That sounds way too sensationalistic, and it probably is. But the drama of that statement is certainly rooted in truth.

Allow me to explain.

Several years ago, I got enamored with the concept of ‘innovation’.

So much so, in fact, that it became a personal buzzword, advocacy, unifying battle-cry.

I read all the books and delved into all of the websites. Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Innovator’s Dilemma. Innovation : The Five Disciplines. Closing the Innovation Gap. Innovation to the Core. Open Innovation. Innovation Nation. Innovation X. If the book had the word ‘innovation’ in its title (even the sub-title), it had a 90% chance of ending up on my bookshelf.

I would get indoctrinated in the religion of IDEO (the Shopping Cart video and the innovation bibles, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation). In fact, it was a dream come true when I met Brian Quebengco and became a partner in the industrial design firm, Inovent.

For a time, some really cool friends and I put up Kolektib – an Innovation Hub in the creative hustle-and-bustle of Cubao X. We did Innovation Workshops internally and externally. It was an exquisitely fun time.

Even social entrepreneurship, for me, was a form of innovation – albeit social innovation. Hapinoy and Rags2Riches are expressions of melding social development with business models, a rather revolutionary approach which would certainly qualify as innovating.

I eventually synthesized my knowledge. I wound up conceptualizing, creating, and teaching a class in Ateneo on Innovation. It would tackle the why’s, the what’s, the how’s of the topic. I wanted to transmit the spirit to a next generation of innovators which would try to conquer and/or change the world.

The one line i always wanted my students to remember : Innovate or Die.

But beginning last year, my innovation lens would slowly shift. Not on a different tangent, but rather on a different depth.

I’m significantly more experienced and quite wiser. For all intents and purposes, I’ve changed. But more importantly, the world has changed at a mind-spinning rate – far outstripping my own evolution.

The first decade of the 21st Century was characterized by dizzying change, hyper-competition, unbridled growth – all of the factors that led to an innovation explosion. Globalization was at full-swing, the Internet began to fulfill its promise of changing everything.

And everything seemed possible. Growth was so palpable and reachable, and so businesses began pouncing on the massiveness of the opportunity. Driven by sheer momentum, they just plowed full steam ahead.

An innovation avalanche would ensue.

Innovation and Design consultancies would have a field day. So many new products, services, processes, and business models would emerge. I should know – it’s what I taught :

How Zara had reinvented the supply chain, allowing them to launch new fashion lines at lightning speed.

How the Wii would tackle the Blue Ocean of game consoles, beating the higher-performing Xbox 360 and Playstations by going on a different tangent and tackling non-gamers.

How Procter & Gamble used Open Innovation and launched connect + develop, unleashing a torrent of growth for their brands under AG Lafley’s watch.

More consumers were opening their wallets, and companies were feasting.

But towards the end of the decade, the world would undergo yet another step-change, perhaps an even larger one than the last.

Crises of global proportions would enter the lexicon.

A financial crisis would infect the world over, leading to national economies teetering on the brink. It was a full-blown meltdown and it washed over countries like a worldwide tsunami.

And speaking of tsunamis, the world became a real-life disaster movie. Environmentalists have been banging the alarm bells on the planet for so long, but it’s certainly only in the past few years that climate change has become real to the person on the street. When Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines, it was a shock to the system – it dumped one month’s worth of rain in half a day, causing floods in areas we never imagined were possible.

This climate change crisis is of course linked to to the energy crisis – our over-dependence on carbon-based fuels. Generations ago it wasn’t tangible, but now we see just how finite non-renewable energy is. It’s like we’ve got lung cancer and yet ironically still need two packs of smokes a day just to keep on moving.

And while all this was happening, the gap between the rich and the poor continued to widen. The proportion of the world’s population that survives under $2 a day still goes between a third to one-half of the total human race! (depending on which statistics you look at). Without a doubt, the population and poverty crisis continues to rear its ugly head.

