Saturday, January 12, 2002
"Where are the dreams that we once had? This is the time to bring them back. What were the promises caught on the tips of our tongues? Do we forget or forgive? There’s a whole other life waiting to be lived If one day were brave enough To talk with conviction of the heart."
I had always wanted to be a missionary sister back in grade school. I was thoroughly awed by Mother Teresa, and I told myself, that’s it, that’s what I want to be. I want to be a missionary and help the poor and go to those rustic villages in Calcutta and cure the sick and get sick in the process and die a saint. Then I got the measles and I decided I did not want to be sick and that it was okay if I didn’t die a saint. It was a rather short-lived ambition, as you can see.
Then there was also the time that I wanted to work for the United Nations. Doing what, I never really knew, all I knew was that I wanted to work for the UN because it seemed like such a noble idea at the time. I would be working for a cause that went beyond self or country, a global endeavor, where every individual lived, ate, and breathed worldwide peace, unity, and harmony. Amen.
After reading People Magazine’s Tribute to the late Audrey Hepburn, though, I decided I would work for UNICEF and save the children of the world instead. There was also a time that I wanted to join the Green Peace and save all the baby seals, then I wanted to be part of the International Red Cross, then I wanted to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
Of course, I'm twenty-something now and am nowhere near winning any monumental award or changing the world for that matter. Instead I keep a 9 to 6 job where my most humanitarian act consists of sharing my bowl of instant noodles with an equally starved office mate, or surrendering the last of the coffee creamer to my boss. I sit behind a computer 10 hours a day (with a one-hour lunch break which can fall anywhere between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., and that’s if I’m lucky enough to squeeze it in), gripe about deadlines, smile at people I think are total idiots, tell my bosses they look good, and basically shed whatever is left of my health to ensure that my company makes enough money for me to see effects on my salary. So there you go.
I admit, that seems pretty mundane compared to winning the Nobel Prize, but what else is there to do? For crying out loud, I don’t even know how to enter the darn thing! Besides, the book that was supposed to win it has long been shelved and forgotten, taking a back seat to project deadlines, daily meetings and weekly status reports.
So, what have I been reduced to? A twenty-something individual worrying about her career, her love life, the economic crisis, her love life, pollution, her love life, global warming, La Niña, her stagnant bank account, the current Philippine President, the prospect of giving birth, and her love life. How about that? I’ve actually managed to land somewhere between Captain Planet and the perversion of Melrose Place.
I have officially been sucked into the 20-something time continuum where everything dismally plateus off. For two decades I have been scaling a steady incline, eager to reach the top, only to find at the summit a vast expanse of… desert plain.
There’s something about the twenty-something age . It’s totally pointless. Since infancy, life has been marked with clear milestones. As an infant you have a goal: to walk. You walk and you’re a toddler. Then you’re looking forward to pre-school, and then prep. You’re in prep and you again have a goal: elementary. Then you’re looking ahead to graduation. Six years and that’s a lot, but hey, you know what to expect. It’s structured, it’s progressive, it’s… SIX YEARS. On to high school, and you have another number: 4. Four years to attain your next goal: COLLEGE. When you’re in college, you feel like you’re doing something that will really map out the rest of your life. You make that crucial decision. You pick a course, and depending on that course, you have a fairly clear idea of how long it will take to achieve your most important goal so far: your college diploma. So you screw up and maybe stay an extra year or so… or so. Okay, an extra couple of years or so… whatever, the road ahead is still clear.
That day arrives, you graduate, you get your diploma, you’re finally out of school. And then… and then what? You’re twenty-something. You’re twenty-something, ladies and gentlemen, and you will be for the next eight years. You then realize that as you step into the portals of the twenty-something zone, life as you know it suddenly ceases to exist. There are now a whole new set of rules to follow, the First Commandment being: Thou shalt no longer ask thy parents for money. Indeed, thou shalt no longer ask thy parents for ANYTHING, you freeloader!
So you get a job, fine. Later on, though, you’re stuck with doing the same old thing you’ve been doing for the past three years. Back in college, each semester was sure to have something new in store. And as you ticked off each subject required to complete the course, you knew you were getting somewhere. In the twenty-something life, what is there to tick?
This pointlessness eventually gets to you when you find yourself spending your nth company Christmas party with that same company you spent your first company Christmas party with. And you have to think back over the last n years you spent in the twenty-something time continuum and wonder: what am I doing? I mean REALLY.
Sometimes I sit and wonder if that was the very idea of going through those arduous years in school. To get an office job where you find yourself in perpetual catatonia, doing the same things day in and day out, then going to bed looking forward to a whole new day of… doing the exact same thing you did the previous day!
