Dreaming big

A warrior dreams big, and acts big to achieve his dreams. Like a vision for something great, a warrior's dream is not only a passing thought or wishful thinking, but it is a road by which he is willing to take no matter how long and difficult. His dreams are part of who he is, fulfilling it is part of his destiny.

On your 27th

You're getting old, dude. What's truer than that? More than a quarter-of-a-century of existence has given you ample time to decide on what truly matters; to define your life's mission towards what will truly count. There's no denying that your time is limited, so make the most out of what you're given. Time is a matter of fact, so is your existence. So is your life.

You've been through a lot--both positive and negative things--in your journey, and through them, you've also learned a lot. Every detour has presented itself as an invaluable lesson. And every life test that has ever occurred turned-out into something useful for your mission. You've been armed fully with experiences that will help you in the fulfillment of your destiny, your upward call. You've been given with a testimony that deserves to be played out loud. Do not waste it. Though the world may seem to be unmindful, let your words and love speak with stunning eloquence that people will be drawn eventually. Love will burst even into lost places.

Remember why you were broken, and was made whole again by grace and truth. You needed the breaking so that love would spill out and reach out to others. You needed the breaking so that your King's glory may be revealed. Oh, were you broken beautifully!

And remember why you are here. Remember the commitment you've made one time during the summer before the ocean and with the sun rising gloriously over the horizon. That you exist to fight in a battle where very few dare go, and very few dare finish strong. That you exist to be consumed, to be spent, to be used, to be broken, and to be offered as a sacrifice bit by every little bit, for the glory of your King.

So run, warrior! Run the journey ahead of you! Run towards the battlefield and slay the dragons and the giants until they are no more! Raise the banner for Jesus in every place you dare go. For truly the King is the Warrior who has overcome! And it is He who says, "...the LORD is with you, mighty warrior!" (Judges 6:12)

Possibilities

It always goes down to making a choice isn't it? It always goes down to deciding whether to stay or to leave. To stop or to go on. Life, I guess, doesn't offer you an easy way of making decisions, or an easy way out. I learned that it's an inevitable part of life that if you want something, then at some point you have to give up something in exchange. You can not do all things. And you can not have all things as well. But even if life seems complicated at times, we are not powerless to define it. In fact, people are given the capability and the responsibility to direct it through our own choices. And standing for those choices despite random confusion around us.

As they say, life is not a series of chances, but a series of choices. But what choices will you make?

I remember my choice to study in CLSU despite my dream of studying in some lucrative and top school in Metro Manila. I was to graduate at the top of my high school class and people are expecting me to pursue the "top universities" for my college education, some even encouraging and convincing my parents to sacrifice sending their "panganay" to these universities. But because of some considerations and possibilities, I made an inevitable decision. I made a choice that was to transform my life and everything. And I ended up in this more than 658-hectare campus--this large piece of land studded with different trees and imposing landscape--that in its grand and quiet dignity I immediately fell in love with, I am still in love with, and will forever be in love with.

I remember my choice to give up my desire to become a biologist. Yes, that was the first and only choice I've written on my CLSU application form. BS Biology was not an option for me then, when during my sophomore year in high school I made up my mind to take up biology as a course. And perhaps as a lifetime profession. So I made a choice, and I ended up in S1, a science section, along with other freshmen who wanted to take the same course. But after a year in a science section, I realized that perhaps biology isn't for me after all. Or that I am not for biology. So I started thinking of other possibilities. I started looking for something I really love, something that wouldn't feel as a job someday when I already started working, something meaningful for me. And that something, I later found out, is Social Sciences: a science of people and the community. I made a choice and a decision that would later teach me so many things about life--life that is not only viewed from the limited windows of the classroom or pages of a book or corners of the whiteboard, but LIFE that is breathing deeply, pulsating with energy, vibrant with hope and filled with purpose. I am not here to extol the virtues (because there are many) of my chosen course, the "science of the social", but in humble respect and recognition to the discipline and the people in it who molded me and grounded me in my person, I say these things. And I know I will say these again and again for many, many more times.

I remember my choice to stay in CLSU and work here right after graduation. Well yeah, I don't like to consider that as a work but a kind of paying-it-forward, due to lack of a more appropriate term. But I also remember the personal conflict I used to struggle with before applying for a teaching stint: I was like, "No dude, not here in CLSU. Teachers aren't paid well...you can get a much better work somewhere, blah blah blah..." My ego almost won that instance. Almost. But then I again made a decision that later on will tell something about what is more important to me and for me. Realizing that the opportunity to pay my "dues" to the discipline that molded me has come, I chose to stay. And it was one of the best choices I made. It was something that I will never regret. Four years of teaching in this university has taught me a lot of things (I will write another note for that, haha). I fell in love with the classroom as a workplace, no, not a workplace, but a platform that affects countless students and youth. For me it's like a form of reaching out to the future generation, planting seeds today that will be harvested tomorrow. I am proud of the teaching profession. Given the hardships and sacrifices of teachers just to accomplish the task of building the nation, isn't it the time that the government consider (again) giving teachers a better reward for their dedication? Or am I asking for too much? But I'm thinking of possibilities.

