It’s been a roller coaster ride from childishness to maturity and fatherhood. I’ve had good successes and disappointing failures. Many of these have affected acquaintances, friends and family. Life is such that you fall down, get up and continue where you left off. Regardless of the gains and pitfalls, life is still good – and I am luckier than many in the world who have a lot less and suffer more.

I love technology, having started my work interests in the field of computers when display monitors was a roll of paper, the keyboard looked and felt like a typewriter, and saving your files meant punching holes on a long roll of paper. Today, we have the means to telecommute and sit in coffee shops while we surf the world wide web. That’s the span of my experience and love of technology.

I enjoyed the challenges and education of the workplace, and the constant movements between organizational people who muster strategies and instructions on what best to do to achieve the ideal profit. I love collaboration and coordination, managing projects, creating new and better ways to do things, daydreaming of ambitious programs that will better a small part of the business or the larger picture. From staff to supervision, management to directing. At one point, I was a one-man department where I prided myself to be able to gain access and support from people belonging to other teams and departments, and succeed in delivering my expected results. Recently, I ventured into entrepreneurship and learned many lessons on how “not” to do things.

I envision a good lifestyle, from fashion to good living standards and the eccentricities of the upper social network that I can share erstwhile to my wife and children. Of course, it’s still a vision that needs to be fulfilled. Though money is not something you bring to your grave or after-life, it is a means to provide others a better life than what you had.

I love having idols in life and business machinations. The movers and the shakers who takes your breath away when their experiences are shared and their knowledge exchanged with you. I continue to add more idols in my life as I continue meeting, experiencing and adapting the best traits I learn from these idols. It’s even much better if your idol is your personal friend or acquaintance – the experience is more livid.

But, life goes on and life is good. God still continues to be part of my being and the way I deliver myself to others. I have been a devout Catholic since childbirth and even if I opened up to be introduced to other types of faiths, I still came back to my Catholic upbringing; and I am very proud of that. I love God as I love people around me, even if others do not understand and misunderstand my love. As humans, it is very important to continue loving others so that we can say, “life is good!”

Now, it’s time to share. Inspired freedom to share my experiences, my ideals, my thoughts, my ideas and my hopes. I once read a book whose title was “Hope Is Not A Method.” True. Don’t make it a method but continue to hope for the best and plot the method to which you could achieve your aspirations in life. And I “hope” I will succeed in my words that it may be able to help you in you path in life, where “life is good!”

There are, of course, those that think otherwise. For some reason, I may have hurt them or became the reason why they failed a business opportunity or the like. If in my good conscience I know I have done nothing wrong but gave everything my honest and sincere best, then I can sleep soundly and now worry about those who may think “otherwise.” Life is too short to keep hurt feelings or, worse, become vengeful with spite. I grew up with parents who were not perfect but were consistently nice and accommodating to everyone. That character rubbed in on me and made me live life according to those ideals. Despite the ordeals and hurtful encounters, never ever change the goodness in you – ever!

I haven’t written at all only because of the rut I went through. But, like any wounded prey, you lick your wounds, heal yourself, get up and start walking back to the path you came from. That path is still my intention of providing for my wife and children and being able to go back and live with them – near them. A short version of a long story is that I live thousands of miles away from my family but I never relinquished the aspiration to be back with them, forever.

My rut was the result of a few failed projects involving call centers, web development, content development and internet marketing. My realization to all these is that at the end of the day you are still who you want to be, and if those failures make you succumb to brooding and procrastination, you will have failed not only yourself but everyone around you. To be able to get back up on your feet and go back to your chosen path in life is difficult but not impossible. God and faith are very important – don’t be part the 5% population in the world that do not believe in God at all. God moves wonders in you to make a dash back to reality and life, and continue conveying compassion, love and understanding to everyone around.

