I’m a planner—I get a rash when anything goes out of plan. At a very young age I was already thinking about my future. Everything I did targetted a specific goal—all the choices I made were all carefully calculated.
I didn’t know what triggered it but while I was having my coffee this morning I was suddenly hit by a moment of retrospect. It was not intentional but things in my life didn’t really go according to plan as I’d hoped. I tend to think that those things were out my control but upon closer inspection, I had to revise my initial hypothesis: things didn’t go according to plan because I made the decision to stray away from The Plan in the first place. Do I regret those decisions?
I took a pre law course in college because I wanted to be a lawyer. My undergrad course only had three required units of mathemathics which was fine by me. By the time I was taking political science and media law, my conviction to be a lawyer had wavered. I didn’t like the idea that a good lawyer is someone who makes the system work for his client: I began to have a distaste for the the word “technicality”. What I liked about the law was that there was a clear definition of what’s right and what’s wrong which works well for my rather “control-freak” nature. What turned me off is that good lawyers can make what’s obviously wrong NOT wrong because of a technicality. Call me a moralist but I thought I didn’t have the stomach for that kind of career. I didn’t bother to take the LAE. Besides, I fell in love with media production by then.
Still, I wonder what could have happened I did go through with law school. Whenever I talk to my fiancé about this, he just tells me that if I went through with law school, we would’ve never met. I guess I should thank God for small graces. 
I swore never to work for a television network. I don’t really watch local tv—call it elitist but I believe television can offer a lot more than half naked dancing women, game shows, love teams and tear jerkers. After I graduated from college, I sent resumes to several networks just to “go with the flow” but I didn’t push through with my applications. Instead, I worked my way up from a production assistant to a small time executive producer “outside”. I worked in theater, for a private corporation and in advertising. It was only when I decided to pursue graduate studies that I moved to a network since it offered regular work hours and “stability”. The job’s pretty routine and I have to admit that I sometimes miss the fast paced “ngarag” lifestyle I used to have but it’s a small price to pay. I am now nearing the end of my graduate studies and I actually learned to appreciate the company I work for. No regrets here.
I planned to be married by the time I was 27 years old (the deadline has passed). To this I say, better to be married late to the right man than to get married at the right age to the wrong one.
I said that I will not marry someone who has similar fashion sense as my father. At his age, my mom and I still have to force him to wear something appropriate to formal events. His idea of a formal attire is a clean polo shirt and plain Kamikaze pants. He’d rather be caught dead than wear a polo. My graduation pictures are a constant reminder: my dad was wearing a light blue polo with a scowl. I’m now engaged to a guy whose entire wardrobe consists of round necked shirts, khakis and sneakers. We have to buy/borrow stuff whenever he needs to attend formal gatherings. Him and my dad make such a pair.
So basically, two major facets of my life—my career and my relationship—didn’t go according to my plan. I can’t complain. I didn’t become a lawyer but my career’s doing fine. I’m up for another promotion and hopefully, in a year or so, I’d get my master’s degree and would finally be able to teach at a university.
As for my romantic relationship—I’m extremely lucky to find a guy who just loves me without question. Other girls aren’t so lucky.
After careful consideration, I would have to say that the digression from The Plan served its purpose. My fiancé’s right; if I did become a lawyer, I wouldn’t have met him and I’d probably still be single by 27 considering the work load of a law student.
Isn’t it just great when things go way better than we expected?
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