Being independent from other people brings so much fulfillment to me. I live in a city away from my parents, away from family, away from people whom I can depend on. I pay my own rent and internet bills, buy my own meals, explore on my own. Well of course, sometimes I ask for an extra cash from d-a-d-d-y (*chuckles) when i have nothing left.
My father told me to save from my salary, God knows how much I tried to do that. But then I think I just got so used to being provided with money weekly for my allowance when I was a student. I never saved anything at all. Now I'm almost broke, but still surviving.
Then I watched Ugly Betty again. It really opens up my mind. It gives me so much lesson that now, I've been thinking about the money I spent on things that were not really important. Like splurging on clothes and shoes whenever I get my paycheck. I usually buy at the ukay but I really SPLURGE. I spend too much than I can afford. And then I think of how many of those clothes didn't really look good on me when it's time to use them already. How many of them just end up being on my closet for a very long time then to anyone else who looks better with those clothes on them. How many of those shoes just end up being so dusty in my shoe cabinet until they finally wear off even if I only used each of them once.
I become so generous whenever I have a lot of money in my pocket. I treat friends to dinner or bars just so I could prove to them that, "Hey! I'm so young yet I have a lot of my OWN money to spend!" when in fact, the next day, I would end up eating noodles because I would need to be careful with spending for the next couple of days or so.
I have been receiving paychecks for more than a year now but my bank account says 131.72.
Sometimes we enjoy being independent so much that we don't care anymore. We don't care how we utilize (if we really do so) our independence, we don't care what we do because WE ARE ALREADY INDEPENDENT. But being independent doesn't just mean freedom to do whatever we want to do. It's more like discovering and learning more.
Independence teaches us how to handle our lives so that we become ready when we have to live alone without our parents to run to when we run out of cash or when we have huge problems. It should make us more responsible when making decisions, from deciding which things are really important to spend money on, to realizing that it's not really easy to live by yourself.
Experience is a really good teacher. Most people don't understand things until they are in that situation. My experiences while living in the city independently taught me a whole lot of new things. Starting with saving money, then doing my own laundry, cooking meals for myself, budgeting my money so that I could pay the bills.
It's never been easy to be on your own most specially if you grew up with pampering from your parents. But in one way or another, you need to take more responsibility so that it would be less of a shock for you when the time comes that you have to stand on your own.
