Pursuit of Happiness

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A blog entry inspired by the song of LeeSsang of the same title.

It's amazing how time can clear your perspective.

When I was a kid, I looked at the world and know I can be anything in it. I wanted to be a TV journalist at some point. Then, I wanted to be a Hollywood writer. Then, I wanted to become a natural scientist.

Then I had to go to high school and high school is the one place that could bring you so much misery. It was torture and totally inconvenient.



Click here to read about how I quit my high paying career in my 30s. 

Then college came. First job. Second job.... and before I know it. I was in a high paying job I totally didn't like.

I had a house, a car, I was traveling but I was doing something I intentionally avoided for years. Before I know it, I was closer to the benefits of fulfilling my dreams but farther from my dreams.

Before I know it, I had so much failures that I often get lost in the lessons I was supposed to learn from it. Before I know it, people I counted on left me and I left and betrayed people that counted on me. Before I know it, I lost people I loved without even knowing they already left. Before I know it, my youth is behind me. Before I know it, I ended up in a place I never even thought I'd reach.

Before I know it, life took over. Things happened and even before I realized what was happening, it already passed.

I found myself battling the 6PM traffic and I realized that I had been doing it for more than a decade.

Worse, I couldn't even remember when I let go of the dream. When did I surrender to the sickening grasp of advertising culture.

Everyday, we rant about the impossible demands of the client for a discount on their media buys, a marketing strategy with a breakthrough insight to strengthen their brand, to make last minute changes in the TV boards that will be shot the next day, to further enlarge their logo. We rave on the excitement of whether or not the Final Artwork will make the publication masked with our perpetual irritation over the stupidity or superiority complex of the clients. We go home late, cancel personal appointment and put bosses and clients on speed dial.

But for what? So an ad can come out? So an well lit, well-designed piece of corporate material can come out? Ad material? This has become my craft?

When did my dream of nurturing art go? When did my dream of traveling the world go? When did my dream of living among a secluded community to help them get better education go? When did my dream of doing actual things that matter go?

Life happened, I guess.


Is happiness a choice? Read about it.

I pursued things that I thought will make me happy, a stable career, money and more money.

But the thing is that you will never win when it's money you are after because you will never have enough of it. In the end, you will realize that what matters, actually, is happiness. And that's what you need to pursue... not money, not career but happiness.

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