Transcript:
Hi everyone, welcome back to another podcast. My name is Glennavelle Manarang. To those of you who are here for the very first time, welcome to Soulish Femme. I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. So, this past few days had been interesting. Not only I have celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. My husband, my son and I decided to attend an 18th birthday celebration. My husband’s cousin or I don’t even know. It’s kind of second cousin or whatever. I have stopped counting.
So 18th year wedding anniversary is different from it seems like it was an 18th year anniversary wedding because it was glamorous. It was very fashionable. So I think every culture has its way of celebrating in the in this country sweet 16. I think in Mexico it’s quinceanara or 15 years old. In the Philippines we call it 18 years old.
Every Story is Different
Not everybody has this luxury of trying to have this life of glamour and it’s sad to think that at the 18 years old, and I don’t want to cry. But it just made me realize that some kids do not realize how privileged and blessed they are to be given the opportunity and to be given this much.
Maybe it’s an award or it is kind of like a reward because your parents actually took the time to book that banquet hall for you and spend so much money on your birthday. That’s how much they show their love for you.
This is why for many of us who never had that kind of luxury. It made me realize that maybe God was showing me a different pathway because he was building my character at that moment. And now I get the chance to harvest the fruit of the struggles I have struggled when I was in 18. When I was 18 years old I had this worst kind of relationship and I was in a survival mode. I was having so much meltdown. I had depression and it was a time when I actually thought to myself I had to grow up fast.
The lessons that I have learned growing up:
Not everybody of us had the luxury to be kids at that age and eighteen is still young. You think that eighteen is an adult. Actually, you’re still not an adult because you still are struggling to figure out what adulting is. So, I just want to talk to you about I wish I have learned this.
1. You cannot control other people’s opinion about yourself.
I have learned that when you’re eighteen, you’re too concerned about what people think of you, how you should live your life. Are you falling behind? What if I am not in the right path? Nobody really knows whether we’re on the right path or not.
Take Note: Nobody really knows whether five years from now we’re going to get married or we’re still going to be here or whatever life has throw at you. But it’s just part of life. Life has a funny way of teaching you the ups and downs and the ebbs and flows. It just made me tear up because I was happy watching it for the sake of celebrating other people’s birthday and to realize that gosh, a lot of girls really do not have that kind of luxury to have. To be able to understand that life is really precious. It is a gift that is given to you by God.
If you’re able to celebrate your birthday every year and you’re still here, I think God is still not done with you. It’s something that you have to really put that in your conscience and to put that in your mind that every single moment of your life that you wake up, God has still have in store for you. So do not waste your time away.
2. You Cannot Make Decision Based On Pressure
I also realized that at the age of 18, I was also getting out of my relationship. At the same time, I was still a child trying to figure out whether or not I would go back to school. I graduated from high school at the age of eighteen and I actually stopped going to college because I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t have any supervision and no parental guidance. My mom was in the Philippines. My dad was actually incompetent. He was not really a good dad as you know. We just don’t have a good relationship because I was sexually abused by him. So, it is something to do with my relationship with my parents that is just convoluted and I was still trying to. In the midst of trying to be a kid and being an adult at the same time. At the age of eighteen, you are still trying to figure out what in the world what would you like to do in life.
Different Jobs I Had
So there were three things that I would like to become. Of course, journalism was one of them. And number two, I wanted to get into Realtor at that moment, becoming a Real Estate agent or something like that. It was something to do with selling houses. And then thirdly, I decided not to go back to college until later on. So, I ended up getting a part-time job and I tried every jobs there was at the age of 18. I went to telemarketing. I went to work as a teller at the bank and finally I got this job from a mortgage company that I forgot the name of it.
It’s like an agency and you know doing the deeds and typing and how fast you can type and I was able to get into it and so I was about earning money not to say that I did not like to go to school that was after one year of taking a break from school after I graduated from high school that’s when I decided to just get a job so that I can support myself I’m the person who just want to earn money as much as I can because I was still trying to help my family back home in Philippines.
Mind you, at the age of eighteen, you were barely making money. The minimum wage that I was making was probably like 9.50 per hour. And then, of course, with the telemarketing, it’s like $7.50 plus commission. Every time you sell a Philadelphia Inquirer. I can tell you that in every experiences that I had in those little jobs because telemarketer, I did not last for at least probably less than a year that I was there. Telemarketer is a hard job. You have to call people. You have to deal with rude people.
They’re going to hang up on you and you just have to be pleasant smiling all the time. And I had to learn about customer service and what it feels like to be hang up and how people are going to just cut you off because they’re in the middle of dinner and you’re calling them and asking them if they are willing to sign up for Philadelphia Inquirer and buy whatever it is that you’re selling. And some are courteous and some will try to be friendly and sign up for you. But others, most people are not willing to do so.
