THERE is joy in youth, but there is greater joy in a life well-lived long after youth is gone.
Thus comes the challenge to sow a lot of good as soon as possible. But the best time is after childhood.
While it is good to start early, there is something about childhood that has to be enjoyed without cares. What is that? Parental control and adult expectations.
I remember long ago when a former boss said his greatest mistake was being valedictorian in kinder. Why? It’s because, since then, he has been expected to excel.
I was born a bum. I never really liked school. But I’m an obedient child, so I went to school. I had an ace in my pocket: I was born intelligent. Thus, I was earning honors along the way, but I never aspired to be in the honor roll. It was fun, yes, but it wasn’t a major loss if I didn’t make it. So, sometimes I got that blue second honors card in grade school, sometimes I didn’t. I got a tiny bronze medal during graduation.
My tendency to be a bum was more pronounced in high school. I wasn’t among the top honor students, not even among the so-called honorable mentions, but I stood the longest during the recognition program for having won in several out-of-school extracurricular activities. It was in high school when I discovered that there’s a world out there I could explore for free for as long as I get official permission from the school.
Since then, my life has been outside my official designation. First, as a student, later, as a professional.
The last 15 years as editor-in-chief saw an EIC who refused to be tied down, and so would escape to the mountains and the seas during days off or on official business.
What followed was a year of behaving inside an office before soaring off to a life that has been built since high school days -- a life lived to the fullest outside the confines of expectations and far away from portenders of doom.
That is the life one can enjoy for as long as good seeds have been sown since youth, hidden away from adult expectations.
I escaped my boss’ mistake of being valedictorian in kinder. I have confounded adults and thwarted their expectations. My class cards said it all: Underachiever.
I’d be so good in something, but the moment they send me to an academic competition, I’d lose. Because academics for me was never a contest.
Some professors were even expecting me to top the board, so I didn’t take the board.
What the teachers never realized was that I was just enjoying freedom away from their supervision and expectations. I was and am free.
Dear parents, please do not let your children read this if you hold so much importance in their being honor students.
Dear children, Email me.
saestremera@gmail.com