And so in the span of a decade, we went from an age of seemingly unbridled growth … and plummeted into an age of uncertainty. An Age of Massively Complex Problems.

And that’s why a nagging feeling in my gut gradually snowballed, until my lens shifted.

I remember some of the projects that were conceptualized in my Innovation Class. A better kind of toothpaste. Refillable packaging for laundry detergents. Heck, even an innovative cigarette that would light without matches. Of course there were some that were more interesting – especially those who were in the social innovation track.

But with all due respect to my former students, it was the teacher who was at fault. We were thinking too small. We were throwing our energies at the wrong things. (just look at my slides)

Power is useless, if misdirected. Same goes for Innovation.

Innovation is good at tackling any problem, but it can be so much greater if it tackled the right ones.

And so I’m drawing a line on the sand, demarcating where my old thinking ends and my new perspective begins :

The only problems worth solving, worth investing your life in, are meaningful ones.

In an Age of Massively Complex Problems, do we really need to design a better toothbrush?

Do we still want to use innovation to drive unbridled growth and overconsumption, for things that people don’t really need but we’d just want them to buy?

Do we want to continue ransacking the planet with novel products that don’t really add anything extraordinary to people’s lives?

I say, that may have its place in the world, but certainly not in mine.

I will invest my time, my resources, my life, in innovation that, frankly, matters.

Meaningful innovation that adds real value to people’s lives, that tackles real problems plaguing individuals, society, and the world.

A lot of Big Problems. A lot of Big Opportunities. A lot of Big Innovations needed.

I call this new evolution of my definition, Innovation(+). Innovation plus, Innovation positive, Innovation with meaning.

The time has come for us to put collective energies into innovations that can create positive differences in people’s lives, for society, and the world at large.

We need platforms for participation; Heck let’s take it a step further as Platforms for Activation – where people are actively engaged in helping things move not just onwards, but upwards.

And so it’s in these specific challenges that I will be investing my energies on :

1. Social Innovations at the Base-of-the-Pyramid
- How can we co-create business models, products, and services that serve essential needs for those that live under $2/day?
- How can we make the poor active participants and co-creators in the common drive to get them out of poverty?

2. Development of Technologies, Products, and Services that Positively Advance the Human Condition
- How can we create new innovations in education, healthcare, energy, and communications that sustainably serve the needs of this generation and the next?
- How do we use innovation and design thinking to tackle everyday problems of society – traffic gridlock, transportation, crime as some examples? (in fact, IDEO has evolved Design Thinking into tackling Big Problems – just look at Open IDEO).
- How can the Big Brands, Big Products, and Big Services reinvent themselves into positively advancing the human condition?

3. Harnessing the Web for Massive Connection, Collaboration, and Change
- As I mentioned earlier – how do we create Platforms for Activation? I can think of no better example than how Iceland recently engaged its citizens to write the constitution.
- How can we use web to either rebuild or create new institutions? Financial institutions, Educational Institutions, Healthcare Institutions, even Governments?

4. A New Kind of Society
- How do we transition a paradigm shift from the traditional economics of GDP into one that measures happiness and prosperity?
- How do we go from unbridled production-consumption-growth into true, sustainable living?
- How do we balance the currents of globalization, localization, and community?

5. Innovating for The Planet
- There’s just no way getting around tackling the Climate Crisis head-on, it’s quite simply the biggest problem that we as a collective species have to contend with.
- In fact, I love what Al Gore writes in his new book/app ‘Our Choice’. In addressing the Climate Crisis, he wants ‘to make the rescue of civilization the central organizing principle of our politics, economics, and action.’

So there. A new personal roadmap, a clearer direction, a manifesto on where I wish Innovation+ will go. Where it will take us, or where we can drive it towards.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is by technologist Alan Kay – “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Such wise words in an Age of Massively Complex Problems, an age which needs more and more of us to do Innovation(+).