And of course, teller is the same thing. You have to deal with rude customers and impatient customers. It was a small bank close to where I used to live back in Pennsylvania that I had to really understand people. Some are really impolite and not properly raised with respect. You just have to learn how to have a thick skin.
At the age of eighteen, I have learned about human behavior. I observe people’s behavior that some people are privileged and some people are just plain disrespectful. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a newbie or in the middle of being trained as a teller. They don’t care. The customers, they would say, “I’m always right.” And so, you must understand that if you think that you’re behind in life, you’re not behind in life.
If you think that your path is supposed to be somebody else’s pathway, you cannot compare your journey in life because you don’t really know the purpose of your journey.
I didn’t understand why I had to go through hardships at the age of 18. I don’t know why I had to endure pain and suffering. Now that I am 43 years old, I finally understood the purposes of it. It made me a lot stronger, wiser, resilient woman that I am today due to the fact that I had to go through those hardships. I was being in the furnaced of fire. God had to mold me, break me, create me, remake me, and just try so hard to squeeze every juices out of me because that’s exactly how God is going to purify your characteristic.
And we think that growing is supposed to be just easy, peasy, and no hardships. But I realize that when you don’t have hardships in life, if you’re not thrown into a circumstance or situation that is very challenging, you’re never going to grow mentally. You’re not going to grow emotionally. And you’re not going to be able to understand how human nature works.
The only reason why I understood people better now and how to place healthy boundaries is because I was constantly was exposed to different kinds of personalities. I can talk to you. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, blue, white, yellow, or purple. I can communicate with you not due to the fact of the color of your skin because I always try to understand people where they’re coming from.
That’s why no matter how old you are, young and old, I can talk to you because I’ve realized that talking to people is actually not that complicated. The only difference is that listening to them, understanding human psychology is one of the hardest thing that you can learn. And you cannot learn this from school.
Ways to Navigate
Of course, you can study about Psychology 101 and Childhood development because I did all of those courses when I was in college.
However, without experiencing and talking to people normally and dealing with rude customers, that’s exactly when you understood that some people, no matter how old they are, they are rude.
They are impolite. They are unpleasant to be around with. They’re entitled. I have actually seen them everywhere I went.
There were different forms of people that were rude, sarcastic, and condescending. They just don’t give a hoot whether they hurt your feelings or not.
My Background
So 18 years old for me was still a time for me to develop my brain. I came from the Philippines where usually Asian are quiet. We are very timid. We don’t speak up. We’re subservient. We don’t really voice our opinion because we don’t want to ruffle feathers. Right?
That’s how the stereotype of Asian people who were brought up. You’re not supposed to ruffle feathers. You’re not supposed to shake the status quo. You’re not supposed to be rude. So, when you are eighteen and you’re still trying to understand coming from a different culture and you come into this country, United States of America, you’re going to have a culture shock. I came here when I was 16 so, three years down the road, you’re still trying to understand the world that you’re in.
On top of that, you’re trying to navigate how to become a career woman at the age of eighteen and how are you supposed to navigate trying to become an adult. Then having to understand your culture because your culture that you grew up in is so different. It’s not the same as the one that you were brought up in the Philippines as you see people. You never heard about yelling, screaming or profanity language or yelling at you because they’re impatient for not getting what they wanted. Or you’re not fast enough to give the things that they need from you like their money.
Learn From People
So, you just have to understand that as you grow and as you observe people, it’s actually better that you become a student and learn from their mistakes that you don’t want to be those kind of toxic people and dysfunctional emotionally, I can say belligerent or dysfunctional that they cannot regulate their emotion. I really I really think that many children are going through depression in their teenage years because they had no parents. They had no parental guidance.
Nobody was guiding them like me. Nobody guided me. Nobody was trying to tell me that you’re on the right path. You’re doing the right thing and do not be afraid of taking a risk. I had to reparent myself. I had to become the parent that I didn’t have when I was eigthteen. Trying to figure out if I was my own mother, what would it be? What would it look like? If I was my own dad, how can I treat me better than my parents did? As I said, my mom was never there.
Breaking generational patterns start with us.
She was across the world. My dad was, of course, as I already told you, we didn’t have a good relationship. So, you really have to understand that when you’re eighteen and you have the same relationship as me, trying to figure out this woman as still in the midst between a girl and a woman. She’s still not fully developed as a woman. She’s still trying to navigate the world and what the world is look like.
So mind you, at the same time at the age of 18, I would have this feeling of insecurity because you look at yourself with your classmates, they’re going to college, they are graduated from universities that are privileged.
Glennavelle
And then you look at your life and you kind of look at like I am so behind. and I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m a late bloomer. As I said, I’m a person who doesn’t really follow a straight path. My life is never linear. I like to question things. I’ve always been the person who are always curious until later on in life at the age of 19.
