Prosperity in the new year

To many people, New Year’s Day was a time to start to get life better. It was the beginning of positive change, of some relief from experienced hardships. Such hopeful expectation do come true for some. Yet, many of us simply recycle the same wishes year after year, for better times, for improved conditions.

People hold all kinds of supersition regarding the New Year. There are various rituals for attracting good fortune and for driving away bad luck. These range from the solemn to the absurd.

Offering round-shaped fruits at the altar, setting rice, salt, cooking oil and water at the dining table, wearing polka-dotted garments, tossing coins at the strike of midnight, and bursting the eardrums with loud fireworks explosions have become traditional ways of greeting the incoming year.

But, for the most part, the kind of reverence we have for the New Year seems nothing but simple frenzy. We do it because others do it, without really understanding why. As soon as the smell of firecrackers dies out, we are back on the old rut. A few days after the New Year, we again start looking forward to the next year.

It’s hard to say whether our New Year practices really work.

Filipinos have all the rituals and beliefs for just about anything. We take after our Chinese friends, adding their superstitions to our own, our reason being that the Filipino-Chinese are generally the more prosperous among us so their superstitious practices must be working. Crediting the endemic affluence of the Chinese mainly to their superstitions, the rest of us try to copy them.

Little do we see the other, more practical traits of the Chinese. They are superstitious, yes, but they are very hard-working, too. Hard work is such an important factor of the Chinese prosperity. Having overlooked this, many native Filipinos continue to wallow in hardship while their slit-eyed friends enjoy immense prosperity.

The Chinese rest very little, just enough to allow their bodies to recover from the day’s toils. They are up from early dawn until late at night. Moreover, these people are most smart with their money. They save, and spend only on what is really necessary, treating themselves to special comforts only when they have done something to deserve it.

I had classmates in college who tended their family stores in between class schedules. Those young Chinoys were always late in coming to class and quick to leave right after. They were average in school, but they were very good in business. After college, they easily became bosses in their family corporations, where many of our other classmates worked as ordinary clerks or secretaries.

Nowadays, Chinese kids are excelling in various fields: business, academe, sports, and the arts, often all at the same time. We wonder where these super-achievers draw their drive and energy from. Or, we think they’re just lucky.

On the other hand, there are people who are not Chinese, not superstitious at all, but are very prosperous just the same. Many of them are not super-intelligent; in fact, some were losers at school.

One example is my classmate in high school. The guy was a consistent flanker and the favorite subject of class jokes. Seeing no possibility of ever finishing his education, he decided work was a better use of his time. He quitted school and worked as apprentice in his uncle’s motor shop.

He worked so hard and devoted himself wholly to his job – he had no other option – that soon he rose in rank to assistant mechanic, and then later to chief mechanic. Customers liked him because he was a conscientious worker and always turned in a good job.

At one point, everyone were demanding for him to be the one to work on their cars, and were even willing to pay extra for his services. My former classmate took it from there, and put up his own motor shop.

As the saying goes, the rest is history. His business grew and soon spread throughout the entire region—a shop in every major town and city. Today that poor guy who could not make it in high school is the richest of our batch.

Brains or talents are not an assurance of a bright future, just like the New Year is not necessarily a promise of better things to come. No superstition or ritual or even New Year’s resolution can bring good luck for those that do not have the determination to do what needs to be done.

Prosperity often comes to those that trust in their own capacity for improving themselves and their life conditions. Each one of us has the power to attain what he or she wishes for, to excel and succeed, to create his or her own good fortune. The one who has the will can possibly have it all.

It takes a firm resolve to make things happen. Any day can be our new beginning, to start something to bring us closer to our dreams. Any day can be our New Year’s Day.

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Watch POR VIDA-TV’s “Cebuano Music” episode, for a quick check of the present state of our own musical artform. This Tuesday on Studio 23, at 6:30 p.m.