#01_Topic: Crab Mentality

“Everybody wants to be rich.

But almost none of us want to persevere to attain that goal.”

I was born from a poor family. But I have a dream, I want to earn enough money to buy the necessary things, for my family to live a comfortable life. Don’t get me wrong, for me, a comfortable life is totally different from a luxurious life. I want to earn money not because I want my neighbors to feel insecure. I want to make them feel inspired, because they know that our family is just poor but because of our determination to change our social status in life, we have progressed. I want to make them think that nothing is impossible, that not all people who were born poor will live and die in poverty. We can be the best that we can be as long as we trust ourselves and make our dreams come into reality. But from what I am observing, it is turning out to be the opposite of what I want it to be.

As what I have learned from my history class, one of the things we have acquired when we were colonized was “crab mentality.” Crab mentality is when we don’t want somebody to become better than us and so, what we are doing is to put them down by saying discouraging words and other stuffs to them.

Sometimes, even some of our relatives have this kind of mentality. It is just sad to think that our saying which is “Blood is thicker than water” becomes “Money weighs more than kin.”

What I think of this? Well, we just have to be industrious and patient to attain our goal and find a work which will make us earn enough money that wouldn’t make us feel insecure about what our neighbors have. Another thing is that eradicate the feeling of envy and insecurity within your emotions. Insecurity is really a toxic, you know as what others say, “Insecurity kills.”

#01_Philosophy: A Definition

PHILOSOPHY
Philo = wisdom
Sophia = love

When you combined it, you will come up to “Love of Wisdom.”

What do we mean by wisdom?

Wisdom is when you are valedictorian from grade school to high school and you became magna cum laude when you graduated from college. NO.

Hmm, may be wisdom is not that much. Maybe you are just in the top 10 or may be top 20 from grade school to high school and you became one of the dean’s listers while you were in college. NO.

Oh I know. Wisdom is when you are a literate person. NO.

Then what is wisdom?

What do we really mean when we say WISDOM?

Before, I thought that wisdom is just the same as knowledge. Until one day, I asked my professor to differentiate wisdom from knowledge. He then said that knowledge is in the head, it is in our mind. It refers to all we know including all the lessons we have learned from school, all the values we have learned from our Values Education subject and probably cultural aspects we have acquired while growing up.

On the other hand, wisdom is beyond the limitations of knowledge. It is the ability to apply into real life what good we have learned. It is the capability not to change our own principles that are morally good and do what we think is right, when all the people around us is putting us down and making us do what they have been practicing for a long time that we know is not right.

#01_Love and Relationship

They said that love is a give and take relationship. But I would rather believe in what Mr. Kristian Lovendino said to us, that love is a giving relationship. If both of you will give, both of you will receive something.

My understanding as to what other people say which is, “Love is a give and take relationship” is that you should be limiting yourself in giving something to your partner. For example, if you feel that you are not receiving anything from your partner, you should stop giving him and wait until he gives you something. Hmmm, what if he already gave you something but you just didn’t see it because you are more focus on what you wanted him to give to you, overlooking that he already filled you with love, care and understanding. And yet, you are still expecting something else, not appreciating the effort your partner exerted just to give those necessary things in order to build the strong foundation of your relationship.

This also applies to other kinds of relationship. For instance in your family, every time you go to school, you always ask your parents to give you “baon” or pocket money for you to buy food or something you want in school. Sometimes, when you have a lot of projects, you tend to ask for more; well sometimes they gave you more, sometimes less than what you think is enough. Most of the times, students apt to get angry to their parents because the money they have received was not enough to cover all of their expenses. “The feeling that you are really studying hard just to make them proud and yet here they are, giving you less than what you need” is what runs into your mind every time you see the money they have given, every time you see your classmates eating delicious food in the canteen and you are just eating something you really don’t like just to save the money. You are thinking all of the sacrifices you have made. But, you should pause for a while and think, think not of yourself but of your parents also. Have you even thought of your parents? Have you thought that they did not almost eat for a day just to save money and give you the “baon” you think you did not deserve because you are studying hard? Have you thought that while you are eating the food you didn’t like in the canteen, they are working hard just to give you something more? Something more because you are their child, because they love you so much they are prepared to worn their bodies out and not to eat food that their bodies need.

According to a book entitled the Little Prince, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” What you see might be important to you, but not all that you see tells you the whole story. Maybe you are thinking that every time you got home, you see that your parents are just resting. Think not just of what you see, but also of the cause of what you see. Why is it that they are resting? They are probably tired. Why is that they are tired? Maybe they worked to earn a living, for us to be able to eat. It is better if you think this way.

Think not just of what you see, but the story behind what you see. Again, love is a giving relationship; if you think you are studying hard, think also of why you are able to study.

Well, I almost cry while writing this article. I remember all the silly things I was doing. Sometimes, it takes absence to value presence. I want you guys to value presence while it is still present. Please show that you value and appreciate all your loved ones while they can still feel it, we are lucky that we can still show it to them, isn’t it?

Give, Love and Appreciate… 🙂

 

 

#01 – Love: A Definition

It was a rainy morning. As I was taking the overpass on my way to school, I saw a man wearing a statement shirt saying “Love never changes.” I smiled when I have read it. I don’t know why but I suddenly repeated it to myself until I was thinking about it more deeply than I was supposed to.

It’s true. Love never changes, but people’s perceptions about it do. The different ways of how people express and define it and their principles in life which affect their view on it.

Most of the teenagers today define love as romantic love. Something that will make you feel attracted to your crush (maybe it is just an infatuation…), something that will make you feel like “parang may spark” between the two of you (well, I have experienced it myself when I had crush on Mario Maurer) and something that you will reason out if you can’t break him up even if he is hurting you physically and abusing you verbally. Do you think that love so great will permit something like physical abuse?

According to our NSTP Class, “Love is a genuine concern for the welfare of others.” According to the example given by my professor, Ms. Janice Gapaz, if for example there is someone you love most and he/she wanted to go to other countries and hence you will be away from him/her. Are you going to let him go or not? Well, if you truly love him/her, you should let him/her go and do what he/she wanted. Because if you can’t, then it is not love, it is attachment therefore. You can’t let him/her go because you are thinking of yourself not to be hurt by your separation from him/her. You are just thinking of what you wanted, not considering your partner’s wants and likes.

In love, it is not just about you, it is about the two of you. As what other people say, “it takes two to tango.” Both of you should be thinking of your partner’s welfare. In  that way, you will experience love as something you really want to feel.

Love is a broad topic and I know for sure that we would be having lots of topics about love and love-related matters… ❤ ❤ ❤