And now, I remember my choice and decision to leave the academe. To leave the profession from which I learned a lot from, that gave me more than I have given, that enlarged me in my person in ways I never expected. Here is the point where I don't have the appropriate words to say. But then again, it all boils down to making choices, isn't it? That at some point, you really have to decide. Well there are inevitable factors as there are reasonable justifications whether in staying or in leaving, but really, everything is made up of choices. But I am embracing my choices as I am embracing my possibilities. This life, I also learned, offers a lot of possibilities, and here I am again face to face with one. So here I am not saying goodbyes or farewells, but saying hello to possibilities.

With that, I remember this poem below by Emily Dickinson. It will perhaps convey the words I can not say myself. I just love the way it tugs into me, especially on this significant transition in my life. The title of the poem is "I dwell in Possibility":

"I dwell in Possibility –

A fairer House than Prose –

More numerous of Windows –

Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –

And for an everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –

For Occupation – This –

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise."

So there, I guess it's time for me to spread wide my arms and gather paradise again. And yes with God, the best is yet to come...and I am ready

Here's to all possibilities!

Twenty-six

Thought I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today when I realized am already 26....and not yet married! Haha. Mah men, 26 and still a bachelor?

Really, who said I can't marry at 30 or even beyond that--when the time is right, when I'm ready to take full responsibility, when I am matured and sane enough to take love on its highest level? Was it so bad staying single and wait on love to take it's own course and find you instead of pursuing it at the cost of being lost? I say no. And I say wait.

At twenty-six, waiting can lose its appeal, and patience becomes an absurd virtue. At twenty-six, the thought of spending your life alone is a horrible dream that haunts you. At twenty-six--when almost all your friends and batch-mates are marrying young and are already settled--being single is almost impossible to take in. Haha. Paranoid ba?

On the other hand, being single at twenty-six is an opportunity. At twenty-six, the season of waiting no matter how long is a chance to have a positive outlook on love and of life in general. At twenty-six, the patience to learn so many things slowly but surely is a wonderful and irreplaceable journey. And it is always possible to take it all in when one learns how to appreciate the value of life and love...that this two are not exclusive of each other but a harmony, a unity, a single substance that holds existence in place.

It took me 26 years of knowing, losing, finding, and losing again to know this wonderful truth. I may have forced some few things in my life, and I may have been hard-hearted, but I'd like to keep breaking my heart until it opens.

And until then, I know love will work it's own way. And when I find it, it will be in the right time. It will be for the right reason. It will be with the right person. Medyo maarte, haha.

Oh yes, I'm twenty-six; and I'm lovin it! :)

(I posted this as a Facebook status on my 26th birthday last January 27. And in intentionally forgetting the reality of my age, I forgot to post it here, too :)

Teacher

(Disclaimer: This was written in 2007 while I was still a student of CLSU. I exhumed it from my old journal thinking that it would pay tribute to this very special day for Teachers (me included). So, please pardon the grammatical errors. This was 5 years ago and from a different world. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK :))*******

I was simply dozing off the remaining hours of my boring day when suddenly I was fantasizing about my future, or things like what-will-be’s instead of clinging to what-might-have-been’s.

In a moment of honest desperation to get a feeble grip on reality that was my life, I was suddenly and unexpectedly sorting out plans for my professional career and on the things that I will do at least after I get away with a college diploma—things that I never usually do.

Well, perhaps reality already sunk in into my already numb mind. It’s a good thing that at least, despite the careless and carefree me who is just about to become the next king-of-nothing-to-do, I still know (barely) what reality is from fiction—although at times I may get to interchange one from the other, really.

Alright, I was thinking about giving myself a career in the academe—schools and teaching, those stuffs. Well, that was not a bit of a surprise for me that came out of nowhere because I had already planned that even before. I wrote about that one time and even published the article on our school paper of which I lead, not that I don’t regret publishing it. Now, there were more or less two thousand CLSU students who know that despite I chose a field in Social Sciences, I may not give proper justice to it because I may end up probably in teaching anyway.

Not that a student who graduate with AB Social Sciences degree cannot teach, or doesn’t have a right to teach. Besides, I always thought, and will always think, that my degree is really flexible. With my degree, I could choose from a wide range of work and could enter many career paths and be able to walk through them confidently and end up a sure success. Well, they might say that my field is a no-earning course and that it can’t give me much penny to count, and sure they could be right. But what about earning compared to the vast learning you could acquire. And I daresay that while my field may offer little earning, it could offer countless learning that could equal even the most lucrative paying job.

