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Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Depression Strikes Again (But Happiness Is A Choice)
I am probably one of the worst people to talk to when it comes to handle depression. Perhaps because I have built a mantra of not trying to be bitter for things that I cannot change.
I am not one who you can rely on to for a long-lasting relationship. Ever since I had my heart broken about 10 years ago (geez, I'm old), I have learned how to handle relationships casually. I try not to fall too hard. My 4-year-long heartbreak definitely affected the way I view relationships. It's like that oft-retweeted quote about how someone used to be so sweet and warm could turn into someone so cold and distant.
I am not that distant but I have had my share of affairs perhaps because I am not as committed as I originally intended to be. In fact nothing much has changed. Much of the attitude that I have imposed on life just came out naturally. I appear cold and distant because I am almost terrified of human interaction. I appear like I hold on too much to myself because I really hold on too much to myself. I am not suplada though contrary to what I have often been told. Perhaps I am not that comfy about opening up. It even reflected with the way I talk. Every time I talk to friends, I always need to repeat myself because I don't open my mouth wide enough to be heard and understood.
My reputation at school can be referred to as okay. In fact, I eventually realized that I am feared not because I am a bully but because I am weird. Too weird to be taken seriously as an object of affection. I am one of those girls that boys don't talk to because they sensed that my suplada aura is not a front or a sign to challenge boys to woo me. It's not a facade. I am one of the girls viewed as too suplada to be taken in for a joke.
It wasn't my intention to be viewed that way. I preferred to think that while I don't mind being your friend, romantic intentions are not welcome either. People are nice to me as I am to nice but never too nice to one another that some agendas are questioned.
No wonder I fell hard in love when I was 17 years old. Someone took the extra mile to be nice to me and I mistook it for love. Maybe because I liked him too and never thought that he's just being nice.
Ever since I realized that he is nice to me simply because he is nice to everyone else (and it's my friend that ended up as his girlfriend). I became extra careful of anyone being extra nice to me.
I often kept my guard up and slightly worsened my lisp. There are even instances where I refused to talk. It reached a point that I only talk to a guy if I liked him and read the signals wrong. I had misplaced aggression just because of the fear that I'd grow old alone and inexperienced. It was a distorted view on life as a person. The misplaced aggression that I am referring to is about how I handle my feelings towards men that I liked. And I think I got them traumatized too. Thank God that they have forgiven me now. (They know who they are if ever they came across this blog)
My most recent relationship proved that I still am capable of falling hard for a man. And I consider that my most traumatizing relationship as of yet. Sorry if I have to stop here now about that.
I just don't learn. I just don't learn. I keep falling perhaps because falling in love is fun and getting hurt is the risk of doing so. It's also a mantra that I believe in life.
I believe in life (that even if I haven't gotten rid totally of my depression yet) that in whatever that you do, living life in a way that makes you happy is worth living. I still believe that life is an adventure and getting out of your comfort zone is still worth the obstacle, hatred and pain that you go through in your pursuit of happiness. I've done a lot of stupid decisions in life, mostly when it comes to my lovelife but I have no regrets. In fact, I hate regrets. At the same time, I have decided to try to change myself and improve my appearance, the way I dress and the way I handle attention given to me. I am not an attention whore (contrary to how you perceive me if you read my Twitter timeline). I am very comfortable to blend in the crowd and be a wallflower. But I make it a point to be a friend - someone who doesn't judge you nor tell you what to do until you ask me to. I will never be perfect but I do what I can to be a better person.
Have I become an outgoing person now? Maybe, I do what I can to be myself and not be some KSP or ill-dressed person. Kumbaga, natuto na ako makiramdam. It works that way most of the time. I don't have regrets. I still don't.
