TWO days after the State of the Nation Address (Sona) of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the country is hurrying up things. Why?
The issues in the Sona of Marcos Jr. are valid and the solutions are simple, practical and workable. However, the solutions are not instant, they will take time and others will overshoot beyond 2008. Allow me to congratulate the President on putting the nation and the citizens working.
Now, the question that bogs me all the time is why are we in such a hurry? Why are we choosing a fast-paced life? What are we running after? Why can’t we live in the present moment? These are questions my professors in philosophy would often ask us in our classes when I was in college.
The present moment is very beautiful and we need to feel what is happening in the present. Covid-19 has made us stop and walk slowly for two years. We had the best of our lives seeing each day pass and living at our pace. We did not let anybody, anyone, or anything bother us. We had seen the beauty of our houses and we had time to tidy up many things. However, when the alarm came that Covid-19 is controllable and manageable, we went back to running again and setting alarm clocks.
Why are we so in a hurry? We want a very fast and future-paced life. We are now discussing face-to-face classes despite the presence and evolution of the virus in our environment. We want to be at par with our foreign counterparts and we want to loosen our guards against the pandemic. We want to immediately take off our face masks and worse, who cares about washing our hands?
We are hurrying up the consumption of our life plan and burial benefits. During the Sona, great applause from the floor was heard when President Marcos boldly said that there will be no more lockdowns in the country. What does this convey? Just asking? We are hurrying up to live in the new normal.
We fear the coming food shortage in the world but what are we doing now? Looking around, one would see a lot of idle lands waiting to be tilled. But because of our greed, we may end up hungry and angry. We are not coming up with a long-term solution and worry about the pending food shortage for we have already secured ourselves today. We worry a lot about the coming events but we do not worry about what is in front of us today. We develop plans for our nation but we fail to plan what we are doing today. Most of us and our leaders look forward and fail to look at where we are today.
Why are we hurrying up our lives? We always want to live in the future. We always care for the future. We worry so much about tomorrow that we forget what we have today.
It is not evil to plan for tomorrow but we have to face the realities of today. We are often presented with a beautiful future by many leaders but most of these are realities in the mirrors or just reflections on the water. We have to be always vigilant of the “now.” We have to savor the joy and sadness of the real world today. We have to consider where we are and not just look for where we shall be. We often set our alarm clocks for tomorrow and end up waking up to check it every hour. In the end, we have not slept well while waiting to wake up.
So, the future will come but let us enjoy the aches and pains of today. Let us be contented and accept the joys of today.
This is a world full of surprises.
Let us walk slowly and take a deep breath. Stop hurrying things, we might end up stopping in a coffin without enjoying.
Congratulations to Reverend Father Joel Alve, OAR, new president of the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos and thank you very much to the outgoing president, Reverend Father Don H. Besana, OAR.