My name is John Ray Omboy Matugas, 23 years of age, a structural steel engineer working for about a year and a quarter now and this will be my first blog post.

I was born in Cebu City, Philippines and am currently residing in Talisay City with my extended family of 8 (well.. 10, because of our two lovable canines). I completed my elementary education at our local public school, Mohon Elementary and my higher education at a Roman Catholic school run by the Augustinian Sisters of Divine Love, Divino Amore Academy. I attained my bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at Cebu Institute of Technology – University (CIT-U), passed the board exam and now am living out my dream of being a structural engineer.

Thoughts Takes and Tunes will be my “freedom” wall.

As a person who has lived the past 2 decades as a general “pleaser”. I’ve always had opinions, I’ve always had my takes on things but I never got to air them out because either I was afraid to offend anyone or I just didn’t want to be wrong. I hate it when people are against me. I become uneasy. It puts my heart in disarray, it messes up my mind. I am just not at peace. I’ve always lived a life that avoided conflict as much as I can. I’ve lived under a philosophy that, as long as no one hates me, I’ll be happy.

But I’ve realized, I was wrong.

The price of making everyone like me was heavy. I’ve allowed people to trample my personal space. I’d even say I became a sellout at times – on ideas, on takes, on my likes, dislikes. I realized that I was forming a facade for everyone to like me. Sure, it worked. I’ve got tons of friends, like hundreds of genuine friends. But what struck me was how many were left when the cards are down and the bets were off. I missed the fact that, you actually need conflict to strengthen the bonds you have like how fire is used to test gold and like how immense seismic pressure form diamonds. Good things, no.. The best things in life emerge from conflict.

To be fair, this pleasing philosophy has got me wonderful opportunities. Opportunities that never would I have expected to come to me and many genuine experiences of joy because of being a kid who tried everything in his power to keep the folks around him happy – at the expense of himself.

You see, the problem of being a pleaser? You start to become too good to be true. Even for yourself.

You realize that, some of the things that you actually say to people are straight up lies. Lies that you say to make them feel good. You start to sugarcoat a lot of what you say because you can’t afford to have someone think ill of you. You undergo this slow descent into someone that is only best described as “fake”. The hardest part is when you know what you’re saying is genuine, but it comes off fake because of how you generally treat people, that is.. through a bucket full of sugar.

I’m done playing that part.

I’ve had just about enough. I’ve made a pact with myself that I was gonna change.
And this is blog here is a step, a means to an end that ultimately would benefit myself – to grow into someone that knows what true happiness is, pursue it and live it.

This freedom wall will contain my raw ideas/thoughts and takes on issues and or other ideas that I hear. The goal of this blog is basically, expression. I don’t see it yet, but if even just a person or two come across this blog and somehow helps him/her with whatever it is that he/she is going through?

That would make me genuinely happy.

I did not sell out. I was honest. I knew I raised a few eyebrows because regardless if you are right or wrong, what you say matters to the right people.

It would mean that I was right in realizing that I was wrong.

That I don’t need to try and please everyone, each and every time. Conflict/arguments are normal, but should be done in the spirit of progress and progress alone. That by prioritizing myself, I am actually benefiting everyone else.

Whether this ends up like the dream scenario above or it just becomes another grain of sand on a long and vast seashore of ideas on the internet? I wouldn’t really care. At least, I’d rather try to make this grain of sand in the best-est quality it can be.

Having said all that…

Welcome to my blog!

I’ve currently set myself to write up a post once a week, every Saturday. I’ll increase or decrease my frequency depending on how it goes.

Hope you find something helpful ’round here. See you around!

Chugs 5/3/20