions you saw on social media? What's on your mind after reading this?
Thank you for reading my article and prose.
God bless and stay safe!
Letting Go is Hard, but I have to
Have you ever experienced of letting go something important to you? Have you ever let go something part of you? Does the word goodbye slips out of your tongue so easy? Which is more difficult to do? Let go? Or saying goodbye?
For me both words are painful and too much to bear. I am an emotional person. Everyone that I came to cross path with are my treasures. I am an introvert, well sort of. I don't mingle with the crowd. I'd rather set on the side while reading books or doing weird stuff or talking to plants. Talking to plants is one way of relieving my stress. That is why every person I met were like a gem that should be treasured.
So this thought crossed my mind. One of my former colleague at a writing group that was used to be active posted on his timeline tagging me and other friends. Checking if how were we. Then I realized I did not posted any long message for the group ever since we shut it down.
I did not because...
Shutting down the group that was been my home since two thousand eighteen was too painful for me. I cried knowing that we were not able to save our kingdom, our writer's den. We never did bring it back to its glory.
Saying goodbye to the group itself was hard. It feels like the word itself is too hard to throw up. I have a deep attachment to the group. It was a part of my writing journey. No more weekly activities that has a big contribution to my improvement. No more mind blowing war games that helps us to be more creative in writing.
Letting go of the the den that helped me a lot in my writing path was too difficult to accept. It is where I learnt how to write on the spot one hundred word flash fictions. It the group where I take writing more seriously and formally. It is the place that helped me wonder around writing world. It is where I explore new things I did not dared to try. So closing it down is more painful than knowing that my ex-boyfriend cheated when were still together.
The group was called El Escritor's Esfera, it means The Writer's Den, or Kanlungan ng mga Manunulat in Filipino. The group aims to help every writers to improve their writing.
EEE is different from any writing group I joined. Some said that the group was too strict. Hmm, for me no. They might said these because using emojis, stickers, emoticons, and smileys were prohibited inside the group. Wether in group chats or in posting. For this rules, they were okay for. I don't see anything wrong with it. Because the group was promoting proper writing without using jeje words. Moreover I believe that every group has its own rule.
After the first year anniversary of the group the old admins begun to quit. They trusted the EEE on us. We were able to keep the group stable but not too long. The system does not work like how it used to be. When the system won't work everything collapse.
Moreover the foundation that was trusted to us was already unstable. We failed to build a new strong foundation. Problems after problems occured inside. Until we decided to call it quits.
It was a tough decision. It was never an easy action to made but we have to. We knew that letting go was the best option. Because eve us were already falling. We, the system failed to do our responsibility. On the long run we, ourselves were also falling apart inside. We decided to let go and bid goodbye to our den and started pick up ourselves again.
Who knows maybe someday, our kingdom of El Ecritor's Esfera will open again. Maybe? When that time comes, I sure will come back not as a Knight (moderator), not as a Royal (admin) but as an Esfellian/Villien (member).
I am Gem Villa a proud ex-member of El Escritor's Esfera.
I hope you enjoyed this piece.
Thank you for reading my first article.
WRITING: How did My Stress Reliever Turned into My Source of Stress?
I am new here. And this idea came up to my mind while thinking what would I write for Red Cash.
As an OFW, being away from home is lonesome. I often felt sadness and emptiness. Especially that I did not got a chance to witness how my son grew up. I wasn't around anymore as soon as he reached one year old. I am a single parent so I had to work hard for him.
Leaving my family behind, especially my son is too much for me to bear. Depression and anxiety started to eat me. Though I am not clinically diagnosed with this two. This is just how I named what I felt sometimes, well most of the time.
It is known to all Overseas Filipino Workers that social media platforms plays big role on coping sadness and homesickness. Spending some time on Facebook during my free time, I discovered this FB page. It posted some fictional stories, free to read for all. This was when I met new friends online.
We together spent some time on that page just to read and followed fictional stories that caught our interests. We were fond of tagging each other on a new stories that the page releases. As time passed by we were able to create a new page and started to wrote our own stories to tell.
Our fellow readers from that page started to read our works too. I was overjoyed. Somehow I got to share the fruit of my wild imagination. I am able to inspire others thru my works. At the same time I found a way to divert my attention whenever homesickness attacked me.
We manage to attract more and more readers. And for over the time I started to explore the writing world. I mean I decided to go out of my comfort zone and tried new things. I tried to join writing contests.
I thought I was good enough to join. I never knew that participating in such online activities had me change eventually. Well for a start I won fifth place on the very first WriCon I entered. From then on I joined many other contests and always landed on the fifth place.
But for a change, I won fourth place on the last writing contest I participated. And as a part of the prize, my piece was included on an anthology book.
But from the beginning my purpose of joining was to improve my writing. One way to improve is through critiques given by judges. Then I realized that writing with a good content is not enough. I also need to watch out for technicalities, which is my weakness. I learnt that technicalities had a huge percentage on scoring. So I must learn how to write properly. Knowing that I did not had any writing experience, not even when I was at school.
Thinking about this, I begun to study and joined writing groups that help newbie writers. These groups helped me grew and improved as a writer. But I realized that I slowly lost my interests in writing. Before I knew it, it seems like it was too late to save me. Daily activities and weekly assignments gave me a lot of pressure. It made me frustrated and anxious. My stress increased and my interest declined.
I came to a point were I literally shed my tears because I can no longer write what I wanted. I felt like I broke my wings. I became frustrated. I can no longer wrote like before, whereas I bleed thousands of word in just short time. But now my pen won't bleed an ink. Compared to when I was just starting my writing journey, currently I can only keep on staring blankly on may notepad for ten minutes or so. Unlike before, it took me days or weeks to complete a one thousand words one shot story at the moment.
Not just like before that I can finish a twenty thousand words stories within a month. Two different stories to be exact. Presently, I barely finish a two thousand words chapter in one month. My on going stories had been unfinished for almost two years now. I wanted to go back from where I begun. But it seems that going back is not an option.
I did not even know when and where did this started. I just really came to realization that I am no longer me as before. Writing does not excite me anymore like I used to felt. It became stressful to write. I questioned myself over and over again. "Did I regret swimming through the deep and wide ocean of words?”
And I keep on answering the same. "Nah! I never regret wondering around the vast ocean of writing like a helpless mosquito. Writing might worn me out, but I learnt a lot of things. I got to met new individual that has huge impact on my writing journey. I've found an online homes while wondering on this field."
Its just that it is a shame that I don't know how to come back. I don't know how to shake of this fear. The fear of being criticized again, after some one called my poem a trash. A poem that I wrote that has no rhyme at the end of each lines. Its funny that I always accept all the critiques that everyone gives to my piece. But calling my work a trash by someone who's not even a writer or a writing mentor is just too much to bear.
@Gemvilla