Some time back, Pam Imperial got in touch through the Life’s Direction’s Community (thanks AJ!) about making a special episode of Channel [V]‘s V-Life on Social Entrepreneurs, featuring myself and Reese

Little did we know that it would really be a rather lengthy episode! (Well, the upside is I think we’ll just show this as our wedding AVP on December – just kidding, Reese! :p)

Wedding jokes aside, we gladly agreed to do it because we continuously want to advocate that social entrepreneurship can indeed be a career choice. It’s certainly not a short-term thing or project, it’s a whole life’s choice and path. And yes, it is indeed viable.

Anyway, here’s the episode which first aired on May 18 -

Part 1 :

Part 2 :

Part 3 :

Part 4 :

I had an interview the other day, and I received a blindingly simple question. It was so simple yet so incisive that I wondered why I wasn’t asked that question before.

The question was, “At what point in life did you realize that you were an entrepreneur?”

I really wish I had a great childhood story to tell. That I had odd jobs like a lemonade – or Filipino-style, Buko Juice – stand or selling at bazaars. But the truth is I didn’t.

In fact, I’ve often stated my caveat about my entrepreneurial pedigree. My Ma was a successful corporate executive who worked in one company her entire life; My Pa, on the other hand, is a brilliant civil engineer who is more immersed in computations i cannot fathom rather the inner workings of business.

And since I thought that ‘the apple never falls from the tree’, I never really considered the entrepreneurial path as a personal career – and my previous life choices accentuated this point.

I took up a business degree in Ateneo de Manila, and eventually became a corporate guy in a leading multinational. It was the only road on my horizon, and I walked on that road for seven years.

Until I realized – and decided – that it wasn’t for me.

And so I made a go for it, and resigned.

Having said all this so far, I guess I can’t be blamed if I had doubts – especially before taking the leap of faith into this wild and crazy world of entrepreneurship – if I had that entrepreneurial DNA in me. To be honest, the uncertainty of actually making it hung over my head like the Sword of Damocles. I half-expected my head to be cut off in those early months.

But this I guess points to answering the blindingly simple question.

The moment i realized that I was an entrepreneur was when – despite my (lack of) entrepreneurial pedigree, despite my corporate background, despite the comfort and stability of my cushy job – I decided to still make the leap. That I went All In.

I’ve heard it said – reworded loosely – that an entrepreneur is somebody who risks everything in order to capitalize on huge opportunities, without regard for resources currently at hand.

And if so – then at that precise moment that I decided to risk everything because I was consumed by chasing quixotic-ally big opportunities, that I decided that the biggest risk is not to risk at all – that is the moment when I became an entrepreneur.

Now, how about you? At what point in your life did you realize that you were an entrepreneur?

Beyond the usual Competency 101 Profiles – visionary, entrepreneurial, business-minded, collaborative, empathic, empowering – I’ve reflected on (3) less popular characteristics that I wanted to highlight. I picked these (3) values as I consider them ‘currency’ in making one more effective, especially in working with people.

For me, these (3) are : Integrity, Sincerity, and the Ability to Execute – values that I continue to aspire for, and hope to one day realize.

—

1. Integrity

Integrity is the default absolute must-have. After all, it is the cornerstone of being a social entrepreneur.

For me, the seed of integrity starts with the fact that you’re doing this for the right reasons; You have to be fueled by the right intentions.

It shouldn’t be about the money (although self-sustainability is undeniably important), your ego, or the warm fuzzy feeling one gets from “doing good”. My personal opinion is that you should be passionate about solving social problems, and obsessed about living a life of service.

Furthermore, integrity is about uncompromisingly doing the right thing. This can take the form of having core principles that you will adhere to, even when the going gets tough. In Hapinoy, for example, whenever we are faced with difficult decisions, we simplify it to one simple question : “What’s Good For Nanay (the Hapinoy Store Owner)?”. This ultimately sways the decision that we take.

