Great expectations

The holiday festivities have come and gone. It’s back to the old grind, and not a moment too soon, too. I don’t know about you — but I’m relieved the holidays are over and I’m back to my usual routine.

Party-pooper? Killjoy? Old fogey? Yeah, I guess to some extent, I’m a little bit of those things. I have to confess, New Year celebrations don’t get me too excited anymore. I guess you can say that I’m a little bit jaded. After years and years of celebrating the onset of a new year, you get a little tired of the same old thing. The story line is the same: you wait till midnight, revel at the fireworks and firecrackers, toast to the New Year, jump a little, greet everyone, reply to New Year text messages, have a little midnight meal, go out with friends, party till the crack of dawn, have breakfast, sleep the whole day on Jan. 1, and read how many people got injured (or died) on Jan. 2. 

I honestly can’t remember what happened on New Year’s Day of 2003, much less New Year’s Day of 1998. Every New Year celebration gets all muddled up in my memory. Every year, it’s the same. And every year, we wish every one a prosperous year ahead. So what happens is that every year, we have this great expectation that the coming year will be much better than the year that just passed. Every year, we have hope.

This is particularly true for us Pinoys. A recent survey found that 92 percent of Pinoys are full of hope for the new year. What an amazing statistic. While all the world’s respected economists and leaders are saying that 2009 will be more difficult than 2008, we Filipinos are still saying to ourselves, “No, things will be much better.”   Talk about fighting spirit.

While this way of thinking is certainly admirable (and unique), I think it’s appropriate that I wave a couple of red flags. First, we all have to take this “hopeful” attitude with a grain of salt (a huge grain of salt).   In my humble opinion, Pinoys are hopeful for 2009 not so much because they are optimistic by nature but because they believe that things simply can’t get any worse. 

Personally, I think that’s baloney. I can think of a thousand other situations that we can be in — and they would be much worse than where we are. Would you rather be in Afghanistan, Gaza Strip of Zimbabwe than the Philippines? I wouldn’t. So the Philippines is not in a situation where it can’t get any worse. We have to qualify that hope. It’s a hope not based on facts. It’s a hope based on a wish. And, as we know, wishful thinking, without the corresponding action, leads to nowhere.

Second, we have to be more pragmatic when we hope. There are situations where people simply hope too much, to the point that it’s practically unhealthy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be optimistic. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have dreams. And I’m certainly not saying that we should just mope and fall into despair. All I’m saying is we have to temper our hope, because sometimes relying too much on hope leads to that old, carefree Pinoy attitude of bahala na. Some Pinoys equate pag-asa with bahala na. Personally, I’m a bit bothered by the fact that our weather bureau is called “Pag-Asa.” We “hope” that it won’t flood? Is that what it means? Frankly, I’d be more comfortable if our weather bureau was called “Pag-Handa.” But that’s another article altogether.

I really admire the Pinoy’s capacity to endure pain, to adjust to any situation he is in, and eternally have hope in his heart — no matter what adversity he faces. Whenever I arrive in the airport and drive through the Tramo area and see some of our urban poor, I still can’t fathom how some folks manage to live in those shanties along the river — and still manage to smile. They seem to have hope still — that they will win the lotto, or a relative gets hired to the Middle East, or one of them gets to join Wowowee. To me, it’s both admirable and a cause for concern.

In the end, you simply become a dreamer, that what you’re hoping for will happen. But in all likelihood, it will not. Sure, we all share the fight attitude of Manny Pacquiao. There’s a Pacquiao in all of us — but Pacquiao trains hard. With hard work and a hopeful heart — the sky’s the limit. 

But you must also work hard for what your heart is hoping for.

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Thanks for all your letters, folks! You may e-mail me at rodhnepo@yahoo.com