After six months of writing weekly posts for Noy Sauce, I learned that writing content does not always have to include a “special breakthrough” that’s completely different from other posts.
This realization reminded me when I met with my friend for lunch a couple of months ago. He asked what’s been new lately. After telling him what’s new, he later asked again what’s new. I told him that I’ve been working on mastery – understanding the intricacies in different areas in my life, such as career, relationships, faith, and most importantly, self-mastery.
Self-mastery is a journey towards continuous improvement, having a goal and plan that you are moving towards and playing the long game.
Without self-mastery, we will find it harder to become that person worthy of mastering different crafts.
Finding the right partner is hard, mastering the relationship is harder.
Finding the right job is hard, mastering the craft and giving consistent effort is harder.
Getting into proper physical shape is hard, mastering the lifestyle is harder.
Learning how to pray the rosary is hard, mastering a consistent prayer life is harder.
The past few weeks have been rough, as I had been filling others’ cups at the expense of my own, figuratively. This led to feelings of burnout and being overwhelmed, while lacking the same level of focus as I usually do. I did not have “me-time” to take a break on weekends and re-charge from commitments at work, my family, and in my relationship.
Every month, I go to confession. While an overlooked and often dismissed Sacrament of the Catholic faith, I find confession to be a sacred form of psychiatric help.
Growing up, my father jokingly asked me once in a while, “Noy, why are you confessing your sins to a priest? You can always tell me your sins!” 😂😂😂
When my family had dinner a few years ago, my uncle told us stories how he ripped people off while working in retail as a salesman. He quit working in retail because he felt bad about ripping people off. When I asked him if he went to confession so that he won’t feel as bad, he replied, “Confession? What’s that? Isn’t that a song by Usher?” 🤣🤣🤣
When I went to confession this past weekend and shared with the priest my sins and struggles, I felt a big burden being lifted off my shoulders. My problems did not magically go away, but I found a calmness that everything will be fine as long as I take consistent action, and pray, hope, and don’t worry.
While praying in church for my penance, I was reminded that there is still work needed to master the crafts of my career as a software engineer, my relationship as the best boyfriend for my girlfriend, and my family as the best son for my mother.
Skills that I had worked over the years, such as patience and humility, needed further honing. And my current trials offer opportunities to be more patient and humbler.
One important quote in personal development teaches: “A black belt in martial arts is a white belt who has mastered the fundamentals.”
The solution to be more patient and humbler is to take a step back, take a deep breath, and move on. I haven’t taken my advice over the past month that it led to easily getting annoyed and thinking I can figure out life’s problems myself. And sometimes we need to experience these trials in our journeys towards mastery to remind ourselves how we became worthy of these crafts in the first place and that we’ll be just fine.
When I look back at the journey that helped me be worthy of these crafts in the first place, I smile.
“Oh shit! It was just three years ago that I rented a cheap Nissan Sentra when I didn’t have a full-time job and didn’t have a car of my own for almost a year and a half. Yet, I made a way to drive three hours from home for a four-day trip to San Diego for a weekend men’s retreat! It’s crazy how that weekend became a defining moment in Actually Turning Pro.
On one of those days, I walked 30 minutes 🚶♂️🕜 and ate fish tacos 🐟🌮 near the San Diego Bay with someone whom I met in the retreat the day before. We biked 🚴♀️ back to the seminar because we were running late after having lunch. That time was so fucking liberating, because I had nothing to lose!”
“Now, I got promoted in my current job, have an awesome relationship with my girlfriend, and am spending time with my mother. None of the crafts I’m working on are perfect by any means, but what else will I be doing?! Sit down on my computer and play video games all day? This is life and there are people waiting for me to step up!”
When we are in the middle of our trials, it is easy to raise our hands and give up. Yet, this is our moment to rise because many people will quit in our situation!
Failure in life is not making the most mistakes, but not realizing our true potential because we gave up instead of rising up.
This experience over the past month also reminded me that our challenges in life is the dream itself. If we cannot be happy now, how can we be happy once we achieve the goals and dreams that we have set?
Many of us wanted to be Pokémon Masters growing up. Why not be Masters of our crafts and our lives?
Take a step back, take a deep breath to appreciate how far you have come (and perhaps go to Confession), and move on. You got this 👌
P.S. – Speaking of confession, I want to share this hilarious clip from WWE from back in the day. 😅