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LINK: ‘Note Verbale’, Manila Times (Sunday-Career Times) – 16 September 2007 Issue

Life on earth is admittedly complicated and difficult especially with the rat race and the myriad of tasks of daily living one has to endure. Every man’s quest for his ne plus ultra is almost an impossible dream because perhaps the world was never meant by its Creator to be a paradise.

Consciously or unconsciously, different people exist and live in this world for different reasons. And at the end of one’s lifetime, practically none of those which every man pursues and tangibly acquires while here on earth he or she could bring with him or her in the next realm.

But surely, every man would leave behind some memories of him or her, good or bad.  Some would chose to forget while others would choose to remember whatever moments were left behind by the person. Fortunately, a person can always choose how he or she wants to be remembered during his or her lifetime.

One of the most important faculties of the human mind is its ability to remember.

It is a great source of wonder what this world would be if human beings have no memory of their immediate past. Perhaps, life would be peaceful because every frustration, antagonism and troubles would be buried immediately after they occur. When everything is forward looking, there is absolutely nothing to keep, no ax to grind, and no excess baggage to worry about.

It sounds utopian but without any memory life also loses outright its meaning and significance. What people think, see, hear or feel would also not matter.

During one’s lifetime, people spend much time recording the past. Development of better tools and technology to perpetuate and preserve human events and interaction is a never ending quest. When people look back, it gives them their sense of being, their sense of belonging, and their sense of humanity.

It is the natural gift of mental and emotional faculties that makes human beings human and provides the real attribute that distinguishes them from other creations. And the human memory rightly serves this purpose.

Inevitably, one’s entire journey in life is his or her building block of memories in this world, for others or those who were left behind to keep after that lifetime on earth is up. 

In the end, it is not so much whether the person lived a life in misery or a life of fortune, a life of constant struggle or a life of ease, or a life of helplessness or a life of strength. It is when people constantly capture a vivid imagination of the person at whim just to remember how he or she made a good difference during his or her lifetime that really matters. 

It is in this sense that the people of the world remember and revere heroes, saints, champions, great men and women, and even ordinary individuals who lived momentous lives, even long after they were gone. Human memory would always preserve and carry on its memory of other human beings.

The purpose of living therefore is all about building good memories. In doing so, it is essential that people should aspire to make others happy and thrive. People should avoid antagonizing and taking advantage of others simply to perpetuate personal ends and selfish motives. In short, people should constantly strive to live for others starting with his or her immediate family.

And the best thing about building wonderful memories is it does not require special skills or talents or possessions. The only thing needed is a sincere heart to love and to take care of others to make sure that those memories are kept in mind till the end of time.

A person who left behind memories worth keeping, worth remembering and worth celebrating certainly led and lived a meaningful life, even if he or she left nothing tangible in this world.

Life’s journey starts with a dream. As they say, it’s the only thing that is free nowadays. And there’s actually no limit to what we want to dream about.

To realize a dream, most people find the need to device a plan or a strategy, consisting of short-term or even long-term goals or activities. Others would go about their dreams by just leaving things to fate but this is the surer path to lose in life by default. Dreams would have better chances of fruition when we consciously and actively pursue them through our actions. But regardless of our individual preference, our dreams always set the expectation of our journey.

Our expectations fail because of our failure to act, or maybe because we took the wrong path when we are called upon to make our choices. For some, the experience is bitter. For others, the experience is a misery, if not a tragedy. But others would just rise to the occasion and take up failure simply as a challenge to do more and better.

Our expectations also fail because of circumstances beyond our control, or maybe because we are not gifted with the talents to make our expectations work. Oftentimes, unforeseen events make us helpless or even discourage us from moving on in our journey. Human limitations as reason for failed expectations though is more apparent than real and have become a convenient excuse for failing. This world is replete with individuals who were born to fail because of their innate physical disabilities but nevertheless conquered their own dreams that normal human beings would find extremely difficult to do.

Whatever is the real reason for our failed expectations, I believe that the most important thing is to give and do our best all the time in the pursuit of our dreams. In the end, when our expectations are not met, we can ask ‘what happened?’ or ‘why it happened?’ if only to learn, or for other travelers to learn, from our mistakes and our frustrating experience. 

But when the bad weather comes to pass, the most difficult and critical part of the process is acceptance. How we accept things as they are and that not everything works according to our liking, our plans, or our expectations define our personal triumph or our personal doom. Losers can still be victors if they know how to rise up to the occasion. Acceptance is the key. And needless to say, the process of acceptance is never complete unless there is either remorse or forgiveness or both, when the situation calls for it.

We have to believe that bad things happen for some good reasons, albeit incomprehensible at the time we perceived defeat. I personally believe that failure is always a blessing in disguise but we will never know unless we recognize it ourselves.

Life is journey because we have to keep moving until we reach our final destination. And if things don’t work according to our expectations, we have to make a conscious effort to accept things as they are, and start dreaming again and again, if necessary. It is never too late to start a journey over and over again because there is always hope for as long we live, and this fact we must accept as a basic premise.

“I learned the first important lesson in my life – to DARE DREAM! Perhaps we should inspire our students to look up at the stars before the world entices them with mud.” – Dr. Onofre Pagsanghan* (In a speech delivered on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of the National Convention of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines and as published in the 7 October 2006 column ”At 3:00 A.M.” of Fr. James B. Reuter at the Philippine Star entitled: “The thoughts of a teacher”) 

*At 79 years old, Mr. Pagsi (as he is fondly known to his students, their parents and peers in the academic community) is a high school teacher par excellence of the Ateneo de Manila University since 53 years ago. For the full text of Fr. Reuter’s column on Mr. Pagsi’s inspiring and heartwarming speech, click here.