I lost a necklace on a trip and realized this about my life
Losing my precious jewelry, becoming a better person, finding the one
Hello hello from Toronto,
I recently came back from a one-week trip to Los Angeles and San Diego.
It wouldn't have been my first choice to go on a USA trip, but my hubby's family invited us, so I summoned my curiosity while travelling to a place I'm already familiar with (i.e. the US)
With this curiosity, I fell in love with the city of San Diego since it had beaches, hiking places, and city vibes that were close to each other.
So the overall trip was awesome, except for one small thing:
I lost one of my precious owned jewellery.
It's a true gold necklace that says my name, "Jerine", and it was given to me by my parents when I was a child. My sister has one too.
When I was a child, my parents worked abroad in Dubai to support their family back in the Philippines.
So growing up, my generous grandparents raised my sister and me in a decent squatter area in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
Sometimes, my family was so short on money that they'd use my sister and I's necklaces to get cash.
They'd go into a local pawn shop where the seller would scrape off some gold from the necklace in exchange for actual cash.
We'd use that cash for food and sometimes for our tuition fees (we don't have free public schools like in the West).
Before losing my necklace, I didn't think much of that jewellery other than it was a gift that said my name.
But it affected me so much that I had to dig deeper into why it was so important to me.
Losing my necklace made me realize how far I've come in life.
I'm able to take spontaneous trips without worrying about money. I can afford luxurious experiences like watching Netflix for fun. And most importantly, I can afford to say "no" to jobs I don't want to do.
I was no longer that child that lived in the squatter with my grandparents.
And if you're reading this, I know you most likely have your basic needs covered. You have food and shelter, and you can pay for the internet. You also probably have a decent smartphone.
Wherever you are now is probably better than a year ago or even five or ten years ago.
If not, take this as a sign that it'll get better sooner or later for you.
I'm still trying to get ahold of the hotel where I stayed, but there's a slim chance I'll get my necklace back.
At the very least, it's serving as a really good memory for me that I now get to share with you, and I hope that you, like myself, realize that you're farther in life than you believe.
🧚 3 Fairy Tips for Multipassionate Creators
🎥 Success won’t make you happy. But focusing on day-to-day life will.
Every now and then, I get reminded that achieving more won’t make me happy. In this video by Nathaniel Drew, he explores his personal experience about getting to 1.6M subscribers as a YouTuber as well as the opportunities that come with it. Besides his amazing storytelling and filmmaking skills, this topic is something many of us can resonate with.
📝 No one cares about what you do. They only care about what you can do for them.
As a creator, I’m always thinking about ways to increase my authority and credibility. But the longer I play this game, the more I realize that people don’t care about my background unless that background helps them in their specific situation. This article is slowly shifting my mindset about what others perceive as “value” and whether I have something to offer.
📖 When conversing with someone, name their feeling to evoke empathy.
I bought this audible book (affiliate link) called Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss to learn more about negotiation as an ex-FBI hostage negotiator.
In this book, Voss talks about empathizing—the ability to understand and share the feelings of another—as a way to get what you want. For example, simply saying to someone, “it seems that you’re upset” helps someone open up their feelings to you. Once they open up, you can use that to explore and address their doubt to help you get what you want. The caveat is that you *actually* have to care, otherwise, that practice is called manipulation.
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🤔 A question for you this week:
What were your past year’s accomplishments, and how are you different from the person you were a year ago?
With online love 💌 ,
Jerine
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