That’s when I realized that I probably just go back to college and get two years degree of a Associates Degree and see how it goes. And that’s exactly what I did. so that I could just please my people around you.
Another lesson that I want you to learn as a child or your teenagers and do not please other people.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen to counseling or advices of your parents when they are reliable or when they have something to prove perhaps. But if your parents have nothing to prove, then you can respectfully say your way is not my way and I don’t want to follow your route.
So, you just have to understand that even if people might give you unsolicited advice and if it doesn’t resonate with you because as I said I should have listened to myself when I wanted to go back to school and taken some journalism and went for a realtor agent but because I didn’t listen to my own voice.
Because I listened to the other voices because I want I was people pleasing because I want to be able to be not scolded and said you are so respectable. Being respectful is different from following your own dreams and goals and purposes that God has given you. Even Jesus at the age of 12, he actually said to his parents, “What are you doing looking for me when I am about doing my dad’s business?” He was about doing his father’s calling in his life. He was 12.
Jesus already found out that his calling was about ministering other people and teaching other people when he become an older man. And he spent his time at the temple because that’s exactly how he was able to be taught by the word of God and the principles of Judaism. But Jesus did not even shy away from telling his mom when his mom said, “What are you doing? We we’ve been looking for you. Why did you just make us worry and you are you just disappeared for three days?
They had they were trying to look where Jesus was. And Jesus said, “I am about doing God’s business.” In the same way with you and I, we might think that our parents say, “You don’t know any better. You’re still 18, you’re 19. You cannot fly unless you take a risk.”
Some parents like to control their kids, hoping that they’re going to be able to take a risk. How can you possibly understand that what your what your kids are capable of if you’re not willing to let them decide when they’re 18? I think as a parent we sometimes fail that you’re supposed to prepare your kids as an adult. You’re not supposed to constantly protect them, control them, manipulate them because you are clipping their wings.
Do not be afraid of making mistakes
You’re not allowing them to grow and make mistakes. Because without mistakes, children are never going to grow. They cannot learn from their mistakes. they cannot learn that that pathway is actually wrong for them and this is actually the right path. So for me I had the privilege it was a both blessing and a curse.
One thing for sure that as much as I wanted to have parents that guided me, that supported me and told me what to do with my life, but actually it was the blessing in disguise because I had this now the cap capability of trusting myself more that I now have this ability to be able to trust myself more because I was the only one to be trusted and I was the only one that I had to ask myself what should I do with my life and what kind of endeavor must I follow and where should I go and the path that I’m going to take.
So even if my mom and my dad were not totally present in my life, but I had the opportunity to become an adult and I could make decisions based on what I wanted, based on my true voices later on in life. And that became handy because now I do not have the problem of trusting myself that every decision I have been making throughout my adulthood now has not forsaken me. My intuition has always been on point.
So ,when you’re 18, of course, the only reason for you to trust yourself more is to be able to listen to your voice, the intuition. And perhaps even if your parents might disagree on your choices, as long as they’re not going to break laws and it doesn’t really compromise your values, you must at least understand that if God has called you to a different path like many of my family, they want me to go into nursing or get into the healthcare, whatever it is, it’s a typical career that Filipinos have.
I am the only one who says that is not for me. My path is different. And you have to be okay with that. It doesn’t matter if the rest of your family are doctors and lawyers and nurses or whatever their career is. Why must you follow the kind of path when God is calling you to a different path? It’s actually robbing you of your purpose. It is not their business what you do with your life.
Of course, when you’re 18, you’re trying to please everybody. And so, I tried for one year to go to the nursing. And I I changed my my course. I mean not my course, my major from business to accounting to nursing just to please my mother until I finally stood up for myself and I said forget it. This is not for me and I will not follow the path.
So that’s why I said in life it’s okay to take a risk to make mistakes and to disappoint other people because you’re going to disappoint other people. Some people are going to be pleased with your choices and some people are going to support you, but the rest of your family might think you’re crazy for doing something different and it’s okay.
So, if you’re just going to listen to the opinions and you always have to ask people’s validation and permission and you’re going to be in your 70s, you’re going to say, “Why did I listen to the wrong voices? I should have listened to my own pathway and my own intuition because that’s how God wanted me to become.” As I said, my calling about starting a YouTube, this has been an ongoing nagging voice when back in 2019 and I keep on drowning it. and I said, “I’m not going to do this cuz this is not for me.” But that voice doesn’t hasn’t left me.
It keeps on nudging me time and time again until I finally said, “Okay, I’m just going to take the leap of faith. I’m going to try this anyway. It doesn’t matter if I’m going to fail or I suck at the beginning, but I’m just going to take the plunge.” because you’re never going to know whether or not it’s the right thing for you to do if you are so unwilling and afraid of what people think or I might disappoint my parents or what if they’re going to disown me.
