What do you tell your child when she feels she does not like people she just meets?

Cities are "cold places". Big offices where workers are placed in cubicles symbolize the competition that exists among them. Show your excellence and be ready with detractors. Take it or leave it. So when your child who grows up and becomes one of the employees of this firm, what do you tell her when she feels she does not like the people she meets?

This is the crux of the matter. If you want to achieve great things, you must be ready not only professionally but emotionally as well. This is what I usually tell my child how to go about the business of dealing with people around her. If she wants to be creative and productive, she should also be ready with remarks that range from the excellent to very poor. This happens all the more when these people who want you to fail really want you to be out for good.

The case in point, is when people, from Manila, think they are from Manila and yet you, who come from Mindanao, were chosen for "the job" of a lifetime. So, when my child observes this, what do I tell her? Coming from a similar situation when I like to excel myself, I have to muster enough strength and ask myself if my guts are truly ready otherwise, I give up the thought.

At the end of all these thought-provoking situations, I tell my child-turn professional: Be yourself. Know how far you can go. Whatever you decide, be at peace with it. Go and things will just fall in place. Believe!