2016 – Grabe ka lang. 7 inch ovarian cyst. My lola’s
passing. Benjie’s lola too. Kantar First. Year I said goodbye to SG. Duterte.
Trump. Passing of David Bowie, Prince, Thailand’s longest monarchy, Fidel
Castro. Brexit. Extension of my probation for the fist time. Marcos’ burian sa
LNMB. Ano paaaa? Gaaaaah.
Pero sabi nga, perspective lang ito. Have to look at this as
the year that teaches me a lot of things. To look at things on a bigger picture
and learnings. To be more prepared and less complacent. To pray more. To reevaluate
finance and plan for the future. To live more and worry less. To be more
open-minded. To be more understanding. To learn how to stand on my own and ask
for God and friends’ help. To be humble. To be positive always. To maintain a
positive attitude despite all chaos. To accept things that I can’t change.
Unconditional love. Hope. Faith about fate.
There’s a reason why I listened to Steve Jobs’s speech this
year about attitude and outlook about failure. About not fearing failure. About
drive. About pursuing things that you feel meant for you regardless of what other
people think. To fear nothing. To appreciate death. An d to keep going no
matter what as there is always hope. Believe in a brighter future.
And I’ve never been prayerful until we faced so many
challenges this year. Grabe lang yung bugbog na ko sa challenges pero in
fairness, with the help of prayers and friends, I’m surviving an uneasy phase
of my life here in Thailand. It hasn’t been easy to be in a totally foreign
country, alone, with no friends, and language that I don’t understand. I’m very
much willing to learn but this is really not easy, considering that I’m
learning how to live alone again, without any social support, and learning how
to do CS, how to work along others and understanding our company’s tools. IT IS
REALLY NOT EASY. But in God’s grace, I pray that I get this through and become
successful in time J
***
2016 has not just disrupted my personal life and the world
as well. As we can see with Trump, Duterte, Brexit, Putin and stuff, there is
clearly a shift towards a conservative perspective – self-preservation and security
but within your group only. Unfortunately, as a result, there is less respect
for women, human rights and diversity now. Perhaps, we can see this as a
failure of the liberals. We’ve probably become too “atas” and dismissed the
opposition’s opinions as dumb and senseless when in fact, we should be
understanding them instead and address it in a way that we get their support,
rather than alienate them. The sad cases
of Hillary and Roxas were obviously the same – the clamor for decency versus
the conservative ideas of Trump and Duterte who promised extreme changes in the
government to make the country “great” again. Simply put, the call for “decency”
and “intelligence” meant that the opposing groups are indecent and dumb, hence
calling them “tards” and all bad names. Gloomily, this strategy had backfired,
making the candidates lose despite their high credibility and capability to govern.
Nonetheless, we shouldn’t just get ourselves dragged.
Instead, the more that we have to continue fighting but with a different
mindset – instead of putting the others’ opinions down, we should challenge
ourselves on how we can make them understand our point of view and why it always right to fight for what is
right.
***
Speaking of what is right, the biggest tragedy in Philippine
history is when the highest body of justice serves the president instead of the
people. Consequently hailing Marcos as legally entitled for a hero’s burial. A
N Y A R E P O??? This just made 1986 People
Power useless and our history twisted. That the Marcoses did nothing wrong when
in fact it has been proved that they stole billions of dollars from the people.
Amount of which we are paying until now. And the scarier part? Marcos Jr has an
impending case in the Supreme Court and looking at the trend right now, mukhang
mananalo siya sa kaso niya.
God bless the Philippines na lang.
Another form of tragedy though is that instead of people
coming together to oppose Marcos’ hero’s burial, they went to their own groups
and prioritized their own propagandas. Kesyo ang mga dilawan ay ganire at ang
mga pulahan ay ganyan. Anak ng tipaklong! Hindi pa pwedeng magprotesta bilang
Pilipino na may malasakit sa bansa at hindi bilang myembro ng kung anumang
grupo? Iniisip ko kung mauulit pa ang People Power sa EDSA. Yung tipong kusang
nagtipon-tipon ang mga tao. Walang kulay. Walang pangalan ng organisasyon. Yung
taos puso lang na nakikipaglaban para sa bayan. Kelan kaya mangyayari yon? T_T
God bless the Philippines na lang ulit.
***
Mabalik kay Steve Jobs… This year, I’ve finally finished all
Gladwell books (after finishing David and Goliath). Actually, si Steve Jobs,
nasa Outliers. Pero after watching the documentary about him, I’m thinking kung
dapat ba siyang nasa Outliers or David and Goliath? He was an adopted child in
a not so well-off family anyway. Or pwede sigurong parehas. Anyway, I love both
books. I love all Gladwell books nyahaha! Kahit pa sabihin nilang he tends to
oversimplify things. Well, he probably does but it does not mean his observations
are invalid. He offers other perspectives of looking at things like spaghettis
and happiness, how we can change the world, and how one succeeds.
So ang medyo may conflict nga between Outliers at David
& Goliath. The former discusses about how advantaged people get successful.
And this is good because it is very humbling. It says that one does not simply
succeed because of his innate or trained abilities but instead, one is also a
product of his time, place, race, culture and specific circumstances. Hence
those who already have advantages on these things will of course tend to
succeed (in case of Steve Jobs, he grew up in Silicon Valley and have been
exposed to programming and computers at a very early age). Whereas, David &
Goliath tackles how people with disadvantages (like dyslexia, being orphans,
etc) shouldn’t be discouraged because there are ways to battle giants using
strategies where they are good at. In any case, I think, to some extent, both
books are enlightening and encouraging. That actually, anyone can succeed. And
one factor that I’ve noticed is that successful people are driven and game
changers and they don’t let other people’s perception hinder them from
fulfilling their dreams – regardless of having advantages or disadvantages.
On another note, I also particularly like Gladwell’s podcast
about generous orthodoxy. That we must find the balance between the 2 because
orthodoxy without generosity leads to blindness – just like the belief in
absolute truth may lead to extremists and aggressively putting that belief’s
agenda ALL THE TIME. In the same way, being generous or just being open to any
other idea and not sticking to one, if not a few, is just shallow and empty. I
guess this is something that the world needs right now. Just like seeing that
different people like different kinds of spaghettis, we have to learn how to respectfully
live in a world with fragmented beliefs while not losing our own beliefs as
well. And that’s probably a key to world peace.
May peace be with us all.