That was what my field is. That was what I chose. There was no regret in that.
And for sure, I could never regret being in the academe and be a teacher. In fact, I already saw myself as an educator, never really the office-type kind, but the one who is responsible for shaping up lives and nurturing dreams and encouraging better ideals...to teach students the value of learning, and education, to provide a learning environment that could pass through the four walls of the classroom…

Yeah, that is how I see myself. It may have been delayed to see through that different side of things but surely I could not think of any other way to spend my time with. I believe that is a perfect way to inspire lives, to influence young people who could influence other people in the future when their time comes…and if I would succeed in that, it would be a constant cycle that would be passed on from time to time, and yes, what better way to have success in this life when you realize that you made an impact on someone else’s even if they don’t have a chance to acknowledge you behind it.

I could tell it because there are people who have made an impact on my life as well. People who are simple and ordinary yet they stand in the highest platform that could impact and even change communities and even the world.

I always owe to these people my appreciation because in one great way or another, they have made me to be what I am now. That is what I call influence. They may not have influenced me to become the best, but they have succeeded in changing a lot of my perspectives. That would always count.

"LEGENDS"

Two of the names which could easily surface when I think of “great” people were two of my former teachers in CLSU—and I daresay, the two of the best teachers in CLSU.

They are Professor Ben G. Domingo Jr., much known by the students as “Tatay Ben”; and Sir Michael Carlo Abella, or better known as Sir Ponti.

Theirs will be the name I would always attach the word “teacher”, in the most precise definition of the word. I picked them out of the ordinary because they possess such an extraordinary perspective when it comes to educating students.

Sir Ben (I was not used to call him Tatay Ben because we were not that actually close like his students in Dev.Com) , was once my teacher in Public Speaking and Argumentation and Debate. He's from the Department of English and Humanities, and teaches almost every English subject.

The best thing about Sir Ben is that he never easily gives up on his students. You can call a student mediocre, but Sir Ben sees the potential behind that mediocrity. He always encouraged us in class to be better than what we are, and challenged us to exceed our limitations and to "think out of the box".

I learned from him that nothing can stop you if you are willing to firmly stand on your principles and on what you believe in. He considers courage and daring to be the key to making yourself the best person you could ever become.

There were so many things I learned from his lectures, which not only focused on the lessons on textbooks, but also on necessary lessons about life. He oftentimes point to his experiences in life as his greatest lessons, and true to him, experience is the best teacher.

Because of him, I came to regret once that I did not pursue Development Communication so that he could be my teacher for many subjects and not just one.
But with what I learned from him, I came to love my course and see it in a more profound way.

Meanwhile, like Prof Ben, Sir Ponti was one of the teachers I dreamed of having in class. As a teacher, he was oftentimes seen as a funny, and one possessing a jolly personality that was easily loved by people. He also has a free spirit that is very contagious if one would really read between his lips.

Sir Ponti was my teacher during the previous semester for our last Philosophy subject in our curriculum, which is Philosophy of Man. My perception of his ‘greatness’ as a teacher was actually just established by the stories of his former students, most especially from the SokSay community. I had the notion that these stories were just myths and exaggerations. Not until he became my teacher last semester that I realized he was more than the mythical figure I heard, more than what legends have told in their stories.

To my opinion, he was some sort of an exciting adventure during lecture hours, in which, as you go along with his life stories you would discover for yourselves hidden treasures that was knowledge and learning.

He was a good story teller, yet what he says are not mere stories but knowledge itself. Not only knowledge about the lessons, but, like what Sir Ben reveals, knowledge about the world beyond the four walls of the classroom.

Like Prof Ben, he encourages students to be involved in things that could make them more productive and useful to the society. Sir Ponti is an advocate of extra-curricular learning: learning things outside the classroom, learning lessons under the sun. These things taught me that the best lessons of life one could learn are the lessons obtained by being with people in different walks of life. Sometimes, these lessons appear to be unrewarding at first glance, yet as you give them a place in your heart, they could be magical.

One of the best things Sir Ponti said, and one that I will remember, goes like this: “Just work hard and do your best…never mind what the world says at you. Do what makes you happy…and eventually, time will come that the world will see how greatness is made and achieved…”

With that, I am reminded that greatness was never given at birth, not for only a few individuals. More often than not, greatness is to be achieved, and most of the time, it is achieved through the respect and appreciation from the people whose lives you have touched….and changed.

And I say that Sir Ben and Sir Ponti, in more than a way or another, have touched, inspired, and changed my perspectives, and challenged me to become bigger and better than I am.

That made them to be greater than what they could ever imagine. They are larger than life. They are living legends. ©