With no one to talk to, feeling bored and all, I picked up my phone and looked for my college buddy’s number, Ryan. I dialed his digits and then we talked. What actually prompted me to call him was that I remembered his Friendster bulletin, and it was reason enough for me to connect with him. He was ranting about his life as a DLSU-FEU’s MBA-JD program student.
The guy was sad or shall I say feeling low about the repetitiveness of life. He’s very much experiencing what most of my college colleagues are very much in: happy one moment, only to realize something lacks in their life, though as if I don’t get a hang of it.
So there, our brief conversation went around his life. He’s really exhausted. Better put in the rat race lingo, he’s indeed burnout. Though he was growing up, spell maturity, he’s still caught up and about wanting to experience new things. He wanted a break from his routine. At age 23, he was ranting about making ends meet for his family, his 200 peso per meal expense (that’s times three excluding his 55 peso 7-11 coffee drank thrice or more or another cup at Starbucks), our friends not understanding his very hectic schedule every time they plan to meet up, his bloating physique and his thinning hair line. He’s basically caught up with so many responsibilities, all in the name of running ahead and chasing all his dreams.
Amidst this though, he finds happiness from thinking beyond himself. He thinks not only of his own future but of his family and his partner. He told me how things are making him mature, how he appreciates silence more than being so loud, and how he is driven to become so rich—like Pacquiao—for his posterity.
I was just listening, spell understanding, everything he has to say. He was like demanding for others to understand him. And that was the most I could do for him at that moment.
And when the discussion shifted to me, he asked me what in the world am I doing in Palawan when with the brains I got I could make it in Manila. I could still go to law school and pursue a high-paid job, be on top and make the best out of my life. He believes I can do it.
I believed him, too. Though I was also at the side of asking him to understand my decision, Why in the world do I have to be in Palawan? In an island totally unfamiliar to me? His question, perhaps, bugs every close to me, too. I knew I never had to explain myself, but sometimes I couldn’t help it: Bakit nga ba ako nandito?
To respond, I simply told him, “Ryan, you know ever since that I am different and I think differently.” But to my mind, I was thinking about what he is experiencing right now, his phase of looking for reasons for his existence, more than just the monetary compensation that the corporate world has to offer or any titular glory academics has to pad one’s resume. I saw it coming before anyone else, and I knew I had to choose a different path.
Not that I don’t believe in all those things. Not that I crouched in fear immediately. I just knew that there must have some other ways I could trail blaze. And when that time comes money and title will run after me. What is it to chase after those two when in the process I lose grasp of my life? I would live only once, and I would dare take the chance of charting it out the way I believe I can be happy in the process.
To each is his own. I don’t raise an eyebrow to my college friends. In fact, I am proud of them: Ryan is taking his MBA-JD program; two others, Lucky and Alden are both at the Ateneo pursuing law; Louie is teaching at a university while finishing his masters at the Ateneo; Maricris is chasing after her childhood dream to be a doctor; and Joyce is working at a law and taking her MA in Development Studies at La Salle. Who wouldn’t be proud of them?
It’s just that I came into a point in my life that I have to ask myself what really matter? I don’t want to live my life trying to be happy when I can really be happy learning what is life and living it with a purpose at the same time. After all, everything is meaningless. This, too, is meaningless, a chase after the wind.
I guess, I was just blessed with this opportunity, that not grasping it would perhaps be a life-long regret.
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