When people know that you have integrity, they will trust you, collaborate with you, support you, do business with you. So you really have to guard this with your life. And the secret is simple : just live a life of integrity (I absolutely know that this is easier said that done!).

There are no techniques to gain integrity and build reputation, one must simply try as hard as s/he can to stay true to it. The easiest way to not have any skeletons in your closet that will explode in your face – is to not have any skeletons in the first place.

2. Sincerity

As a social entrepreneur, you’ll most likely be working with marginalized sectors/communities, tackling a palpable social problem – whether this be on livelihood, healthcare, education, poverty, inequality, access to energy, etcetera.

Now, take note that the people you will be serving and/or partnering with could have already been “betrayed” by over-promising politicians, or “let down” by good-intentioned, yet unsustainable organizations who came and then went away. In any case, earning the community’s trust – that you are here for the long-haul – is an important first step, and the smell of sincerity is a key that opens up communication and dialogue. (And trust me when I say that without the community’s trust, you will not be able to accomplish anything.)

Trust is not something easily given, and as such it must and will be earned through time. In Rags2Riches, it took over a year for things to really mature such that the Cooperative formation became a welcome development and shared goal. And although the program became more robust, I’d like to believe that it is the Community’s belief in the sincerity and integrity of the R2R team that made this social enterprise truly work.

3. Ability to Execute

Most Social Enterprises – especially if they are veritable game-changers – will start as a vision of what could be, and not what is. Now, while this is certainly inspiring, it also lends itself to the term, “Drawing lang ‘yan” – which means to say that it is still only a concept drawing on paper. In other words, it’s a skeptic’s perspective – it hasn’t happened until it has happened. In fact, you can be the most kind-hearted person in the world, but until you fulfill the vision you’re painting  – even gradually – you will be less effective in the eyes of your partners.

A former boss of mine taught me a valuable lesson : the best argument against your critics will always be results. After all, results will always speak for themselves. This holds true as well for social entrepreneurship.

The Ability to Execute and make the vision gradually real is sacrosanct. It not only fuels credibility, but it also spurs a bandwagon effect that increases momentum and growth.

In my view, Hapinoy still has a long way to go in realizing the true potential of the program, especially as we see it in our heads. But we continue to execute, iterate, execute, iterate – and gradually build on the unfolding results. It’s admittedly a continuing uphill battle, but one that we’re absolutely committed to getting to eventually.

—

The reason I call the above (3) as ‘currency’ is this – a large chunk of a social entrepreneur’s time is invested in working with people.

And one particular nuance in a social entrep’s lifestyle – is that we do not strictly transact as other people do. For example, a normal business would be focused on finding suppliers and workers, pay them to do a job – and on the other side, sell to a customer, and gain cash from the exchange. In this model, money is the main currency.

The social entrepreneur, on the other hand, will also transact with money, yes – but will go and build deeper relationships. And at this level, it’s really intangible currency that can spell the difference.

In Hapinoy, we don’t hire and pay microentrepreneurs as labor; We work with them in order to co-build their business; In Rags2Riches, we don’t just sell bags, we sell the broader advocacy of eco-ethical style.

Money definitely speaks – but in social entrepreneurship, so do Integrity, Sincerity, and Execution.

Traditional thinking suggests that you should start with a great business idea.

I cannot disagree with that; It is after all something I myself would advocate.

But indulge me as I broaden the perspective.

Before embarking on the problem, the need, the industry analysis, the opportunity, the big kick-ass business concept – ask yourself a simple, fundamental question – “Are You Yourself An Idea?”

By this, I mean :
- Stripped of everything, what do you stand for at your very core?
- When people hear your name, do concepts beyond you resonate?
- Are you married to a dream that you will live for until your very last breath?

To be fair, most entrepreneurs start their own businesses, make a ton of money, and in fact become very successful without even tangentially answering these questions. But that branch of entrepreneurship is what I would call ‘Entrepreneurship-Lite’. I’m really a bigger fan of the flipside, of ‘hardcore entrepreneurship’ – the kind wherein entrepreneurs truly pursue a Quixotic vision, ideas they cannot help but humbly submit to.

