What is your mountain?
I remember one of my professors last year in Creative Writing once asked us this. The moment I first heard the question, I was confused. What does he mean about what is my mountain?
Then, he let us watch Neil Gaiman's inspirational speech about making good art. The speech talked about your mountains, making mistakes, enjoying the things that you love, breaking the rules, and finding your own voices by making good art -- or, YOUR ART.
What is my mountain?
I kept on asking myself this question. Although I already got the job I needed now and able to do the things I wanted to do, suffice the needs of my family and myself, I suddenly realized what I had missed after all these years.
The young Happy always dreamed of becoming a published writer. She wanted to write a book or have her name be written in prints. She wanted to share the stories that had been running all on her head but never on papers.
But all of it were all put in vain as she had to responsibly spend her life surviving rather than dreaming.
However, she tried. She tried to pursue writing a novel and even passed a manuscript to a publishing company when she was eighteen. But that one email changed her and even put her dreams into oblivion.
Your story was juvenile.
The plot was chaotic.
It was illogical.
Those were the words that stuck in her head for years and since then, she abandoned writing. She believed she couldn't do it and those words were true.
So she stopped. And never again wrote a single poetry nor an essay.
She then learned to hustle in life and prioritized her families' needs and forgot about her dreams.
It was only last year that she went back to where she left off her dreams of becoming a writer and believed in it again.
She started reviving the words and although it was a struggle for her at first to construct ideas and play with words, she began little by little.
It was hard but she was sure it's all worth it.
Are you on the path that leads to your mountain?
This was the second question our professor asked us.
Am I on the path already?
Perhaps, yes. But way too far.
Nevertheless, what's important is I'm on my way. I'm making the baby steps towards my mountain -- my goal.
As Neil Gaiman said, "If you make mistakes, that means you are out there doing something." My eighteen-year-old self may be too weak to accept the harsh truth but this time, I will be tougher.
I will make new mistakes. I will make glorious and amazing mistakes and make mistakes that no one's ever did before.
That's a promise to myself. I want to live again and enliven that young and dreamy Happy. So I basked into a remnant that reminds me of writing and studied Literature.
And just as when I thought that was the only thing I could do last year, I received such a beautiful message from 
And that, my friends, is the start of something beautiful.
I was exulted. By that, I can really say I'm on my path already.
What are the things keeping you from your mountain?
I guess the thing that kept me from my mountain is the thought that "I couldn't do it."
After I received that reply from the manuscript I have submitted eight years ago, I used to believe I was always like that. So I set aside all the things that reminded me of writing. I never reopened the box I used to keep my notebooks where I wrote my poetry and stories until December of last year.
I was reminded. And that lead me to the last question our professor had asked us.
What are the things that bring you closer to your mountain?
Back when I was still in high school and college when I had to join a contest or report in front of the class or make risky decisions, and I started to get nervous, I would always say to myself "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF." After that, I will calm. And good things always happen when I start to believe in myself.
The things that perhaps bring me closer to my mountain is me believing in myself. Again.
This is the first thing I have to and need to do because I know that in this world, when no one is there to support me when I am still struggling to climb up towards my success, it is significant that within me, I have this spirit to believe and not let myself down.
We needed a solid ground and that ground needs to start within us.
And that -- that brings me closer to my mountain.
The second thing that brings me closer to my mountain is finding my own voice.
As a person who dreams of becoming a writer, it would be really hard to find our own voice. In this fast-changing world and an era where there are a lot of trends to choose from, everybody's doing the mainstream or what's VIRAL, someone's copying somebody, it is really a challenge to find our own voices. But just as what Neil Gaiman said, "Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people," it is not wrong to imitate what others are doing as long as you have that substance that makes you YOU.
Make mistakes. Learn from it. In that way, you can find your voice.
For me, it may be a rough and trail-like road in finding my own voice, but that is my substance, my voice -- a matter that cannot be fused with another because that is me.
And that's the second thing that brings me to my reality -- MY MOUNTAIN.