Making Things Happen

Today is International Women's Day. What does it mean to be a woman in the year 2009? To me, it's about finding our happiness, freedom and independence. It's about being able to do whatever I want to do, whenever I want to do it. I don't have the resources to do EVERYTHING I want yet but I have to start somewhere and this is the beginning of my freedom and independence. The contentment in knowing that I can do what I want instead of doing what's expected of me is liberating.

After so many years working for organizations, I strongly feel it's time for me to venture on my own. I love doing training. Working for a company, I can't always do the training I want and I sometimes have to take on last minute project of system training where the system was so unsophisticated and some participants would blame the trainer for their misery of learning a complicated and lousy application. I also have to mention there were so many problems with the computer training room, the many unintegrated system actually that nobody wants to be in charge of and technical support can really test your patience. Sometimes I can't make the training preparation up to the standard I want due to time constraint as there are other non-training related work obligations. So enough is enough.

It may sound like I'm complaining but that's not my intention. Those are some of the realities I have to face everyday. How can I achieve my dream if 'firefighting' is the order of the day? I have to make things happen for me and after careful consideration, I decided to venture on my own. This is probably a risky time to make such a decision but then again, when is it not a risky time? I have the utmost respect for all the entrepreneurs who dare make things happen for them. Now I have to find all the courage to make things happen for me.

I have a few full time job opportunities to consider and they were very tempting but I have to decline. I don't want to get caught in the same cycle. The new environment will be exciting in the beginning but after a while, it will be the same cycle all over again and I still will have not established myself in the industry. I have to remind myself over and over again about what I want. One of my weaknesses is getting sucked in with interesting projects. I don't even care about the money. Oppss.... let me rephrase that. Of course I care about the money but I don't put a high demand on salary. I got the highest increment in my department last year when the company was standardizing the pay at a more competitive market rate which shows how much underpaid I was.

So despite all the temptation, I must not loose sight of my goal. It wasn't easy. I have been fending for myself almost all my life. I'm not going to start relying on hubby now. It was a slow start in the beginning. People say getting your first million is hard but after that it'll get easier and easier. So getting the first training is hard but I hope it'll get easier after this too. The perk of working on my own is the freedom and independence it gave me. I can work anywhere if I have no training. Hence, I can follow hubby whenever I have the time. As long as I have my laptop, internet access and able to make phone calls I should be fine. I can even make my own appointments at other towns to market my training.

And I do want to spend more time with hubby. Few months back we have a rushed tapau lunch at home. I came back late to office for that. I have to wait for half an hour for the LRT. That was our first proper lunch at home. It kinda hit me in the face some of the things we don't have time to do together. We make adjustments the best way we can and as I always believe, we can't wait for things to happen. Sometimes, we have to make it happen. So this is as much a professional move as well as personal. I'm glad I make the decision and no one can ever say I did not pursue what I wish for. More family time as well as more professional time.