This dichotomy I believe is what separates the men from the boys, the innovators from the wannabe’s.

When you think of Muhammad Yunus, the idea of Making Poverty History relentlessly surfaces. After founding Grameen which eventually birthed the global microfinancing movement, he is now moving into the next phase with social business enterprise, of institutions and mechanisms that can create a world without poverty. Yunus has been incisively consistent along this path, and it is crystal clear that this idea is what is truly at his very core.

For the first half of his life, Bill Gates stood for a computer in every desk and every home, and this idea eventually made him the richest man on the planet. Now in Act 2 of his life, the idea that all lives have equal value is what consumes him, quite possibly for the rest of his life.

Closer to home, my InoventDesign tag-team partner Brian Quebengco is married to Championing Filipino Ideas – and believe me when I say that you’ll rarely find a more hardcore Filipino entrepreneur than him. From founding Inovent, to conceptualizing the Ilumina, and now with Inovent Academy and spurring the movement of Inovention, his vision is coming more and more into reality.

I could go on and on with more examples, but I really want to throw this back at you.

Are You An Idea? and if so, What Idea Are You?

Because it is the one question when truly, honestly answered – will make everything else easier.

And if you want to throw the question back at me, then I’d quickly answer :  Harnessing Innovation for A Better World.

Interestingly enough, a group of students had started a social enterprise idea that for me, showed significant promise. It wasn’t just a concept;  They’ve actually prototyped and run a small-scale pilot as part of the course requirements. In fact, with some further refinement, the enterprise was viable. Sales were already being generated, and I could see how it could evolve into larger things.

You would think that the teacher who guided them through this project would be enthusiastically encouraging the students to pursue the enterprise post-graduation.

But the contrary proved to be true.

The students wanted to pursue the enterprise. The teacher, instead of rallying behind this, actually insisted that they apply for a 9-to-5 job instead. That is the better path to pursue, according to her. The social enterprise would just be too risky.

This teacher, whom I don’t know from Adam, has a class on business and entrepreneurship. Yes, my friends. Entrepreneurship.

Imagine my disappointment when I heard this.

Granted, the teacher might have been thinking that the students would benefit from some years’ experience as an employee. I’d really like to give her the benefit of the doubt.

But from the way it was narrated to me, that might not be the case. The teacher was adamant that the students be practical and go for the safety of employment instead. By the way, it might interest you to know that the teacher isn’t an entrepreneur.

Thankfully, there was one member of the group who adamantly wanted to pursue the enterprise, and did go for it. In that bullheaded decision, I see the seeds of a true entrepreneur being born.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That business could very well fail. It IS risky. This could be a very hard road to take.

But entrepreneurship is never about using kid gloves – even when dealing with, well, kids.

You fall, you pick yourself up, you move along. That’s what entrepreneurs do. But it’s important that they actually leaped first.

Entrepreneurship is hard, period. Arguably, social entrepreneurship even more so. But if we don’t encourage people to take the plunge, then we’d pretty much never get anywhere.

Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

We need our schools – and our teachers – to spur more courage, not dampen it.

In previous years it used to be a blast, a milestone, a noteworthy event of celebratory proportions. Case in point here. And here.

But today, I feel blissfully unexcited. In fact, if I had it my way, i’ll be spending today pretty much like any other day – albeit more relaxed and with a lot space for geeking out.

Is this mindset a product of age? Is it the fact that at 32, i’m now officially outside the 31 days of the calendar zone? Have I made peace with the simple everyday-ness of life, and decided that my birthday will pretty much be in tune?

It’s actually the contrary.

It sounds bullshit-corny but it’s God’s-honest-truth – every day I live now feels special.

