Meg Interrupted

The plan...
It was a lifelong plan - to be successful - to go beyond everyone's expectations. The best daughter, sister, classmate, friend, employee and hopefully director anyone's ever seen. '

If I was a machine, I was in my prime.

I still am.

I am 26 years old. I am well-versed in all sorts of BPO's - small scale to large scale industries. I am experienced in negotiations for accounts that need help. I was an implementations personnel for the longest time - implementing accounts and campaigns, designing modules and facilitators' guides, doing TNA's and ROI evaluations, even reviewing eLearning modules. I reviewed employees' performance and based on Excel sheets, I can say who stays or goes. I can command trainers and operations managers and had my brushes with bigwigs of companies. I was pretty powerful.

Now, I am someone who stays on the phones to teach English. How anti-climactic.

I am tried and tested in the rules of the game. I know that to proceed to the next level, I need to show how much I want it. I need to show hunger, drive, passion - the unquenchable need to progress.

Am I really that power hungry?

Actually, now that I have been thinking about it, probably not.

I consider my life to be pretty valuable to be wasted on a position that will probably destroy my hopes of becoming my own person. I don't want to follow someone's footsteps anymore. For me, at this point in my life if I can stay as stress-free as possible and get paid well enough, then that's pretty good for me. I don't need a shiny rectangular name plate on my desk saying "VP for Training". I think I've done good enough for myself here. There isn't much hunger now. There isn't much need for power.

People assume that it's because I'm about to get married and that I am probably throwing in the white towel and not finding a job befitting someone of my stature. Although this is shameless self-promotion, I'm not sorry to say that yes, I am better than where I am now. And yes, I have done better, but now, it seems trivial. I am sorry that I can't make more money but being able to go home as I please? It's pretty priceless. To be bored at wit's end just because of lack of things to do? Also priceless. To be rewarded with an occasional thank you from a student who learned a new word today, priceless!

I'm no housewife. I will not be a housewife. I know I need to grow as a person. But I simply choose not to make work as a lifelong passion. I think all I breathed, ate and slept was work then that now, I'm pretty fed up and I'm just enjoying what I have.

When I was younger, in my junior year in the university, a guy named PiWi Aragon, and he offered the whole class a peep into their past lives. Do you believe in that? I never did because I firmly believed in Karma. Professor Aragon gave me a run for my money when he told me something...

He said that I was an Brit who was given a chance to be in Asia by the British Empire in my past life and in every life I lived, I only chose power, intelligence, authority over true happiness. And that I had a chance to change it. That this life was given for me to fight for true bliss and I wasn't going to roam this earth alone...

I didn't understand what that meant.

My childhood friend Mary always comments on how sad my eyes are. She always says there's something hidden there. Like a sadness I was born with. I didn't understand what that meant. I had no idea because I wasn't sad. I wasn't crying right?

Onwards to college... I always viewed crying as a sign of complete and utter lack of self-control. I didn't see it to be in favor of me or in favor of anything that I stood for.

Emotions were futile, unless it was anger or pain. If you're not in anguish, shut your trap and just suck it up.

Until Siege, a former colleague told me that I always get what I want. Jeoff even mentioned that I was too serious about work. And suddenly, it hit me. Sir PiWi was right. Seems like I was falling into the same thing, following the same steps. Maybe because it all came to me so naturally. I wanted to excel at something, to prove myself, to be the very best at what I did such that no one has the right to point a finger. I had to be the smartest, most loyal and most amazing at what I did. I hated it when people pointed out mistakes so I did it such that I had no mistakes. I was far from perfect, but I knew I was getting there.

I stopped.

Did I find perfect happiness? Not really. I would never be completely happy. I understand that. I don't deny that, nor do I claim that I will never be. But for the first time in my life, I think I know what it feels like to belong to something or someone.