As I am writing a new article for all of you, I used all means that I have to be able to compensate the needs of my thoughts to write a good one, and yes, just like you I’ve google-ed great and inspiring speeches from great people of all times, from Jesus Christ to Steve Jobs, to our very own Ferdinand Marcos, to Malala Yusafsai, the girl who fought for education, yet I know that there’s not even a single way for me to outlast those great speeches as they have crafted these wonderful insights from their experiences through time that taught them great life lessons. Allow me to lead you to some thoughts that I myself have believed, and have proven myself to be true. I have proven thoughts, principles, theories, that may come our way as we go along in searching our own purpose in life, but let me remind you that all of these are subjective and not all of the things that may be true to me will always be true to you, yet according to philosophy there are general truths that we all can agree:
First, no one wants to be poor. Who wants to be poor anyway? Who wants to suffer hunger? Thirst? With no good clothes to wear? A shelter one can claim as his own? And even unequal treatment in the society? NO ONE, yet who determines if one should be born in a rich or poor family? Not even us. Poverty, however, was clearly defined to have two simple classifications: one: absolute poverty, and two: relative poverty. Absolute poverty means that a person cannot afford to feed, clothe, give himself a shelter and buy medicines for his illness, in other words, his basic necessities, on the other hand, relative poverty means that a person CAN AFFORD to provide himself his basic needs, but not his WANTS. Let me ask you, in which definition do you belong? Bill Gates once said that if you were born poor, it is not your mistake, but if you die poor it’s your mistake.
Second, everyone wants to be successful. Oftentimes, success in our very own culture is correlated with financial wealth, financial freedom, MONEY! The practice of profession maybe, or even being recognized to be one of the most outstanding persons in the whole world and receive that CNN award. I know that we all have different definitions and standards as to how we define success, but what matters the most, is that we were able to find meaning and purpose in life, and for me that is what I have defined success. What about yours?
Third, we all want to have a better nation. We all wanted a nation that is responsive to the needs of its people, yet in our generation that seems to remain as an idea. And having said that, we always question our government of what are they doing to address the rising issues of the country, especially poverty. I think we have forgotten what ‘Gat Jose Rizal said that the children and the youth are the hope of the fatherland, and that’s us. We always play the blame game, maybe one of the well-crafted game is the ‘pointing-fingers-game’ that we seem to blame others, and blame circumstances on the current situation that we are in to without knowing that it is us, and only us who could make this nation a better one. Remember what Gandhi said? You must be the CHANGE that you want to see in the world. In this generation where information is available at the tip of our fingers, igniting change is possible, however, this generation also taught us ego-centrism, and selfishness: selfies to be more specific; that we are more concerned on how many people will tick the word ‘like’ on our selfie than helping the nation realize its dream through our own simple step. Let me ask you, at one point in this young age as you’ve questioned the government, have you also asked yourself of what have you done to make this nation better? I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
Poverty will remain to be an unresolved concern, success and equal opportunity for all will remain to be a vision, and that ‘better nation’ that we all dream will remain as a dream until everyone realizes that each one of us has its unique purpose in life to find and fulfill, that each one of us has its own mission to accomplish, that each and every citizen has its duty to its country, and that each one of us has the ability to ignite and be the change that we all dream to become. Dear friend, have you figured out yours?
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