How A Phone Call Changed My Life

Last week, I got a call from an unknown number on my cell phone. And like any other recent graduate, I know better than to ignore it. For all I know, it could be the opportunity of a lifetime. And so it was. One of the companies I so wanted to get into called me for an interview--scheduled the next day! Kind of abrupt I would say, but I'd be a fool to let an opportunity like this go to waste. As people say, you never know what is on the other side. 

The next few days were a blur. HR interview the next day and panel interview the next. I wasn't used to the application process being so quick. Usually it was the other way around, I'd have to practically beg the HR person to give me updates on my application. But this time it was different, and true enough, a couple of days later, BAM! they offered me a job. 

It wasn't a no-brainer, but it wasn't a hard decision to make either. It was a good company with a reputable program that would enable me to go places in a few years. Plus the compensation they offered me wasn't too shabby either--not too much, but not bad for a first job. And although I have never been one to go with intuition, when I stepped in the office for the very first time for the interview, I just felt that I was supposed to be there, like I belong there, like the feeling I got four years ago during the Ateneo Open House. 

And so three days ago, I signed away two years of my life! Funny how a few strokes of the pen in my hand, a couple of signatures here and there, can determine my future. And thus ends my being unemployed. Goodbye sem breaks, goodbye spontaneous beach trips, goodbye bum life, goodbye insanely long summer vacations and hello income taxes, hello overtime, hello rejoicing over holiday economics.

Even though I was ecstatic about landing this job, and believe me, I am very grateful that I did, somewhere in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if I had made the right decision. As one of my favorite theology professors once said, "In saying yes, we also say no." However, there is always a but after every statement, and true enough, the very same professor continues to say that, "in choosing we simultaneously become capable of imposing our will on an uncertain world in the sense that we get a say in how our lives play out, and that by doing so we become most fully ourselves. It enables us to grow and mature and become capable of turning possibilities into actuality."

I kinda like the sound of that. That amidst the uncertainty of life, I am still capable of being able to make mere possibilities a reality, of being able to live out my dreams while I still can, of youthful optimism, of home, and of the confidence that someday I will be able to strike out and make it big.

And who knows, maybe someday I just might!