“I am giving myself two years to figure things out for my life. I know that my present is crucial to the future that awaits me and I can’t afford to spend my time slacking and making excuses anymore. I can’t be stuck always wondering and trying to reboot my life. Everyone’s moving forward and I should be too because I needed it for myself.”
I wrote this four years ago — August 28, 2017 to be exact. It took two years longer than it should have but I have found a sense of relief and confidence in knowing that my core being knows what I really want for my life and the only thing for me to do is act on it. Today, I am working on building up two businesses namely Carbon Creatives and Taller Rámgo. The former, a branding and graphics design company and the latter, an architecture and design firm.
I started Carbon Creatives mid-2019 when an opportunity came from an unexpected friendship. At that time I was still finishing my thesis at university while working at a design-build firm. I took it without any second thoughts to have an extra income and tagged along a friend who is a graphic designer. I thought it was just gonna be a one time gig but I ended up building Carbon Creatives just so we can sign a retainer contract with the company. All throughout the labor of meetings, drafting, revising and closing the deal, to running the company, and finally registering so we can legally run it, I never realized I was capable of such grit. The closest people in my life know that I am my biggest critic and God knows I have more to say about myself and my work even before a panel. It was the first time in such a long time that I recognized and acknowledged myself for overcoming such hurdles, internally saying to myself, “Wow, I did that. I’m amazing.” It’s funny listening to it in my head but in the faintest of times, that tiny voice in my head cheering me up, recognizing my capabilities, and acknowledging my struggle is all I need to progress. Fast forward to now, I am still struggling to run the business. Every business owner is struggling. With the tragedies of the past year brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses were faced with a huge challege of survival specifically those that were just starting. Some were not lucky and had to close down. I feel a bit lucky though to still run Carbon Creatives during a crisis. I tend to just be grateful of that and focus on the future of the company. The bigger challenge right now is in identifying what Carbon Creatives will be, how will it be different from other branding and graphic design companies, who will it be serving, and last but one of the most important, how to make it profitable enough.
Taller Rámgo, on the other hand, is my ultimate dream. Long before I graduated from architecture school, I always knew that I wanted to have my own design firm someday. I remember always wanting to talk to my professors who have their own practice and learn about it from them. I wasn’t the best architecture student out there but I loved being immersed into design work. Design is a part of me and I’ve come to accept that there’s no way I can ever strip it down from my being. All that mattered to me was to get university done, develop my own practice and hopefully put out something that would make even that speck of a difference to the world. Here I am making my way, starting the journey, putting in the work and being in this position albeit slow and uphill of a battle genuinely brings joy into my life. Right now, Taller Rámgo is still a concept waiting to be carried out. So far, I have been working on a website to showcase my work and to set as my homebase on the digital platform. I have also been trying to learn how to market, something I am inexperienced with and lastly reviewing to get my license to legally practice as an architect. I have so many more ideas for Taller Rámgo but as a friend advised, I should just take it one step at a time. I can handle that.
The beginning of a new decade has been gratifying for me because in a way, it gives me permission to move on to the next phase of my life and start with that, not necessarily all over again.
