Closing Cycles

I honestly think this is a good self-reflection to start this entry... by Paolo Coelho.

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end.  If we insist on
staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the
meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters

Whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave the past the moments
of life that have finished.  Did you lose your job?  Has a loving
relationship come to an end?  Did you leave your parents' house?  Gone to
live abroad?  Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.  You can tell
yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things
that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just
like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved:  your
parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister,
everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on
with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even
when we try to understand the things that happen to us.  What has passed
will not return:  we cannot forever be children, late adolescents, sons that
feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an
affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of
coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.  That is
why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs,
move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you
have at home.  Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the
invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of
certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take
their place.

Let things go.  Release them.  Detach yourself from them.  Nobody plays this
life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.  Do not
expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated,
your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.  Stop turning on
your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the
one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:  that is only
poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are
broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions
that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment.  Before a new chapter
is begun, the old one has to be finished:  tell yourself that what has
passed will never come back.  Remember that there was a time when you could
live without that thing or that person.  Nothing is irreplaceable.  A habit
is not a need.  This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it
is very important.

Closing cycles.  Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply
because that no longer fits your life.  Shut the door, change the record,
clean the house, shake off the dust.  Stop being who you were, and change
into who you are.

I freely admit my absences here in my dominion. To be honest, my life has been pretty much busy ever since the date I posted the previous entry. However, I still continue to write in my diary frequently, so don't freak out if this blog is deprived of new entries as I'm still pushing myself to encode my diary entries here on my blog.

Facebook

I wrote this article for my school's newspaper.

What if I tell you I have a Facebook? No, I don't think that would come as a surprise to you. Facebook is currently one of the biggest social networking sites that has ever existed. Founded by a then-Harvard undergrad Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, it has hit its worldwide fame this year, hitting more than 500 million active users just this July 2010. Apparently, the said website allows users who declare themselves to be in the age span of 13 years old and above to register. Hence, teens will most likely register to keep in touch with their best of friends.

One positive thing about having a Facebook account is that, as mentioned above, you can chat with your friends (if they're online, of course) and leave them messages on their wall anytime you want. Surprisingly, you can also stalk your exes, that is if their profiles are in public unless they have blocked you; even more surprisingly, you can do the same thing to your crushes, too! Much advantages and perks you can get on Facebook like reconnecting with your long lost friends from either kindergarten or grade school. Plus, it makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people you are not familiar with (even at school!).

Sadly, every thing has its disadvantages, as is Facebook. However, these won't probably pose a threat to you just because it contributes a huge possibility of laziness and procrastination. Putting the latter aside, it can also tempt teens to misuse the site solely as a catalyst of harassing, bullying, and threatening each other. Your privacy may be a victim too! Admittedly, Facebook has faced some controversy about privacy. It has been criticized for lacking self-censorship for its users.

In spite of the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook in its peak, I'll freely admit that it is clearly not for everyone. A user must know what he is posting otherwise things might get pretty messy. Some gets Facebook and soon gets tired of updating his or her profile regularly, thus, leaving the profile just to gather dust in the deepest corner of cyberspace.

I'm not telling you to register an account immediately. Just let me play FarmVille in peace, okay?

Roll on tomorrow.