An Unnecessary Prelude

Of all job-interview questions, the hardest for me is, “Can you tell me about yourself?” This question is deceptive—it appears as an easy question yet each time I try to think of a decent and honest answer, I am lost for words. It gets me confused because, it seems like I do not know me. Who am I really? Nonetheless, for the sake of today’s goal blog, I will try my very best to give a fair and truthful account of who I am—or who I think I am (we all have perceptions of ourselves, right?) haha.

Howdy! I am Cherry Jara, 23 years of age and friends call me Chee/Chi (it depends on how long you would want to prolong the ‘ee’). I am a Certified Public Accountant by profession (and loving it) but my first love was photography, second is writing and third, reading as my all-time love. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cultivate this love I have from my interests because I was being practical and my self-made reasons kind of justified it.

Had I regretted not pursuing or at least taking time to develop them? Of course, I did, a long while has passed and yet I still am on the same level. But then again, it was a choice I had to make. It was my choice. However, choosing to become a licensed professional is not an easy path as well (read: My #RoadToCPA). Thus, I will have to let bygones be bygones with regards my regrets and me. Lucky thing, we are never too late when it comes to hounding dreams and goals—hence, the core reason for this blog. This time, hopefully, I’ll make it up to myself.

I’d like to think that I’m an adventurous traveller—but on second thought, nope. I get to see people on social media crossing out their bucket lists for escapades ventured, and then I look at my life and realize I haven’t travelled enough. I have gone on trips but it is always due to work. Yet, is not life an adventure? It is. Thus, we all are travellers—I am a traveller, at least metaphorically.

On a serious note, travelling is one of my secret ambitions. I mean, who doesn’t want to go on a voyage and disentangle the mysteries of life—diversity of people, culture, races, religion, language and so on? Who doesn’t want to feed thy eyes and soul with all the wonders every corner of the world has been showing off? Who wants to stay in the same bloke until their time is up? No one, I suppose. However, the completion of this ambition, I believe, is on the works.

Since, wandering is still a work in progress, I’m focusing on reading all kinds of stuff: be it novels, business and finance, articles of any genre, blogs and magazines, etc. to compensate my cravings for curiosities. Only that, my enthusiasm for reading narrowed. Perhaps my system has long been through over just getting to know things by words and not really diving in to the experience. There is a huge difference, you see. One author in the finance field called it, “analysis paralysis”—it is attaining or acquiring knowledge/information but not having the guts to use it. It is like a huge amount of potential energy that was never converted into kinetic energy—practically, the story of my life, briefly.

I am not certain as to where this self-introduction is headed (peace); all I know is that I still am blabbering about a huge of part of my life in here that I don’t get to squeeze out well in my daily existence. My reality is not as electrifying as the majority twenty-something people have in the world, most of the times it is dull. I may have made it dull, unintentionally, because I looked at life then as an event that must be dwelled seriously for 85% of the days I had on earth. Maybe, it has something to do with my upbringing, my developed personalities and judgments, influences, incidents of scarcity, ad infinitum that I forgot about the essence of living. I may have unconsciously taken out the pleasure in life that I also deserve to live.

Mercifully, all my conventional beliefs and perspectives are slowly reversing, as I grow better day by day. It is as if my reawakening from a deep slumber. The world seemed young and new to me that every circumstance—even the pettiest of things, is a fresh learning experience. Yet, I am glad that I still have a long way to go and have a lot to learn. Perchance, this is the part of my tale where I am ready to tackle life on a different, out of my comfort zone level, and this blog will be its witness.

Once again, I am Cherry, a student of the world.