The Japanese have this concept called “Ikigai”
What you love
What you are good at
What the world needs
What you can be paid for
And the divine space in between
Realize your Ikigai,
And maybe, clarity can be seen
My journey towards this endeavor,
was admittingly, a walk in the park,
Except that park was Jurassic Park,
An important part of the story arc,
Polymathic youth she was,
with an affinity for the arts,
Graduated from ChE,
With cuts and bruises in her heart,
Found herself in an existential bind,
As a public-school educator,
Grace gave her, her own little corner,
To wind words of wit and wonder.
Purpose, passion, and peace—
First few seeds that she planted,
Might lead a clue to her Ikigai,
And satiate what her heart had commanded
Now she looks back, realigns,
and starts shifting her focus,
Towards a set of all points satisfied—
her geometrical locus.
The prompt for this month of May,
is "May you find your Balance"
Balance—
What a familiar word!
It sounds like 1st law of Thermo,
Chalkboards, Le Chatelier,
Net loss equals to zero (Net loss = 0),
Let's assume steady state (dm/dt = 0),
Degrees of freedom freed (df = 0),
Moody charts and panic attacks (Re < 2100),
List your assumptions and proceed
I could make all the calculations I want,
And make sure to pass things on time,
I could set the limits to zero (lim -> 0),
And approach the asymptotic line (x -> a)
But out of anything else,
there is this one thing I would rather,
Post-May Roxanne is waving,
And I am here to write her a letter,
It goes…
MAY you strike a BALANCE:
between where you are,
And where you want to be,
between pursuing what you want,
And being proud of what you've achieved,
between learning to make mistakes,
And not letting your mistakes define you,
between validating your experiences,
And abiding to what’s Divine and True
Between tolerance levels here and there,
Between percentiles of zero and a hundred,
Between rainy days, and igang nights,
Between “sure ball” things and undecided,
Between sitting with the broken,
and not letting their brokenness break you,
Between having patience in the waiting,
And the courage to see things through,
Between thinking on your feet,
And slowing down, when necessary,
Between holding yourself accountable,
And recognizing the real adversary.
Reject your fear of rejection,
Condemn your fear of condemnation,
Hold Him in your heart:
do it rightly, and do it scared,
Don’t believe the voices that say,
That you’ll never be prepared.
I hope you’ve changed the way you see,
your crippling fear of uncertainty,
And let’s walk in His ways no matter what,
And surrender our concerns of popularity.
May His grace lead you,
May He set you free.
May His mercy take you,
And guide you where you want to be.
ABOUT THE PROTEAN CREATOR
Roxanne Marie is a twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator.
She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She loves open discourse, witty musings, discussions about abstract and tangible ideas, and any opportunity where she can insert memes into the conversation.
She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning, and openly discusses the ideas and thoughts that are born from her experiences here on Hive.
Currently, she works as a science and research instructor for senior high school students and as a freelancing content writer in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, misfortunes, pagka-hugotera, poetic persuits, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial.
If you like her content, don't forget to upvote and leave a comment to show some love. It would be an honor to have this post reblogged as well. Also, don't forget to follow her to be updated with her latest posts, and catch her next intellectual (and most of the time, untethered) rants.