I still gets into bouts with depression, just like now. I was raised in a culture where psychiatrists are not exactly the persons to go to when you're getting depressed or whenever you're sad and can't put a reason to it. While I don't believe that people can't be sad without a reason, some people still get sad becasue it's the mindset that they have come to live with. It's like some comfort zone that comes with the elephant in the room. It's weird but there are some things in life we keep on doing without the need to be logical simply because it makes us happy. Actually being happy itself has reached a point of being inexplainable. You just feel it whenever it strikes you.
Do I need a reason to be depressed? No. That's why I chose to be happy whenever the opportunity strikes. It usually comes when you least expect it.
I am not one who you can rely on to for a long-lasting relationship. Ever since I had my heart broken about 10 years ago (geez, I'm old), I have learned how to handle relationships casually. I try not to fall too hard. My 4-year-long heartbreak definitely affected the way I view relationships. It's like that oft-retweeted quote about how someone used to be so sweet and warm could turn into someone so cold and distant.
I am not that distant but I have had my share of affairs perhaps because I am not as committed as I originally intended to be. In fact nothing much has changed. Much of the attitude that I have imposed on life just came out naturally. I appear cold and distant because I am almost terrified of human interaction. I appear like I hold on too much to myself because I really hold on too much to myself. I am not suplada though contrary to what I have often been told. Perhaps I am not that comfy about opening up. It even reflected with the way I talk. Every time I talk to friends, I always need to repeat myself because I don't open my mouth wide enough to be heard and understood.
My reputation at school can be referred to as okay. In fact, I eventually realized that I am feared not because I am a bully but because I am weird. Too weird to be taken seriously as an object of affection. I am one of those girls that boys don't talk to because they sensed that my suplada aura is not a front or a sign to challenge boys to woo me. It's not a facade. I am one of the girls viewed as too suplada to be taken in for a joke.
It wasn't my intention to be viewed that way. I preferred to think that while I don't mind being your friend, romantic intentions are not welcome either. People are nice to me as I am to nice but never too nice to one another that some agendas are questioned.
No wonder I fell hard in love when I was 17 years old. Someone took the extra mile to be nice to me and I mistook it for love. Maybe because I liked him too and never thought that he's just being nice.
Ever since I realized that he is nice to me simply because he is nice to everyone else (and it's my friend that ended up as his girlfriend). I became extra careful of anyone being extra nice to me.
I often kept my guard up and slightly worsened my lisp. There are even instances where I refused to talk. It reached a point that I only talk to a guy if I liked him and read the signals wrong. I had misplaced aggression just because of the fear that I'd grow old alone and inexperienced. It was a distorted view on life as a person. The misplaced aggression that I am referring to is about how I handle my feelings towards men that I liked. And I think I got them traumatized too. Thank God that they have forgiven me now. (They know who they are if ever they came across this blog)
My most recent relationship proved that I still am capable of falling hard for a man. And I consider that my most traumatizing relationship as of yet. Sorry if I have to stop here now about that.
I just don't learn. I just don't learn. I keep falling perhaps because falling in love is fun and getting hurt is the risk of doing so. It's also a mantra that I believe in life.
I believe in life (that even if I haven't gotten rid totally of my depression yet) that in whatever that you do, living life in a way that makes you happy is worth living. I still believe that life is an adventure and getting out of your comfort zone is still worth the obstacle, hatred and pain that you go through in your pursuit of happiness. I've done a lot of stupid decisions in life, mostly when it comes to my lovelife but I have no regrets. In fact, I hate regrets. At the same time, I have decided to try to change myself and improve my appearance, the way I dress and the way I handle attention given to me. I am not an attention whore (contrary to how you perceive me if you read my Twitter timeline). I am very comfortable to blend in the crowd and be a wallflower. But I make it a point to be a friend - someone who doesn't judge you nor tell you what to do until you ask me to. I will never be perfect but I do what I can to be a better person.
Have I become an outgoing person now? Maybe, I do what I can to be myself and not be some KSP or ill-dressed person. Kumbaga, natuto na ako makiramdam. It works that way most of the time. I don't have regrets. I still don't.
