Goodbye Indefinitely, Advertising.

I packed a small box which contained my Star Wars figurines, a few pens, a small overly inked calendar, a burned DVD containing all the songs I had leeched from officemates, and a notebook containing doodles and notes from meetings that have come and gone. This was my Advertising career, summarized in one small box.

I looked around the place I called familiar for the last year and a half. To the people that were there, this day was no different from the last to the next couple of days – this is work. Though to me, that night, that was the signal of the end of me being something that was so clear cut. That was the night I stopped following the path that was supposedly mine ever since University.

I looked at the busy faces, heard the hurried steps, felt the urgent typing, and I drank it all in for one last time. I will miss this, I will miss them.

For the duration of my short career, I have always been grateful to have had mentors who taught me how to not only be an Account Executive, but taught me the value of organization, patience, enjoying the little things (like taking a break and eating a piece of chocolate), understanding, and breathing the bad juju away – traits I admittedly lacked coming into the world of Advertising.

I have grown a lot in this world, despite the time I punched in – it was something I enjoyed doing but I also knew that there was something I needed and wanted to do. I needed to walk the Earth and choose the road that was scary and unsure while I still had the chance – where it wasn’t so scary to get scars from leaping into the unknown.

I needed to grow in a new world and find what it means to live outside of a cubicle, answering e-mails, phone calls, and text messages all day. I sat in my chair for one last time, as if trying to convince myself that this is where I belonged and if I had done the right thing, but I knew my feet wanted to go and explore unfamiliar territory. That it was in that moment where everything was so clear and scary at the same time.

I knew that the moment I walked out of those doors, I was walking into a life that didn’t have a steady paycheck, stability, or even health care. But I was excited for the uncertainty because I was exploring and living this life for me now. That for the first time, in a long time, I was fully accountable for keeping myself alive.

As I sat up, I felt like I was leaving a part of me in that chair, in that office. But I was sure that I was leaving a piece of me in every person I loved in those four walls. I felt like crying but the tears wouldn’t come because I knew, even though I wouldn’t see them as often as I wanted, I’d still see them again because the Universe has a very funny way of colliding people to each other, especially when they mean a lot to you.

I hugged all of them. They were selfishly mine for a few seconds before we let go and wished each other the best of luck.

To my mentors and friends, thank you. I miss you all every day, but you are all in my thoughts and you all somehow manifest in how I do work and I will always be grateful for that.

I have been walking this new path for a little over a month now, and it still remains to be scary and unpredictable – yet very refreshing and I have learned a lot about myself and the way life works in just this small amount of time. The road has been hard, and it will get harder, I know this – but I take this route with a bag full of optimism and love.

Sometimes, in order to understand the rain – we must go out willingly without an umbrella; open our hands to the sky and close our eyes. We must experience the world we live in for ourselves, but we must have the courage to accept the consequences of our decisions.

So with this, I bid farewell, indefinitely, to the world of Advertising.

Thank you for all the opportunities and the people I’ve had the privilege of colliding with. Especially the people.

This Time, Be Braver.

Whatever course you decide upon,

there is always someone to tell you

that you are wrong. There are always

difficulties arising which tempt you to

believe that your critics are right. To

map out a course of action and follow

it to an end requires courage.

– R.W. Emerson

I’ve always said that life was made for living & that living was made for the brave, but there is always that point in our lives where we stand at a crossroads between fight or flight. You stand there, staring at these two options, trying to put two and two together and praying to a god you weren’t sure you believed in five minutes ago, so that he would lead you to choose the correct path.

Most of the time, when faced with a seemingly life-altering decision, we tend to weigh things. Though being humans, we have evolved in our decision-making patterns: we are now making decisions as consumers, as Advertising-fed money devotees, as instant gratification whores, as egoistic sharks and we have seemingly lost our ability to act on instinct, instead we just measure. Measure the amount of money and glory. Measure the amount of praise and sex. Measure the stability and the safety. We have completely disregarded our instinct, the one thing in our system that connects us to create magic with the Universe, we have been weighed and measured and we have consistently chosen the path of safety.

Yes, I understand the allure of being safe. I understand the feeling of needing to know routine. I understand wanting to have a plan, an itinerary. I understand craving for security.

I understand it because I am in it. I am in a safe environment. I am consistently in a routine. I am making plans and itineraries everyday. I am in a secure job. Meaning to say, I have chosen the path of flight.

Flying away from every dream, every adventure, every single thing that makes the blood in my veins skip and feel excited about. This is wrong. This is not a life to be proud of.

So as I sit here, in this suffocating cubicle, breathing in circulated air and dirt, I look outside into the concrete jungle and think of the path I have chosen. I think about every responsibility I have. Every obligation I have to stay at this routine. Every reason I tell myself why I need to be in this box. Every day I think about this and every day I convince myself that this is a path I have to live with.

But my instinct, my gut, the holder of this magic – tells me that it’s not too late. That this path I’ve chosen to walk on, I can always choose to walk on the grass and run towards the long and winding road of the unknown.

I can feel my life is about to change as I look up towards the sky and see the blue skies and the birds flying out to where their instinct tells them to go.

This time, I’ll be braver and may you be braver as we leap into the magic of adventure. It’s never too late for anything.