I finally figured out what my Dad was trying to say. That a home based job won’t allow me to expand my horizons as a social person. Working at home, it will be hard for me to meet new people, see new sites and expand on new horizons. It limits my eyes.

Maybe I understand that. I can’t argue that fact. Working at home does keep me here at, well…home. I’m going to miss out on Christmas Parties, the occasional birthday by officemates, holidays, weekends, 13th month pay and a lot more. I have realized that.

But realizing that doesn’t mean I am going to make a complete about-face and look for a “job”. I have recently unlearned something that I have spent 14 years learning. That the “True of False” Quiz is not as simple as it looks. Once upon a time, when a teachers asks:

Magellan discovered the Philippines in the year 1521, true or false?

True.

The teacher cocks her eyebrow and asks: Are you sure?

False

Now, answers no longer change as quickly as it used to be. I am no longer afraid of cocked eyebrows and the words “Are you sure?”. At least, at some level I am no longer afraid.

The generation gap is exactly that. A gap. I have once told my grandmother that my job is home based and went to explain about writing articles and sending them to the internet and eventually receiving payment through the Bank, GCash etc. When it was her turn to explain what I do to someone else, she said something along the lines of “She works but her work doesn’t let her leave the house” and promptly gave me “THE LOOK”.

It’s funny and somehow frustrating when people talk about the generation gap and how to “bridge it”. My view? Don’t try. The generation gap is the fine line separating our grandma’s and grandpa’s from wearing low slung jeans and surfing the internet. Some have tried to cross it and be successful. My hat goes to you: gramps and grams. But hauling them forcibly to understand the works ain’t in my list of capabilities. I have given up on that. Or perhaps, I have just given up on explaining the extent of what I “do”.

So that’s it. I have given up on making people understand. To answer my Dad’s question about Christmas Parties and officemates and other “real job fringe benefits”, here goes.

I have decided to “learn” a few things. I want to learn how to bake. Ride a bike. Write a Romance Novel…stuff that I won’t have any problems placing in my schedule. Since my time is on my hands, might as well do something useful about it. I may not go to places as a result of my job, but I can make “me” go to places.

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