I still gets into bouts with depression, just like now. I was raised in a culture where psychiatrists are not exactly the persons to go to when you're getting depressed or whenever you're sad and can't put a reason to it. While I don't believe that people can't be sad without a reason, some people still get sad becasue it's the mindset that they have come to live with. It's like some comfort zone that comes with the elephant in the room. It's weird but there are some things in life we keep on doing without the need to be logical simply because it makes us happy. Actually being happy itself has reached a point of being inexplainable. You just feel it whenever it strikes you.
Do I need a reason to be depressed? No. That's why I chose to be happy whenever the opportunity strikes. It usually comes when you least expect it.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Content Marketing: How Can It Help You?
Advertising is one thing. Marketing is selling based on demand i.e. coming up with a product that the target market can use.
I just had a discussion today with a person inquiring about a product I was plugging; a link-building service I use for the sake of ranking better on the search engines in the same way that it did for the predecessors in that program. It helped a lot that I get sensible questions based on written data and tight-fitting the products that you offer based on market demand. It's easier to endorse something based on the features but the tough questions set in especially when your intended market is trying to understand how can your product help them.
That's why you need to be very, very careful of the things that you write on your blog since you're not simply trying to create a first impression on the products that you offer - you're also trying to help by trying to fit the product into the needs of the market a.k.a. bloggers like you.
What are usually the primary concerns that bloggers have? Blog hits, backup links, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine results page (SERP) and other statistical data that they can check if you can back up the talk. Most of the time, it's easier to come up with a page or a blog entry singing the praises of your product while oblivious to the needs of the market. Sounds awkward, isn't it?
This is why interaction with inquiries is very important in trying to know their concerns. You don't just plug a product and stop right there. If you've been through a sales program before, you'd understand that there will always be rebuttals to your sales pitch. If you ARE the market, you would have various inquiries, concerns, complaints, hesitations and the like before pushing through with the purchase. Question: are you doing something about it?
I just had a discussion today with a person inquiring about a product I was plugging; a link-building service I use for the sake of ranking better on the search engines in the same way that it did for the predecessors in that program. It helped a lot that I get sensible questions based on written data and tight-fitting the products that you offer based on market demand. It's easier to endorse something based on the features but the tough questions set in especially when your intended market is trying to understand how can your product help them.
That's why you need to be very, very careful of the things that you write on your blog since you're not simply trying to create a first impression on the products that you offer - you're also trying to help by trying to fit the product into the needs of the market a.k.a. bloggers like you.
What are usually the primary concerns that bloggers have? Blog hits, backup links, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine results page (SERP) and other statistical data that they can check if you can back up the talk. Most of the time, it's easier to come up with a page or a blog entry singing the praises of your product while oblivious to the needs of the market. Sounds awkward, isn't it?
This is why interaction with inquiries is very important in trying to know their concerns. You don't just plug a product and stop right there. If you've been through a sales program before, you'd understand that there will always be rebuttals to your sales pitch. If you ARE the market, you would have various inquiries, concerns, complaints, hesitations and the like before pushing through with the purchase. Question: are you doing something about it?
Make sure that you have follow up blog posts or videos in relation to some concerns raised. I admit being guilty of getting caught flat-footed during my days as a call-center agent when it comes to pitching products and catering to concerns regarding the product offered. In the case of content marketing online, time limits and the need to follow a format serve as occasional roadblocks when a topic discussed in a blog post end up not getting mentioned. Try to make up for lost time and ensure that the concerns are catered to accordingly.
Just avoid sounding like a hardsell. Everyone hates that. It also causes some lies spun in the process.
When marketing a product is based on listening to your market, you get better ideas at how to make your product more useful instead of trying to come up with better features and more literary fluff just to make your product appealing on paper. The best marketers are the ones that satisfied the target market best.
Would you like to participate in some brainstorming sessions with me online? My links are below for you to click and follow. See you around.
http://www.twitter.com/jingdalagan
http://ww.facebook.com/purplethundersolutions
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