Smiling Face
I love to smile! Have you heard that smiling flexes thousands of muscles in your face to prevent you to look old? Smiling doesn't only helps you stay young but it also it greets and brighthens another person even if it looks like 'ngiting aso'. We smile not only because to show our pearly white teeth to others but a sign that we are happy to see the person again. Speaking about smiling...'smiling face' became my trademark ever since I was a child because my friends and classmates noticed that I seems to be smiling all the time even there's nothing to smile of. There was an instance that a teacher of mine in high school misinterpreted me while venting her anger in our class because we were noisy. She got mad at me because it seemed that I was smiling but the truth is I wasn't smiling. Too late for my excuses and I just ignored her misinterpretations and covered my mouth instead. But there's an advantage of having a 'smiling face'...I bagged the Most Polite Student. See how good to smile can be?
Choose Life
When I was in first year college philosophy, we had our school year-end retreat in the seminary, a certain nun in her old age which happened to be our retreat facilitator, kept on repeating 'Choose life'. I can't even recount how many times she uttered those phrases. Perhaps that was her motto or favorite words? At first I understand that I definitely to choose life because I am still alive and breathing and I want to live longer. I guess I didn't understand what she really meant of 'choose life'. Along the retreat, I finally understood what she meant to 'choose life', not only because life is beautiful but to choose life is to choose always what's the best and good, to choose life is to choose wisely and appreciate life's beauty despite of trials and enjoy to the fullest that God's gift has given to us!
Finding What's Outside
When the first time I decided to leave the seminary, I decided to find a job that will suffice my family's everyday needs including myself. Just like others who would drag themselves to the limit just to get a job despite of small salary, work loads and pressures from supervisors, I myself had to be competitive and assertive to impress the interviewer. The experience of finding a right job is a painstaking process, it was not a piece of cake that I would eat right away but it was a difficult time of having a cake to bake and finding necessary ingredients.
This is what life outside the seminary. It's an everyday struggle. It's an everyday survival from the jungles of hustle and bustle of city's fast-paced changing lifestyle. Some former seminarians I know who are finding their luck outside maybe facing the same situation I had before. How did I survive? Three Ps: Persistence, Patience and Prayer.