I wake up every day literally excited at (pretty much) everything I do — everything i’m into now is by my own choice. And when you get to choose, why not choose your passions? If you ask me, that’s hard-earned freedom at work right there – simply because I’m pursuing my life’s work

I work with the most awesome people in the world. Absolutely, positively, no doubt about it. In fact, calling it “working with” might not be that accurate. They’re more like partners-in-purpose, going for a common mission. And lest you think these are serious missionaries, quite the contrary. They’re downright crazy-fun.

I spend a lot of time on my intellectual hobbies and passions. Now the spectrum of this is embarassingly wide. But that’s pretty-much a wide-open playground I’m in.

I get to have a lot of quality time with family and loved ones. Okay, especially loved one. Who can argue with that?

How do I even begin to describe a situation wherein the lines between work, play, life, and meaning have all but happily blurred?

—

Today’s my birthday, and it should be special. But why should it be when every day already is?

Maybe I’ll try to make it just a wee-bit extra-special then.

Hmmmmmhh. Maybe I’ll drop by Wham! later and have an extremely unhealthy meal :p

So I finally did it. I finally resigned.

I’m about to leave the safe confines of the corporate world and venture into the great unknown. Let go of my stable paycheck and turn my back on a career that’s as tempting as tempting can be.

There’s been a lot of talk and speculation about my resigning, so I guess I owe it to everyone to set the record straight. What really happened, what’s going on, what I’m really up to.

In Hold ‘em Poker, if you want to win big, at some point you’ll have to bet big. If you have absolute certainty in your hand, and your gut just tells you that this pot is yours to take, you go all in – bet the farm, plunk in all your chips, no regrets – win or lose. I’m there. I’m at that point where I can finally say “All In!”

You see, I’m part of this community called Life’s Directions. And, as the name implies, it’s all about people finding out what they to do with their lives, and then hopefully going ahead and doing it. If I truly wanted to “eat our own dog food”, i.e. walk the talk — then I have no choice but to follow what I’ve discerned as my own Life’s Direction.

And when you come to the realization that what you’re doing now isn’t going to take you where you want to go, then it’s time to change the course as soon as possible. Which in my case, means resigning from the corporate life.

When I turned 27 last September 2004 I remember writing “What to do with this gift called life? It’s a question 1. Few ever ask, 2. Fewer can honestly answer, and 3. Even fewer still who can truthfully say that they actually got up and did something about it. I’d like to believe I belong to the second group. But I’m trying as damn hard as I can to fall into the third.”

Fast-forward one-and-a-half years later, I’m finally jumping onto the third category. All in.

—

If you believe in something so strongly it practically resonates with your gut, you owe it to yourself to go for it. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, calls this his “regret-minimization framework”. Armed with nothing less than an idea and the colossal opportunity which was the Internet, he left his job and went for it. He founded Amazon.

Now, I’m not out to start a multi-billion-dollar company; But like him, I’m just out to pursue my dreams.

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dust recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”
- T.E. Lawrence

I’ve realized that my long-term vision is to help in my own small way to serve our country. This is something that I have been actually doing self-study into these past few months. What became a topic of interest has become a passion. It has crystallized in me that the best way for me to contribute to the country is by directly creating jobs, as an entrepreneur.

As such, I’ve decided that for the decades of my life to come, I will be focusing on three areas that I feel will have whatever small ripple I wish to make :

1. Export services / outsourcing – in my simple understanding, if we just rely on businesses that make money circulate within the country, then our country will not develop as fast as it needs to. Thus, I dream of serving foreign markets.

2. Education – there is really a strong need to build skills of Filipino people in order to prepare them more and more for a globalized world. But there should also be more and more a movement to higher-value skills. If one looks at the spectrum of skills now, we’re providing the brunt, low-value work. We can definitely be more world-class. In the future, I dream of having my own school.

3. Empowerment of the poor – our country still has one of the highest incidences of poverty. From a business point-of-view, they’re a huge market, the so-called “bottom-of-the-pyramid”. From a human being’s point-of-view, we just have to help. Areas in the future I want to enter here are related to microfinancing and skills-building.

