To Be or Not To Be

Ugh. I hate making decisions – especially the big ones. For more than two months now, I’ve managed to stay away from this arduous task but I guess, at some point, life always catches up with you.

To be or not be?

Even now, my stomach turns and my head pounds unmercifully as I try to answer this proverbial question. So I asked my beloved older and supposedly wiser sister if she’d agree to a deal – I’ll pay her P5,000 if she’d just make all my decisions for me for a month. Her answer? One ridiculous snort and an emphatic shake of the head. But then she comes back with, “Double that and I’ll agree.” This time, I snorted.

My crazy/beautiful sexy cousin Maya babes is also at a crossroad in her life. To find her own definite answer to the “To Be or Not to Be” question, she decided to grab her backpack and travel the many miles from Davao to Manila, Cabanatuan, then Cebu. Her phone call woke me up at 9 AM. She gleefully announced her plan of hounding cousin Fritz, her brother Louie, my aunt and I as well as the rest of the family to help her out in this process. Hehe. Great! Now I have somebody to play ping-pong-the-many-questions with.

But then, no matter how you analyze, discuss, dissect a question with somebody, no matter how many guidelines you give each other, ultimately the decision still rests upon you and you alone.

So now, I write instead in the hope that as I ramble on, I’ll find the key to an answer I should have made days ago.

Am I in or out?

I’ve got about 8 months to spare before I go back to school. So I figured I might as well look for a job. Three applications and a couple of interviews later, I got an offer. Wow, the job is exciting. I really like it. There’s travel, challenge, and exposure galore – three things I’ve always looked forward to.

“Can you handle long hours?” the interviewer asked. “Gladly, but I’d like to have my entire weekend off,” I shot back. Agreed. Cool.

And then, just as I was on the verge of giving my delightful YES!, she sneakily drops a four-figure bomb. Ouch! It’s just for a start, she hastily assures. Hey, that still hurts.

The mind starts whirling. Do I take it still? At this point in my life, the money doesn’t really matter that much. But-- is it wise to go back to a low-salary job after I’ve spent the past four years collecting sound experiences and building a solid reputation? Am I willing to settle for a shot of something different even though I know I’ve got a standing offer for a job with twice the salary?

I’ve long realized that there are no perfect jobs out there. So I guess it all boils down to what we can and can’t live with.

In this moment of introspection, I realize that I have a great capacity to sacrifice for something that I really want. But then I also have this nagging sense of justice which insists that a man should be given his due. Otherwise there won’t balance, and without it, there won’t be peace.

All this thinking is driving me nuts. Let me add to the stress and launch a different line of questioning:

What are my options? Is this job a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? What’s my priority right now? Have I truly finished this phase in my life to start a new one? Will I be a better person if I follow through?

Suddenly, I know.

Thank God.