On Motivation

WW2 Wolverine (will color this one of these days!)

My mom hated my decision to take up Painting when I was in college. She was very vocal about this and we often fought about my course way back then. My dad gave me just one talk about this, but that was mostly on how I should understand where my mom was coming from. She thought it was a degree that would not lead me anywhere and that she was afraid that unlike my siblings (one's an architect, the other a lawyer hehe) I'd be the one to struggle the hardest in life.
From that moment on I decided that my motivation would be to prove her wrong.

Let me get one thing straight, my mom was never a tyrant and never did she try to dictate what I should do with my life. I never had a "real" curfew growing up and my mom has always been supportive in all the stuff that I did when I was younger. I think it was because we grew up in a family that was very academically inclined. My mom has a PhD as well as two Masters Degrees so a title is important to her because it has helped her become successful and she just wanted the same thing for me.



Now this story is pretty common... it's almost the same with all the kids who decide to take an art course way back then. Now it's different, during my time parents didn't know about the options we had as artists and I have to admit I still find it hard to explain to them what I do. The new generation of parents played video games and read comics or watch movies and they know that artists work in those mediums so they're pretty cool with art stuff and all that. It wasn't the same for my generation.

Mamita recently retired and went freelance and she also encouraged me to do the same so we get to spend a lot of time talking to each other and I can't help but be grateful to her for helping me get my education the way I wanted it. Both her and my dad did what they can just to make sure the ride I took would be as smooth as possible even though they did not understand where I wanted to go.

Nanay, my Mom and Me

When I think about it, my motivation has changed although in some way it is still the same, it's still me trying my best to prove wrong the person who my mom was when I was 17.

But to the person who is my mom right now: it's me trying to prove you wrong in order to show you that I am very thankful that you trusted me when I was younger, even though everything you believed in told you that I was wrong.

Salamat Mamita!