Luck=Happiness=You

“People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon I, and sometimes travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings… (continued at the end of entry..) …”

I am so afraid to write about it because I might jinx things. Ah, but my mind is swimming with a lot of things and I just NEED to write about something. (With that sentence, I feel a gentle kick in my tummy. Okay, baby, you write this with me )

How does praying work? We have been so blessed lately that I am afraid that everything will go downhill from here. I feel like my blessings have reached a “quota” already, and God might say, “Oooops, tama na!” Hehe. But I am soooo thankful for a lot of things right now that my corkboard here at home has a sign that says, THANK YOU.

Reminding myself to thank God for the blessings
( -- along with the reminders to print the photos and a postcard about
a super nice stroller which costs PHP55,000 (!!!))

I’ve always believed in “visioning” and when I look back, I see that the most significant moments of my life (positive, of course) are almost always results of a childhood dream, a high school essay, or a college hope. I still have a lot of these “hopes and dreams” and may the universe will not stop conspiring to bring me these (hah, that’s not original..) I just need to remember that God has a wider timeline than my attention span.

My contract with my current job ends on June 30 – but I have already consumed the 150-day per fiscal year cap, so technically, I cannot go to work anymore. Any work I do beyond the 150 days is considered pro-bono :oP which unfortunately, I am doing a lot of. They cannot award me with another contract ‘til July 1st, but they are currently doing that as fast as they can because there’s a really important meeting in Beijing (yes!!!) that they want me to be a part of. (Mommy Note: Of course, I will first get OB clearance!)

Also, I am very excited because my papers are now being processed so I can be a “term employee”. Now, that may sound a lot like temporary, but our donor-driven organization does not “regularize”. So they just award 1 year contracts which can be renewed each year. This is totally fine because these contracts carry a lot of nice perks such as tax free incentives and medical/ travel/ life insurance for you and your dependents. It has been a while since I had company perks!

Baby, are you making mommy lucky?

I like it how my bosses are very honest with me, i.e saying. “I would like to thank you, because we know that we are definitely getting more than what we are paying for” (:Blush:). Another boss in our office also told me that my boss fought hard for the post. Anyway, I am happy, yes – but I am also nervous because I know that getting this post means more expectations and more responsibilities. I am also being encouraged to look beyond our little project and to study all the other areas of the organization so I can handle other stuff in the future. As our "biggest boss" told me during our one on one interview, "If we hire you, we would like to keep you forever. Your project is just a very small part of the whole thing, so you better check out the whole pie." (Yep, even if I already worked for them for more than a year, I still had to go through the application process.)

I say, bring it on. I’ll enjoy it while it’s not yet overwhelming. When things start going downhill (and I start complaining), I’ll look back to this day and (I hope) remember, remember – that this was something I asked for!

“ …. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward to that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress, but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments…”

- Text in blue from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love