Matandang Dalaga

This is the most basic of all marketing principles: Tell the customer clearly what's in it for him or her. It's the golden rule. You can forget about all the other rules, tips and principle but not that one. Regardless of what you are selling or who you are selling to or where you are, it doesn't change the fact that consumer benefit must be the selling point.  Think about it, a night cream promises to make you look younger, a shampoo promises to make your hair bouncier, a pair of basketball shoes promises to make jumping easier, an infant formula promises to make your child well-nourished and a bank promises to treat your money like it's theirs.  We are always convinced that doing something will provide us a personal benefit.  It's an age-old trick and even (probably) the oldest institution, the most pure of them all used it, religion.  Religion, regardless of what it is, promises salvation. That's what in it for us when we join a religion, a place

That's the thing about being in a Western country. 33 is not old around here. I don't feel like a matandang dalaga at all... except when I am around other people from back home who grew up back home and migrated here late in their life. Here, people finish college at 23, that is if they finish it at all. Most of the time, they take longer because they have to come up with their own money to pay for college. If they want it cheap, their diploma will be cheap. If they want quality, they need lots of $$$ to have it.   Here, it's common for people to still be "figuring" things out when they are on their 30s. 20s was expected to be a time for being young. 30 is when you begin. For once in my life, I had a guy tell me, "God, you're so young." I literally wanted to laugh out loud and ask, "What drugs are you on and may I have some?"

I was doing well back home. After 33 years, I can pretty much say I was able to do accomplish a lot of my essential dreams: Buy a house for my parents Buy a car for my parents Provide for my family Put my niece to school Travel with my family Write a book Write movies Write TV shows I also have the same friends I've had since elementary, high school and college. There are times when our communication gets interrupted but it has been pretty much an intact friendship regardless of the frequency of our "get togethers". I was doing okay. I was happy. So everyone couldn't understand why I was leaving. After all, I was all set with my plans. I knew I was adopting a child if I get to 40 and I am still single. By that time, I estimated I would have enough savings to secure my child's future even if I don't work another day in my life.

When I was still in my teens, an amateur fortune teller told me three things that stuck to me: I will have four boyfriends. I will break up with the first one, the 2nd and third will dump me and the fourth will marry me My first child will be separated from me I will spend majority of my life trying to leave the country I am not sure how accurate it is but he is correct on the first and second boyfriends. I am still waiting for the third and fourth. I don't have a child yet but I have always considered my sister my own. If that is true, he is right. I am away from her and will always be because she will never be biologically mine.

For more than 17 years I worked like there was no tomorrow. I was 18 when I entered the workforce and a month into my first job, I was working at least 12 hours everyday. By the time I was 20, I was working 16 hours a day. It was the only way I could make enough money to pay for the house I bought and eat TWICE a day. I couldn't afford to eat three times. I had to settle for Pancit Canton or egg because I didn't have money to buy other dish. I was eating so unhealthily that I ended up 20 pounds overweight and sick by the time I was 21. I couldn't buy my own clothes that I had to borrow from my mom. My boss actually scolded me for wearing worn out clothes. How could I have told him I had no money to buy new ones? I had to do it because I lived my whole life in the basement of my grandmother's house who hated me and my mother with passion. I had to move my family out of the house because I wanted to give my parents some dignity and pride.