The true purpose of and happiness in life

I am now 72 years old and if the average life expectancy holds true, I don't have much time on earth. I have a beloved wife, younger by a few years, five children and five grandchildren. I have travelled to more than 132 countries and have attained most of my career goals. What matters most, I have found the true meaning and purpose of and happiness in life.

When I was just six years old, my family lived in a small hut in the middle of a cornfield in a mountain sitio called Pusodsawa in a village located 17 kilometers from town, in the boundary of Argao in southwest and Ronda in southwest Cebu. My father was laid off from his job as a teacher and we had to become farmers. I was plowing the field at six and tending the cows, carabaos, and goats. I was a barefoot boy studying in the village school for six years in the mid-fifties. But I was happy. Every time a plane hovered over the mountains of Langin, I would look up and dream with eyes wide open that someday, I will be on board that plane and see the world.

At age 12, I graduated from basic education. Since my parents couldn’t afford the tuition fee for high school then which was a huge amount of ?5 a month, I had to work as a houseboy in my aunt's house in Dumanjug and studied in the small town high school there. Then my parents transferred to Argao and I had to transfer to another school in that town. In my second year, I applied and was accepted as a janitor in Southwestern University while my parents taught in the university. I had to wake up at 4 a.m. every day and then rush to the high school library, which was assigned to me alone to sweep, scrub, and keep tidy. I was working in lieu of paying my tuition which was too large a sum for our family, ?10 a month. But I was happy.

I lived in a squatter area (even if the government calls it an urban poor colony, it was still squatter area for me) with no electricity or running water. I used a kerosene lamp and fetched water from an artesian well. I built my own shanty from trees I cut from our farm in Langin and used cardboard for wall and nipa for roofing. I didn’t have any flooring. The ground was the floor and I had a second-hand bamboo bed donated by my uncle. I cooked my own food, washed my own clothes, and worked as court interpreter in the Cebu City Court with a large salary of ?240 a month. It was a big improvement for the ?5 I worked for in my aunt's house in Dumanjug and the ?10 I earned as janitor in Southwestern. And I was happy.

Then, I became a lawyer and worked in San Miguel Corp., Pepsi Cola, Petron, and PNOC. I was getting good salaries, much higher than being a janitor and interpreter. But I wasn’t happy. There was an emptiness deep within me. I travelled to so many countries from America to Zimbabwe but I did not find the happiness I was looking for. I left the private sector and joined the government. I served poor OFWs in Malaysia, Kuwait, and Taiwan. My wife and I served them, taught them, inspired them, listened to their woes, and helped them struggle through life's many mysteries and vicissitudes. Then, I found my true purpose, and I discovered my happiness.

Then I came back to Langin, talked with poor farmers, ate with them with bare hands. I was singing and praying with them. I remembered the same place where a small hut stood with cogon grass as roofing and bamboo as walls and flooring. I rediscovered the true meaning of life. I went back to B. Rodriguez, which was called a squatters' area. The politicians call it an urban poor community but the people are the same.

I came back to where I started and I saw it for the first time. It was then that I discovered the true meaning of life. Today, I am happy and in the bosom of my family, I have nothing more to expect and nothing else to ask for. I am 72 but I feel like 27. The world is beautiful and life is a great place to be in once we discover why we are here in the first place.