Episode 9: Embracing Life's Turn of Events with Christine Ong Te

Episode 9: Embracing Life’s Turn of Events with Christine Ong Te

January 12, 2021
Posted by Mary Matias

Has the lockdown taken a toll on you and affected your event plans? Feeling unsure about which career path to take this year? For this podcast episode, Events Coordinator Christine Ong Te teaches us the importance of embracing the flow of life — from its struggles to its opportunities.

Stay positive.

Christine Ong Te shared how she never expected that a pandemic would happen in our lifetime. Instead of expressing her concern over her own business, she expressed concern over her clients who are planning to hold their once-in-a-lifetime weddings that have been cancelled due to the lockdown. Ong Te advised the importance of being strong-willed to fight the mind’s tendency to cloud itself with worries and stress. It’s important to stay positive, not to ignore one’s problems, but to remember the bigger picture and the future ahead. Staying positive will strengthen you mentally so that you could think properly and plan a solution.

With ruined plans comes more opportunities!

Ong Te shared that a lot of Chinoy couples happen to have planned their weddings on the exact month of the lockdown due to Feng Shui. Since these were disrupted, Ong Te took full responsibility for providing solutions and alternatives. She took action and met her couples regularly. As there is a need to be innovative and adapt to the pandemic’s changes, she maintained communication with her clients by using Zoom.

She realized that it’s possible to have her business run virtually. It would spare her and her clients the hassle of going to one place to another just to meet and plan. If the lockdown hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t have known that letting her business run virtually would be possible. As Ong Te puts it, the lockdown may have ruined our plans and limited our opportunities, but it didn’t take away our opportunity to think of another alternative. We shouldn’t let opportunities and ideas come — we have to make them ourselves.

Don’t forget to ask God for guidance.

With life’s uncertainties, it’s important to maintain a strong relationship with God. Ong Te shares her need to pray for guidance because she believes that God will be able to help her cope when things don’t go her way. She stated that during those times when she felt lost and life seemed bleak, she would ask God for direction, to lead her to the path that is rightfully meant for her in God’s own perfect time.

Gather experiences, use them later.

It’s important to trust and accept life’s flow. But one should always be on the lookout on something new to learn from each experience. Even if you’re placed in a situation that you don’t want to be in, it’s better to just take it all in and learn from it. You never know what you’ll learn and gain along the way.

Ong Te shared that she used to work in a bank after she graduated college. Even if she wanted to push through with being a planner full-time, she decided against it because of the lack of demand for wedding planners in the Philippines. But as she went along with life’s flow, working in corporate, she gained sufficient experience and knowledge as a follower that she could later apply as a leader in her own business.

Fail harder, learn better.

Ong Te reminds us that failures in life are meant to teach us lessons, not to discourage us. We have it in us to rise above the person we were yesterday. Since we aren’t perfect beings to begin with, we’re prone to make mistakes. And the only way we can evolve is by learning from them. Seeing life as an endless journey of learning will help produce a healthier mindset for us to continue, regardless of how many failures we may encounter. Thus, it’s important to stay humble, keep an open mind, and embrace the experience.