Notice that many of the world’s richest people are, well, to put in direct perspective, “assholes.” Therefore, nice people don’t necessarily beget wealth – not that much, anyway. I don’t mind that at all. I’ve learned that our aspiration in life must not be about money but peace of mind. Regardless of how people think of you, if you think you have done no one wrong, or if you have sincerely apologized for the wrong that you have done, then there’s nothing from stopping you to live life according to your good principles in life.

Be a good person, no matter what the odds are. Money does grow on trees but it blossoms way above an oak tree – yeah, that tall. You need effort, determination, focus and ambition to have your picking. That’s how wealth is achieved. However, there are other people also trying to do just the same as you are, together in the same tree. If you think kicking them out of the tree to fall and hurt themselves, or trampling on them to speed up your ascent, will make it easier and faster for you to get your wealth, well, think a milion times before doing just that. Because, man, I’ll tell you – it isn’t worth it.

Today, two nice persons by the name of Fred C. and Chris P. have given me renewed life to a new business opportunity that I thought was lost. We recently met, rejuvinated the past intention to market and sell their service in the country, rekindled our professional relationship to a new par, and has now inspired me to rise up from the rut and go back to the path I was once at. Yes, you need people like Fred and Chris who are willing to help you, even if it’s just a nudge. You need people who are willing to support you in what you’re trying to do, people like my newfound friend, Gale P. You need to continue doing the “meet and greet” friendly, unobtrusive networking even if the likelihood of a sale isn’t there – there are always indirect means through your new professional acquaintances that isn’t apparent but will eventually result in closing a sale. Don’t do it out of self-interest because that kind of negative vibe will become obvious later on. Do your networking out of sincere interest to meet, greet and get to know the person well, especially friends and acquaintances you haven’t seen for a long time.

One thing you must always do is “be honest.” Never lie, cheat or steal. You don’t have to be great friends or BFFs but honesty is a quality that draws honest people closer to you than, say, your gift of gab. In the 80-20 rule of life, 20 percent of people may just want to use you. Be careful but be honest. If you can’t help the person who’s asking for money or your valuable time, tell them so. I was once in that situation where I asked people for money (I panicked) and half of them responded back. A big portion of that half said they couldn’t help me because of varied reasons. With sincere gratitude, I admonished appreciation for even just responding back to me. Many of them today are closer to me as friends or business acquaintance than before. The other half stayed silent and I’ll never know why; but that’s okay. They have their own reasons why and I for one cannot even think of judging people. My faith has taught me well that only God can judge us.

I have lived alone since, oh, for almost two years. Prior to that, I lived with my in-laws for about a half a year. I am an only child so maybe that’s the reason why I can survive without have anyone in my humble abode when I come home. After separating from my family, I pursued the course of entrepreneurship and have had my share of successes and failure, more of the latter. Good friends who became my business partners are now gone and, like always, I do not force myself to want someone to like me. Again, they have their reasons. Many other people I know, friends and acquaintances, continue to appreciate me as who I am; and I am thankful for them all the time. If I feel the angst to be around people, I just go to a coffee shop with my notebook computer and get into my creative self of looking for solutions to my issues and my problems. My notebook is my best tool of soltitude, tapping away on the keyboard, verbatim to my thoughts and without the need to edit what I first write. Regardless of my situation, I try to visit my in-laws every weekend and mingle with them on everyday banter of family life or things that have happened.

Recently, my father-in-law got sick and had to go through an Angioplasty surgery. I didn’t have to tell anyone that I felt so much compassion for him and what he was going through. I felt his pain. He is growing old yet continue to work for wealth because, somehow, I understand his need to fulfill many of his childhood aspirations. He is a kind and decent man. Just like me, he is an only child, too. I even asked my Facebook friends for their prayers, and many obliged openly or did it in their own non-public ways. My real father, Antonio Lumanlan Pekson, died 16 years ago and even if my father-in-law isn’t my blood relative, he is the only Dad I have today. (My Mom also lives far away from me.) My Catholic and Filipino traits rub on me to respect my parents and elders, be kind and honest to people, and never cheat, lie or steal – and of course, never kill. With that, I will always love my in-laws in my own humble way.

