game face on

first quarter of my existence is slowly slipping past and what have i been up to all these years? let me see. i partition man's life into quarters. mine is ninety, i don't expect man to live over ninety, i just dont. so i take my entire ninety years of existence, divide it into three, refer to it as quarters--like in basketball--and figure out what to do with it. so it's three thirties all in all and the first quarter is almost up. i could almost hear the whistle blowing. life has no timeouts and i'm doing the analysis before the quarter ends--how am i doing, how good have i played the game, or how bad. jeez, never thought i'd be this bad a coach to myself. i'm fine alright, no ugly injuries so far, superb defense all through out. could've been a perfect game you know, except the defense. it has been pure defense all along and ironically almost nil in the offense department. i played safe, a little bit too safe to start an early lead in life. defense wins championships, or so they say, but one also needs to take his shots to light up the scoreboard. what good a tough defense is if the score is static. not to mention the possibility that the opponent could always hit a lucky shot.so its the offense then that's lacking. no wonder i'm stuck in this same ground. i've made myself too comfortable by taking advantage of the very court i've grown too familiar with. too much familiarity begets complacency. i've been fighting my battles in the same court using the same plays, the same smarts, the same defense which landed me right where i am now. little have i realized how small the playing ground have become and that i've been stuck in this same place for quite long already. no more growth, no more movement. now it's time to change strategy, need to do it soon to beat the buzzer. i've to work on my offense, develop it even more, put my gameface on, be bold, be agressive. it's just time to leave the familiar court behind and start to rattle cages that are bigger, better, and more competetive, if not cutthroat. starting all over again will never be easy, that's given, a gamble i need to take. but who knows, i might just hit my own lucky shot and start from there.

all for nothing

two hours of loud, animated, if not empty, discussion and explanation about careering and career path practically started out and ended in, well, silence. silence filled with meaningful, understood glances and gestures from disappointed employees. i, personally, have grown tired taking pride in my work and the company i'm working for. appreciation is good, giving out well-deserved recognitions. it sure keeps the motivation and the drive going. but drives and motivations could only do so much for a company, especially the people. without any hint of hypocrasy, just reality speaking in and of itself, what ultimately keeps people motivated to strive hard and continue showing excellence in his work is, you got it right, money. pride, recognition, lateral movements, learning of new skills are all good, nothing wrong with it, recognize people all you want, but at the end of the day, all of these become worthless, especially when the bills start pouring in. i wish i could fully understand what the management was trying to send across, some of it did make sense, but the thing is, many would simply prefer salary increase across the board over warm and, unfortunately, empty recognitions. it sure strokes the ego, but damn no good relieving an empty stomach.

so what's in it for me again?

interesting how after three and a half years of stay in the company i finally get to learn my career path. pretty late for something that should've been presented during orientation. had the PAL incident inspired this initiative? i mean, if i'm the boss, i'd let the workforce realize how secure their positions are in the company and the number of opportunities in store for them, real or imagined. opportunities. that's what comes to mind when i hear career paths. should i be expecting opportunities then? will find out tomorrow.