₱5,000 Worth of Reflection

Good morning.

Another fucking morning.

Today I lost ₱5,000.

Not because I invested wisely and the market went against me.

Not because I built something that failed.

Not because I took a calculated entrepreneurial risk.

I lost it because I got hooked by a scam.

And honestly...

The scam was done really well.

It started with a message sent by one of my classmates.

Actually, not just one message.

He sent the same image to multiple group chats. An obvious scam but I still tried.

The image showed what looked like a picture of a computer screen.

On the screen was supposedly a post from MrBeast on Twitter promoting a website.

The promotion claimed you could receive $2,500 USD by entering a promo code.

Simple.

Quick.

Easy.

And because it came from my classmate's Facebook account (who does not do crypto), my guard immediately went down.

I didn't stop to think that maybe...

His account had been hacked.

Which later turned out to be exactly what happened.

The funny thing is...

I literally had just woken up.

No coffee.

No breakfast.

No critical thinking.

Just pure optimism.

I saw the message and immediately thought,

"Damn... maybe this is real."

"Maybe I just got lucky today."

That single thought cost me ₱5,000.

The website looked legitimate.

The design was convincing.

After entering the promo code...

Boom.

My account suddenly showed $2,500 USD.

I thought,

"No freaking way."

So I immediately tested the withdrawal.

Nothing happened.

I waited.

Still nothing.

Then I thought...

"Bitcoin transactions are usually fast... why is this taking so long?"

That's when my brain finally woke up.

I went back.

Looked at everything again.

Read more carefully.

Searched online.

And then...

Reality punched me in the face.

Scam.

A very expensive lesson.

The website then asked me to pay another $144 USD for "taxes."

No explanation.

No breakdown.

Just...

"Pay first."

At that moment I laughed.

Not because it was funny.

Because I finally accepted that my ₱5,000 was already gone.

There was no point feeding the scam another peso.

Honestly...

What hurts isn't only the money.

It's thinking about what that ₱5,000 could have become.

That's almost five months of Claude subscription.

That's equipment.

That's food.

That's travel.

That's memories.

That's something useful for Duruha.

Instead...

It became tuition fee for another life lesson.

This isn't even my first expensive lesson involving money.

If I total everything I've lost over the years...

Crypto.

Emotional stock trading.

Bad decisions.

Hope disguised as investing.

I think I've already lost close to ₱100,000.

When I first started earning money, losing even a few thousand pesos felt like the end of the world.

I couldn't move on for days.

Sometimes weeks.

I kept replaying the mistake inside my head.

"Why did I do that?"

"What if I didn't click?"

"What if I waited?"

Today...

Losing ₱5,000 still hurts.

But not in the same way.

Maybe because I've failed enough times to know that life continues.

Money comes back.

Lessons stay.

One thing I've realized is that easy money has always been my weakness.

Not because I'm greedy.

But because I get curious.

Curiosity mixed with optimism is dangerous.

I wasn't trying to become rich overnight.

I simply thought,

"Maybe this is one of those rare opportunities."

Turns out...

Those "rare opportunities" usually exist because they're targeting people exactly like me.

People who believe maybe...

Just maybe...

This one is different.

The biggest lesson?

There is no easy money.

Every peso worth keeping usually requires effort.

Time.

Skill.

Patience.

Or service.

Whenever something promises huge rewards with almost no effort...

That's exactly when I should become more skeptical.

Not more excited.

Another thought came into my mind.

Instead of giving that ₱5,000 to scammers...

I could've spent it on people I care about.

On experiences.

On my startup.

On improving my skills.

On making someone else's day better.

Ironically...

I ended up giving it away anyway.

Just to people hiding behind fake websites.

So now, to make myself feel a little better, I choose to frame it differently.

Some desperate person somewhere behind that screen now has my ₱5,000.

I don't agree with what they did.

I don't respect it.

But I also hope one day they realize that building a life by exploiting desperate people isn't really a life worth building.

Because if they're willing to scam strangers...

I wonder how desperate their own lives have become.

I'm also grateful this lesson only cost me ₱5,000.

There are people who lose hundreds of thousands.

Millions.

Entire retirement funds.

Families fall apart because of scams like these.

Mine?

It was painful.

But survivable.

I still have enough.

I'm not financially destroyed.

I'm simply reminded—again—that shortcuts usually lead somewhere I don't want to be.

So here's another promise to myself.

No more chasing quick money.

No more websites promising instant rewards.

No more decisions made five minutes after waking up.

No more trusting screenshots without verification.

And most importantly...

No more putting money into things I don't fully understand.

I've already learned this lesson through crypto.

Through emotional stock trading.

Now through scams.

I don't need a fourth reminder.

