Right now I'm focusing on developing myself in relation to my craft, which is pioneering the field of esports psychology. Psychology is the study of the mental and behavioral configuration of people including dealing with mental disorders that people experience. When you attach the world of esports to psychology. Esports is sports done through professional online gaming. Professional gaming is an emerging industry that is really popular around the world. There are professional leagues for games like League of Legends, Tekken, Call of Duty, and 2K. As proof of concept, esports is already part of the Southeast Asian Games. Esports psychology is what I want to pioneer, so my challenge is how I can keep sharpening myself and my skills to ready myself to the point where I can really start pioneering that space. In traditional sports where one’s physical skills are the most important, those skills do not constitute a professional esports player. Professional gaming is largely anchored in our cognitive capacities because of how complex videogames are now, combined with the competitiveness and high pressure environment of professional gaming. That’s why I see the relevance of psychology in this industry: a small tiny miniscule mistake can lose you a game and pressure can diminish a player’s impact on a game. An esports psychologist can help players deal with the mental aspect of professional gaming and with maximizing their cognitive abilities to be dominant in their games. To do this, I need to be a registered psychologist, which can be done 3 years from now. I want to take off certain milestones or stepping stones before I become a psychologist. These milestones include figuring out certain psychology routes, techniques, and disciplines that I can apply to the field of esports.

I started playing videogames as a kid, and it's been an interest of mine since then. I played for the sake of enjoyment and I would say that I was really good at the games. A childhood of mine is playing in internet cafes while a crowd was watching me play CounterStrike. Gaming became a passion, and in high school, I started to think of the competitive aspect of gaming which is esports. One of the most close knit groups that i'm part of right now is composed of people I played with in high school and early in college. At that point in time we were just casual who were really good at gaming. We climbed the ranks and managed to reach the top 1 percent in the whole Philippines. That got me thinking that there's something I can do with esports. We tried forming a professional team and even though it didn't work out, this hobby allowed us to find an opportunity to become a professional. It's amazing the coincidences that seem to happen when you're doing what you really love doing. Coming into college, I competed for UP’s esports team for League of Legends. Coincidently my teammates were the same people I grew up with. I didn't find a lot of success at first because the competition was really good, but we eventually found our stride, formed a golden roster, and started winning. After competing in international tournaments, I realized that there is really something special in esports, and it was something real and tangible for me. That was the peak experience for me as an esports player.

I learned business in college but I also grew passionate about psychology. I found that I liked listening to people and that I liked the one on one setting that psychology provides. I could imagine myself in a career in psychology. After graduating, I worked in a bank for a year and a half as an account officer. I didn't really land the job I wanted in corporate, as I wanted more of something along the lines of accounting and spreadsheet work. I was put in a marketing role but it was still a fruitful experience that gave me a taste of the real life of work - it was important for me to know what it felt like to have that work setup, but I knew that it wasn't where I wanted to be. I wasn't motivated enough to really give it my all, to really go for that promotion. That typical drive was missing for me, so I had to stop and talk to myself, my parents, and my friends to discern - is this really where I want to be? Is this what will give me fulfillment in life? Will this make me financially stable and happy at the same time? I realized that working in corporate was not my passion - my heart belonged and felt fulfilled elsewhere, in psychology and esports, and so I decided to pursue my psychology passion along with esports. I worked for an esports company that helped me learn a lot in terms of management operations when it comes to esports. I took up a master in counseling and psychology in Ateneo. It was while taking my master that I thought about combining my two passions. I knew that Ateneo has an esports organization which was led by my good friend, who also worked to organize collegiate competitions. I had no reason to use these opportunities as resources to help polish myself.

There are significant pains that call to me. In psychology, it's the pain of not having someone to talk to. Some don’t have the right people to talk to about their problems - I want to address that. I want to help more college students figure out their path in life, because many are confused on where to go or what to do. I want to use the one on one therapy session setting to be someone they can talk to. I want to help erase the negative stigma surrounding videogames because many people think that videogames aren’t good, but it’s just like anything else - too much of anything is not good. Being addicted to videogames is not good, but investing yourself and your time into esports can still be fruitful and life giving if you do it responsibly. This stigma prevents young gamers from realizing and fulfilling their potential because everyone trys to discourages them. There is some truth to the negative stigma around gaming and esports - there’s so much esports talent in the Philippines but their paths get cut off because of the toxicity that permeates throughout the esports environment. The level of toxicity in the Filipino esports community can be really bad and it’s hard to change trash talking, griefing, and cheating from the bottom up if no revolutionary change happens. This pain has led me to pursue what I'm doing now. Not a lot of psychologists have an esports background like I do and not many of them have the passion for gaming. Not everyone has an understanding of how to deal with the pains coming from the world of esports. This configuration of passions keeps the fire burning in me to make a difference in that space.

I have discerned over a long period of time, using the experiences that I have gone through. You can't discern everything in one go - you need to go through a process that will guide your discernment, and sometimes you won't know what that process will be. For me, my discernment came from realization - I came from a corporate setting but my passion for psychology and esports was strong for me to question my corporate path. All of my experiences culminated to this realization that I should be pursuing what I am passionate about. I wasn't able to create much impact yet other than a few talks and a documentary on my collegiate esports career. But those are small indicators that I could make an impact. It's a combination of experience and unintentional impact that I made that helped me realize my discernment. I strongly believe that my target audience is the next generation who will become parents. If we try to juxtapose what was said a while ago about parents not being supportive of GPS and discernment, it'll be hard for kids to figure out their path.