In a line, I just want to build skills for Filipinos in order for them to compete in a globalized world. Put simply, my burning platform is to create jobs.

Now, this is something I’m not going to achieve overnight, maybe not even in the next several years, if ever at all. The more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know. But the good thing is that this cause will probably keep me preoccupied for years and years to come. It’s a whole life’s work.

Now, I believe in thinking big, but starting small. Baby steps towards a grand vision. So in the next few months, I’ll just be focusing on three things : 1. Setting up a small business aligned to #1/2, 2. Volunteer Work, and 3. Self-education/self-training.

On # 3, you see, part of being in Life’s Directions is also a sense of self-awareness through discernment. Strengths and weaknesses, the whole shebang. I’ve looked at stuff I’m not good at, stuff I still need to learn, and these are the things I’ve put on my tasklist.

Some stuff that’s there :

- Discover and get guidance from mentors
- Learn to sell, as in the Electrolux knock-on-your door variety. Be a part-time sales agent.
- Teach an elective part-time
- Travel to other countries
- Network like crazy

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But lest you think that passion is all it takes to go for it, I caution thee my friend. This is something I’ve studied and prepared for with absolute detail. Passion gets you to leap, but it’s careful and dutiful planning which will give you the confidence to enter into execution phase.

I definitely don’t have a romanticized notion of what I’m about to embark on. No dreams that it will be an easy life, nor safe from any failures of any sort. In fact, years down the line this could very well be the stupidest decision I ever made. But I believe in it strongly enough that maybe looking stupid will be well worth it. As I said in my resignation letter, it’s a cause worth going hungry for.

Let’s revisit the practicalities. I’ve analyzed my financial position and computed my budget for the next two years. With a much recalibrated lifestyle, I’ll probably make do assuming I don’t make any money (talk about worst-case scenario). I’m working with people who I believe are very good partners and essentially want the same thing. I’ve psychologically prepared myself to fail and learn, fail and learn, until I get it right. I’m still relatively young and I’m not feeding anyone. I can still afford to make mistakes.

This hand feels good, and if I lose, I can still play a few more rounds.

All in! Why not?

Today I just turned 27. Actually, it sounds like such a good age to be in. It doesn’t sound as roundishly old as, say, 28. But then again, it’s not as not-quite-there-yet as 26.

Personally, it’s an age I never imagined I would be in – especially way back when things were much, much simpler – back when all I concerned myself with were cramming for long tests, getting high over U2 songs, skipping lunch to save money for my car audio system, and hanging out and yet hanging out again with friends. When things that I deemed then to be absolutely complex were actually just part and parcel of this lifestage they call `growing up’.

So now that I’m here, what does it feel like? How is it like to be at this yet-again juncture in my life? Am I the person that I imagined I would be?

Push the rewind button on the past 26 years, and there’s just so much to ponder and reminisce on – like seeing a full-line buffet where you don’t even know where to start picking and nibbling, weary that you won’t have enough of the good stuff to put onto your plate. My family upbringing, my friends and relationships, and 16 full years of Jesuit education have of course played such a great and lasting imprint-slash-influence on who and what I am. And of course, my work and work environment have definitely shaped me – arguably, even hardened me. But if you’re a friend, then I guess you’d know that my most recent experiences has been the most transformative – as if everything in my history before that just bled into these past two years, when I woke up and discovered this wonderful gift called life.

Life. If we had the time to talk about it, we’d probably need the rest of our … well, lives. People argue that we tend to overanalyze it, overcomplicate it – all understandably with good reason of course. After all, how can it not be complicated? How can it not be confusing when it’s often filled with so many questions that zip and zang at you from all the oddest places, like potholes from a government-implemented highway project six months after the ribbon-cutting?