I’m now trying to get back on the road to recovery. I have been very busy tyring to come up with sales and marketing plans for the service I am trying to sell. KUNNECT is a hosted call center solution that allows any business center or call center, small or large, to perform its customer-centric services without the need for large capital investments, no need for a long set up duration and no expensive upfront fees. I love the product and the service, and I love the people behind it – Fred, Chris and everyone in KUNNECT. It has, as I mentioned, given me a renewed inspiration to fulfill my dreams once again but with the honest feeling that I’m doing the business market some good, too, in providing a cheaper but productive way to do business. And I’m doing it “on my own.” No more business partners. No more suckering myself into believing that good friends are the best kinds of business partners. They will always be my friends but I’ve learned late in life that it’s not always the best combination. Give them something to do on their own is better than working together but feeling you can’t argue about his personal self in the workplace. That’s a fine tightrope to walk.

Love God. Love your family. Love everyone around you even if they do the wrong things. Love your work, something which you spend a third of your life doing – sometimes even more. But most importantly, love yourself, too. To love yourself means you profess a positive aura that becomes very transparent to the people around you – and, like a virus, they get hooked on your positiveness and optimism, and project the same sentiments to others. All told, life is short but life is good, no matter what the odds are. Life is God’s gift to you – so, treasure it to its fullest potential.

Happy halloween!

Joy and I were met by Oscar, a gregarious fellow with a husky voice who loved to quip jokes. I followed Joy and we sat down on a table where I met another member, Art. In my conversation with Art, I found out he was a former SGV guy whose professional career focused on Finance, the last being the CFO of telephone company PT&T. He’s now semi-retired as he dabbles on consulting and brokering deals.

After a while, the women were asked to separate from the men to start each of their own session where Joy transferred to the adjacent area. Joy said sometimes everyone is grouped together rather than separated. It kind of reminded me about the single Opus Dei session I agreed to attend in behalf of another friend, Trixie. The “center” I was invited to go to was a place only for men only – no women. We attended mass where the songs were sung in Latin and went to the second floor of the building where a group discussion was to be held.

Going back to the BCBP breakfast event, it was very Catholic; I liked it because despite my inquisitive mind wandering to other faiths and religion, I am still a very proud Roman Catholic. The men sang from a hymn book which I tried to follow. An opening prayer was done by Dindo with mention of me and Adam as “first-timers” to the breakfast session.

Teddy was the “sharer” of the morning. He introduced himself as a member of BCBP for already five years but belonging to another chapter down south of Makati City. His story was both sad and truimphant, mostly on the personal side. At one instance, he had to stop because emotions just overwhelmed him as he read from his prepared script with a few ad libs here and there. While listening to him, I was already inside my head thinking when God will grant me the time where things in my life will simply line up and make things happy for everyone, especially my kids.

After Teddy spoke, Dindo introduced another person for some announcements; afterwhich, a closing prayer was done and the closing hymn was sung.

During the session, I also recalled my days as an active member of the “Couples for Christ” group in Richmond, BC, together with my wife. I enjoyed the camaraderie and prayer sessions we had through the year-and-a-half I was in Richmond. I also recalled playing and singing for the choir of the Canadian Martyrs Catholic Church, also in Richmond.

I believe I enjoyed myself and liked the group. They are warm and friendly, and not intimidating as others would be all over you being a first-time member. It is a group of faithful Catholics that have “business” as a common interest yet want to strengthen their relationship with God. Their mission, as I read the one-pager pamphlet on the breakfast table, says:

The BCBP is a body of Christian men and women whose upbringing, education, training and current life situation have placed them in the midst of the marketplace. Theirs, therefore, is a special calling that motivates them to apply their talents and resources on the ordinary as well as out of the ordinary events and situations in their workplace.

Oscar told me that the next session will be on June 13, this time to be held at a restaurant in Serendra inside The Fort. I think I will be attending their breakfast sessions in the months to come.