Looking back, I don't even regret losing the money as much as I regret the mindset I had for those few minutes.

For a moment...

I stopped being the person who usually questions everything.

I wanted the reward to be true so badly that I forgot to question it.

That, more than the ₱5,000, is what disappointed me.

Anyway...

That's another expensive journal entry.

Another mistake added to the collection.

Another reminder that easy money usually isn't easy.

And if something looks too good to be true...

Maybe the first thing I should withdraw...

Is myself.

Now...

Time to earn that ₱5,000 back.

The boring way.

The ethical way.

The way that actually lasts.

A few hours later, my classmate deleted the message. Maybe he recovered his account. But by then, the ₱5,000 was already gone. The message disappeared. The lesson didn't.

Don't trust something simply because it came from someone you know.

Verify before sending money.

A familiar sender is not proof of authenticity.

Losing ₱5,000 wasn't the biggest lesson.

The biggest lesson was discovering how my own mind works.

I often think I'm someone who questions everything.

I like digging deeper.

I like verifying information.

I enjoy challenging ideas before accepting them.

But for a few minutes that morning, I wasn't that person.

And that's what surprised me the most.

The website didn't convince me.

The money didn't convince me.

My classmate did.

Or more accurately, his Facebook account did.

The moment I saw the message coming from someone I knew, my skepticism immediately weakened.

It wasn't blind trust.

It was automatic trust.

I subconsciously assumed,

"If this came from him, then maybe it's legitimate."

Looking back, that assumption cost me ₱5,000.

I realized that I don't only evaluate information.

I also evaluate the source.

Sometimes too much.

I naturally look for possibilities.

When I saw the promotion, I wasn't thinking,

"How is this fake?"

I was thinking,

"Maybe I just got lucky."

That optimism has helped me throughout my life.

It gives me courage to build projects.

It pushes me to pursue ideas other people ignore.

But optimism without verification can become expensive.

Optimism is good.

Unverified optimism isn't.

I've noticed this pattern before.

Crypto.

Stocks.

Now this.

I'm not driven by gambling itself.

I'm driven by curiosity.

"What if this works?"

"Let's try it."

"Maybe it's real."

Sometimes curiosity leads me toward amazing experiences.

Sometimes it leads me toward expensive lessons.

Curiosity isn't the problem.

Acting too quickly is.

I had just woken up.

No coffee.

No breakfast.

No time to think.

I reacted instead of reflecting.

If someone had shown me the exact same website in the afternoon, after I had been working for hours, I probably would've questioned everything.

That means my environment affects my judgment more than I thought.

Normally I research.

Normally I compare sources.

Normally I question everything.

This time I skipped that entire process.

Not because I forgot how.

Because I became excited.

Excitement shortened my decision-making.

That is something I need to remember.

Whenever I'm excited about money, I should probably slow down.

Not speed up.

Years ago, losing money would ruin my week.

I'd replay the mistake over and over.

Now?

It still hurts.

But I recover much faster.

I accept the loss.

Extract the lesson.

Move forward.

That's growth.

Not because losing money feels good.

But because I no longer let it control me.

Ironically, this loss reminded me of another realization I've had recently.

Money matters.

But it isn't everything.

Yes, ₱5,000 is difficult to earn.

Yes, I could've spent it on things I truly care about.

But I also know I can earn it back.

What matters more is making sure I don't repeat the same mistake.

Money returns.

Character stays.

Looking back at my past mistakes—from crypto to emotional stock trading to this scam—I noticed something.

The moments I lose money are usually the moments I chase money itself.

The moments I feel happiest are when I build something meaningful.

Filmmaking.

Duruha.

Writing.

Meeting people.

Creating experiences.

Maybe that's another reminder that my life isn't meant to revolve around making quick money.

It's meant to revolve around creating meaningful value.

If there's one sentence I want to remember from all of this, it's this:

Not because people are bad.

Not because everyone lies.

But because even good people can have hacked accounts.

Even trusted people can unknowingly share false information.

Trust the person.

Verify the claim.

Those are two different things.

From now on, whenever money is involved, I want to pause.

No matter how exciting it looks.

No matter who shared it.

No matter how urgent it feels.

I'll verify first.

Because I've realized something about myself.

I don't usually lose money because I'm greedy.

I lose money because I'm optimistic, curious, and sometimes too quick to believe that this time might be different.

Now that I know that pattern, I also know what I need to change.

Not my optimism.

Not my curiosity.

Just the time between curiosity and action.

But anyway, I guess I unintentionally helped someone behind the screen. Whether I helped lessen their desperation or simply encouraged their greed, I honestly don't know. Either way, I'll earn that ₱5,000 back the ethical way.