The kind of threat that usually parents would say I’m going to disown you. But as I said, I was privileged enough that I was able to make my money, support myself. That’s why I had no fear. That’s why as much as you can, you must be independent and make your own money and save your money and be savvy about your own money because when your parents of course are controlling you, they can just tell you what to do and how you should live your life. But as I said, be respectful about it.
You can always say, “Thank you for your advice, mom and dad. But I think the best course of action for me to take is this one. I don’t want to follow everybody’s route. I don’t want to continue. If they want me to become a lawyer and a doctor, a teacher, if it’s not something that God has called you to do, why must you follow that route?
Because as I said, you’re just going to regret it. And when you’re going to look back, you can tell yourself, I would have, should have, could have done a different path, but because my parents had forced me to do. And it’s unfortunate that some children have no choice because they have been controlled or manipulated by their parents, and they have no freedom to do so.
So that is why when you’re 18 and you’re trying to figure out that I don’t understand why some kids in my life, it seems as though they have their life figured out. You know, their parents had supported them and yours is probably a different path. It’s unconventional like mine. Mine is very unconventional. As I said, I took a year off from high school. I went get a job. I supported myself throughout college.
And then later on in life, I decided to return to college and took at least two years an associates degree and I went to full-time in the morning to support myself at nighttime part-time to school. But schooling is just something that occupied me. I didn’t see any value in it. Looking back, I didn’t know why I had to waste my time going to college because I didn’t really use my degree. I ended up pursuing liberal studies because I could not make up my mind of what I wanted to major in. But nonetheless, I do love education.
As I said, education doesn’t stop in the institution. It doesn’t stop the day you graduated from high school or college. Education is a lifetime process. However, I have actually regretted that I went to those nights of sleepless nights, wintry nights of taking some course that I did not actually use today because now I’m a mother and I’m a housewife and I’m also doing a blog and a YouTube and God has somehow reconfigured a way for me to get back to my journalism and broadcasting.
It’s not really about the news per se, but it’s related to communications, which is sharing my story and hoping that I can inspire other people. It’s about mentoring other people. This is where God has called me back into this dream that I’ve have had many years ago.
And so I think for us sometimes detour is good and God has a funny way of trying to tap you back back in the back and reminding you that remember the time when you wish you could be into this communication mass you know mass media or journalism that was the dream that I’ve ever had ever since I was I could remember and God somehow found a way for me to discover this path which is writing and talking.
And so this is why you cannot underestimate the small beginnings. You cannot estimate the uh the little jobs that you might experience along the way. I said I had so many jobs and I had so many experiences and I also work at the retail before and I realized that retail is not somewhere that I could really place my myself in. I realized that if I work in retail, the amount of money that they’re going to pay me is I’m going to go back and spend that money into that store.
So that’s why I said next time if I’m going to be able to work at the retail, I’m never going to do that again because I remembered working at the Strawbridges when Strawbridges was still open. I think Strawbridges has been closed for many years.
Kmart was the first one. The first job I’ve ever did was Kmart and I had to work part-time there and I had to only work 20 hours because I was not allowed when I was in high school to work more than 30 hours per week because it’s going to conflict with my schooling. But my first job was at Kmart. And so after that, after many years, I also went to Strawberg.
But I said to myself, the amount of money that I was making was the amount of money I was spending inside the store. So it’s actually I was losing more money. So part of being a teenager is you’re still going to be dumb and stupid about money. So as much as you can, the sooner you re you learn about finances, the better you will become about money.
And the sooner you become a saver right now instead of a spender, you’ll become much wiser of how much you’re willing to save that money up. Because unfortunately, we were not taught that as a young adult, we must invest. We must save up as much as we can so that we’re not going to be a burden in the future or we’re not going to worry about money in the future. But nobody told me about these things. I had to learn it the hard way.
I had to learn to budget and I had to learn how to cut back on my expenses. I had to learn how to only buy things that I need and only buy things that are on sale. These were the things that I did not learn from my parents. I had to learn this through experiences because I was afraid of being a homeless woman and not nothing have to eat and I have lived through life with excesses and with nothing. I remembered when I was living on my own in my old apartment I also had barely have nothing to eat.
You know, I would open my fridge and there was only few food that I could eat for few days and a stale bread and I was living through prayer prayers actually asking God to guide me and help me to get through the whole week because as I said when you live your life trying to be an adult and at the same time you try to navigate life and your expenses and you’re not really savvy about money you live and you learn and that’s exactly making you stronger, wiser hopefully and resilient. And you live and you learn as you go. Hopefully that whatever you’re doing right now, there is no such thing as a waste crisis.
