Walking Around Makati City at 6 AM

When you're hounded by a thousand questions and distracted by a hundred visions, take a deep breath and go another way.

You might have worked too hard or ate too much junk food. You might have had more than your fair share of idle time, so much so that the novel in your head has grown more side stories than Steven Spielberg could ever direct in his lifetime. You might have slept more than you needed to.

Sleep is restful but your body can only take so much. You have to get up and go. (So, just get up and go.) Trod down that nearby but unknown path. Who knows, you might just step on a dime. Or a peso.

There is more to your life than just your comfortable routines. Change it up a bit. From the parking slot in the basement of your office building, you normally go up to your floor, unlock your office door, turn on all the lights, the air conditioning, and the water dispenser. You make your own coffee and spend the rest of the day in front of your iMac with all the documents you have to read and those you still have to write, neatly stacked on the left side of your desk. Everyday and always.

But today, get up and go. (Yes, just get up and go.)

Instead of immediately making your coffee, go down the elevator and walk around the central business district. Take the exit at the back of your building and walk towards the convenience store at the next corner. And pass it. Go to the bank a stone's throw from the store, stop, and look around you.

Breathe. It might not be as clean as the mountain air you love but it'll do. At 6AM, a breath of Makati Air will be just as fresh and sweet.

Put your hands in your dress pockets and amble about as if you're just a shadow along the sidewalk. Take notice of the people you see milling about: the call center agents who probably are on their coffeebreak, the security guards, the early birds like you who either have too much work to do in their respective offices or just do not want to stay home. They had chosen to have their lives revolve around their office spaces with the dream of realizing their dreams one day, or maybe with the hope of drowning out their glaring problems with family.

But not you. You're here because you had chosen to take a different path today. You had chosen to go the other way. You are here to walk.

Walking brings relief to a tired soul. It makes you smile in spite of all the questions in your head. You put a happy ending to your novel and maybe in time, you'd start a new one. But not now.

Now you're in cloud 9. Just at the intersection of Leviste and Sedeño, and going where the sidewalk leads you.