Change the Way You See Happiness

I turn 27 today. But before last year, I can only count the times when I considered myself genuinely happy. Maybe because I used to see life as a competition where I need to emerge as the winner, the fastest or the best. I believed I had much to prove. I wanted to make everyone proud including myself. Probably I was just wired that way. Or it’s insecurity. That constant need to validate myself. Whatever the reason, it took a lot of tears and disappointment before I changed the way I see happiness. True happiness.

For most people, success brings happiness. To have a successful career, specifically was my goal after graduating college. But the real world hit me really hard years after getting my first job. I won’t go into specifics but sometimes, even if you think you’ve done everything correctly and that you are in control, everything can still go opposite of what you’ve expected. To sum it up quickly, I didn’t get promoted and it affected me in ways I never knew. I got depressed. I cried every day and every night and turned as bitter as a kulubot na ampalaya.

It should have been me. I was hurting and I knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I just had to accept the reality and move on.

Moving on and choosing happiness wasn’t easy. I prayed a lot. The Serenity Prayer helped calm my emotions. I enrolled in different classes and workshops to distract myself. Acting. Sketching. Singing. I also joined company activities, charity events. You name it. Kulang na lang basketball clinic. I figured if I was good and preoccupied with other stuff, I won’t feel as worse. Traveling also helped. Traveling changes you and your perspectives. Being in a foreign land makes your problems seem smaller vs. the world. I made happiness a choice (even if it’s VERY hard). Siyang tunay, I did feel better but these were just temporary distractions because at the end of each day, I’d still go back to square one and start all over again.

This was my cycle for quite some time but indeed, time healed all wounds. It may seem simple and funny but I stopped crying after watching Frozen.The lyrics of “Let It Go” spoke to me. The past is in the past! As much as I related to Elsa’s character journey, I also really envied Anna. I envied her because I used to be like her. Cheerful, carefree, always positive and smiling. I remembered the old me and realized how much I’ve changed. And I decided that’s got to change.

I thought that my own happiness depended on how others viewed me, what I achieved, all the FB likes in the world and other forms of external validation. That I needed to be promoted, go to Disneyland or paint a very realistic self-portrait. Achieving happiness doesn’t need to be that hard. I shouldn’t equate my life goals to being happy. I shouldn’t have minimum criteria just to smile and be at peace. I learned how to take life as what it was, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The important thing is to let go of the things you can’t control. Your cellphone got snatched? Didn’t get a promotion? Scratched your brand new car? Breathe. React (who wouldn’t?). Let go. Being happy is keeping a positive attitude even in the most difficult times. I learned to be kind to myself and avoid dwelling too much on what have gone wrong when there is a bigger picture to be celebrated. To let go of people, expectations, memories and could be’s. I learned how to just live and keep on moving. For me, this is happiness.

Change The Way You See Photography with Huawei P9

Like how I’ve changed the way I see happiness, Huawei P9 is changing the way we see photography. Using just your smartphone, you can shoot beautiful professional-looking photos everytime with the Huawei P9. Huawei and Leica collaborate to create a stunning dual-lens camera in a smartphone. The camera has two sensors, one RGB and one monochrome. With these lens, the Huawei P9 captures incredible shots that combines the colors taken by the RGB sensor with the detail of the monochrome sensor. This means you get sharper, more detailed photos, with deeper and more vivid colors than ever. It also allows you to shoot better pictures in low light with the 1.25µm pixel size of the dual 12-megapixel cameras. More light and better clarity, for amazing photos and videos, even at night.

Change the way you see with the Huawei P9! Know more about Huawei and the Huawei P9 phone on Huawei’s official website. This is my entry to Nuffnang and Huawei‘s #ChangeTheWayYouSee Blog Contest.