Questions, turning points, and decisions. Critical points when the roads turn twisted and bending; when decisions become neither black nor white – just different shades of grey; when life itself seems to have transformed into an amalgam of past, present, and future all rolled into the ever-fleeting now-ness of now. Ahhh, life questions.

What to do with this gift called life? It’s a question 1. few ever ask, 2. fewer can honestly answer, and 3. even fewer still who can truthfully say that they actually got up and did something about it. I’d like to believe I belong to the second group. But I’m trying as damn hard as I can to get myself into the third.

Sometimes the answers come unconsciously from within. I was talking to a friend who had a “relationship” concern. She was asking for advice, and the answer I gave surprised even me. I told her to go “kung saan ka talagang masaya” – to go where you will be truly happy. It’s not rocket science to know that everybody wants to be happy. But putting that qualifier truly radically changes the perspective. Just think about it – how many people do you know have actually found true happiness, as opposed to just … (ho-hum, adjective-less) happiness? Now, doesn’t that make things a little bit more interesting? After all, true happiness – the kind that makes you wake up every morning ready to jump out of bed – it’s absolutely as elusive as absolutely elusive can get.

It’s actually a question worth spending so much of your time and energy on – if only because discovering true happiness is intrinsically linked to the question of “what do I do with my life?”. It’s sort of like a McDo Value meal wherein you’ve got the burger the fries the drink all in one neat unbundable package, and absolutely rightfully so because having them all together just makes so much damn sense. So much damn sense that it riddles me so much why people don’t give enough of themselves searching for it.

What makes me truly happy?

Simple joys and experiences. The enveloping embrace of waves upon water when I hit the beach. Singing out loudly in my car while hopelessly stuck in yet another traffic jam. The transportative magic of watching movies. Practical jokes that work – without backfiring (hehehe!). Killer hands during poker games. Strawberry ice cream laced with good conversation. Listening to and making music that just inexplicably connects. Living life, and loving every minute of it.

Meaningful relationships – the kind that great movie scripts are made of. Family. Friends. Mentors. People who touched my life and people whose lives I’ve hopefully touched. People I love.

A sense of meaning, of purpose. The idea that I’m actually living for something greater than me. Remembering man’s oft-forgotten truth : that this life is not ours, it’s just borrowed. And that we don’t pay the rent on our lives with cash or bonds or hard assets, we can only pay back with love.

Love, love, love. It always – no matter how hard we try to negotiate around it – boils down to Love. And I’m not referring to the Mills & Boon or Harlequin Romance variety, the off-the-shelf corny kind of love. I’m talking about love in the broader sense – love as passion, love as energy, love as heart, and love as spirit. (The other kind of love a.k.a. soulmate a.k.a. lifepartner a.k.a. passionate other – still remains to be elusive, hehehe [Mark to God : hint, hint …])

But if life = happiness = love, then where do i go from here?

This morning I had breakfast with a really good friend. And one question kept ringing in my head in between slices of omelette and sausages – In this life, How much more love can I give? How much more?

There are days i feel like there’s a sun inside of me waiting to explode, and today is one of those days. When there’s so much of me and in me that wants to expand, to reach out, to literally burst. I feel like I’m at the cusp of something, as if the best years of my life are still ahead of me. I’m convinced that I’m at 20% of where I want to be, and it’s the going through the other 80% that stokes so much the fire in me.

And so as i turn 27, as I ponder my life and try to discover what makes me truly happy, I end up with a catchphrase, a mindset, a paradigm : I will love to live, and live to love.

And so, my friend, let’s be Nike and just do it. Dream. Work. Live. Laugh. Be stupid. Play. Sing. Dance. Feel. Draw. Touch. Sense. Breathe. Listen. Talk. Whisper. Hug. Kiss. Call. Jump. Fly. Experience. Give give give, and love love love as much as you possibly, possibly can. Imagine every day as your last – and then just give it all you’ve got. After all, when all is said is done, there will only be two questions asked of your life : How much love are you capable of? And just how much, just how much love did you give?