The right resolutions and reforms for the New Year
The year 2015 is over and we are about to enter a brand new year. We have identified the ten best things that ever happened in 2015 as well as the worst. Learning from both of them, we need to move on as a nation and as a people. It is crazy, as the Chinese sage would say, to expect a different set of results by adhering to same old outmoded ways of doing things. The incoming year will give us an opportune time to embark on meaningful reforms and truly correct and useful resolutions. We need a set of guidelines to serve as roadmap for the future, both as individual Filipinos and as a community of persons.
First of all, each one of us must be PURPOSE-DRIVEN. We must define our goals, our desired results and the kind of life that we want to live. Steven Covey teaches us to begin with an end in mind. If some or many of us have not yet pinpointed our vision and mission, this New Year is the opportunity to do them. We should also define our core values and principles so that we could be properly guided in making decisions and in taking actions. Then we need to clarify our priorities. Should they be God, family, country, career and friends, in that order?
Second, we must make sure that the level of our competence should equal the heights of our ambitions. If our ambition is KAPANTAY AY LANGIT, then our qualifications, our KASH (Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, and Habits) should not be BATO SA BUHANGIN. If our caliber is only for Kagawad, we should not aspire to become senator. For then, time will come when we shall be TINIMBANG KA NGUNIT KULANG. I pity Alma Moreno when she felt mercifully incompetent to answer the senatorial questions of Karen Davila. That is the tragedy of some people. They do not know their limitations.
Third. We should rebuild relationships. We must learn to live and let live. We must know how to forge a ''modus vivendi'' with people who are above us, under us or with the same level as us. We should stop judging others based on the standards that they do not even know. In matters of style, we can swim with the current, dance with the music or follow the direction of the wind. But on matters of principles, we should learn to stand like the rock of Gibraltar, uncompromising and impenetrable, unyielding and impervious to the whims and caprices of a largely wishy washy people around us.
Fourth, we cannot pretend to change the world when we cannot even follow simple traffic rules. We cannot impose our values on others when we do not even try to respect the basic dignity of human beings. It is crazy to criticize others for not adhering to our ways of doing things when we even refuse to consider the possibility that some people may be far better than us, or far worse. Fifth, there are things in life that need not be understood, but must simply be accepted. Because other people do not exist to conform to our expectations. They too have their own uniqueness to nurture and hold on to.
Sixth, our own happiness is not the responsibility of our parents, our friends or our employers, not even of our spouses and lovers. Our success, our joys, and our fulfillment are our own lookout. It is our assignment in this life. We should not give undue powers to others by allowing them to determine our modes, our health, our sense of well-being. Eighth, we should know by now that too much of anything is harmful. We thus should learn moderation and balance. Ninth, at the end of the day, whatever we can dream of, we can make it true. Tenth, and this is what matters most, God and us can make all things possible. There are no ifs and no buts.
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