Looking back, I now realize that adolescence isn’t even half as bad as being in the 20-something stage. When I was 16 and contemplating a college course, I thought I was lost. I didn’t know what lost was until I found myself on my third year of sitting behind a desk and working to make the rich shareholders of a company even richer. I’m not out there saving baby seals or feeding malnourished kids or drafting peace programs. I’m working to make the rich shareholders of a company even richer. Why? So I can be recognized and get promoted and hold a really hot shot position in some hot shot company, have hot shot power lunches, drive a hot shot car, live in a hot shot condo, then I can talk really loudly, like those hot shot bosses who love to talk really loudly to each other (have you noticed?). They especially love to do most of their yelling just as they are about to leave the room, lingering by the entrance in full view of the staff, and talking about their diminishing finances with such candor "kaya pare, let’s take your car na lang. I tell you pare, never get an Accord. Mamumulubi ka sa gas! Tamo nga, wala na akong pera! " just to let everyone else know what regular chaps they are. Then I can get married to some hot shot guy, get old, retire, and watch my children and grandchildren grow up to make a new generation of rich shareholders even richer. I’m a terrible human being.
Somehow the noble dreams of childhood that sought to make the world a better place lost its place in my priorities along the way.
Take Tabang Mindanaw, for example. Do you know how many times I planned to make a donation for that cause? Then the next thing I know they’ve printed out and are thanking all the donors of Tabang Mindanaw in the papers, and I still don’t even know what address I was supposed to put on the envelope. By the time I finally get around to sending off my donation, the residents of South Central Mindanao will most probably already be a happy, healthy people.
Then there’s the question of why I wanted to make a donation in the first place. Not because of some deep-seated desire to help the destitute, it’s so I can feel that my life is not totally without substance. Which I inevitably began to feel when my primary concerns shifted from victims of land mines to increasing digits on my paycheck and getting a pat on the back from my bosses. I’m a terrible human being!
And it doesn’t help that I’m working for a multi-national company. Whatever happened to the nationalistic ideals of boycotting foreign-owned corporations and using "the talents that God has given us for the betterment of what is Filipino?" The ideologies that I held in my pre-yuppy days have been pushed to the farthest recesses of my brain, toyed with occasionally, but never actually paid attention to, accorded just enough thought-time to convince myself that I have not totally forgotten the ideals instilled in me during my years in my left-leaning high school.
In the mean time I am stuck in the 20-something time continuum, each day as identical to the next as the previous one was, sitting around with friends after work to drown the voices of past ideologies in an occasional round of beer just so I can convince myself that being an active participant in this self-furthering, self-advancing world isn’t so bad. And all I can do is rue the passage of time and wonder what will become of me in this lifetime. When I die, will the world be any better for it?
A beverage commercial actually advises us that easily finding a parking space in Makati on a Friday night is a light and bubbly moment and should be cause to celebrate. Wow. Thanks a lot. That makes me feel so much better. Putting it that way, my life now makes so much more sense. Somebody shoot me!
I had always wanted to be a missionary sister back in grade school. I was thoroughly awed by Mother Teresa, and I told myself, that’s it, that’s what I want to be. I want to be a missionary and help the poor and go to those rustic villages in Calcutta and cure the sick and get sick in the process and die a saint. Then I got the measles and I decided I did not want to be sick and that it was okay if I didn’t die a saint. It was a rather short-lived ambition, as you can see.
Then there was also the time that I wanted to work for the United Nations. Doing what, I never really knew, all I knew was that I wanted to work for the UN because it seemed like such a noble idea at the time. I would be working for a cause that went beyond self or country, a global endeavor, where every individual lived, ate, and breathed worldwide peace, unity, and harmony. Amen.
After reading People Magazine’s Tribute to the late Audrey Hepburn, though, I decided I would work for UNICEF and save the children of the world instead. There was also a time that I wanted to join the Green Peace and save all the baby seals, then I wanted to be part of the International Red Cross, then I wanted to win the Nobel Prize for literature.
Of course, I'm twenty-something now and am nowhere near winning any monumental award or changing the world for that matter. Instead I keep a 9 to 6 job where my most humanitarian act consists of sharing my bowl of instant noodles with an equally starved office mate, or surrendering the last of the coffee creamer to my boss. I sit behind a computer 10 hours a day (with a one-hour lunch break which can fall anywhere between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., and that’s if I’m lucky enough to squeeze it in), gripe about deadlines, smile at people I think are total idiots, tell my bosses they look good, and basically shed whatever is left of my health to ensure that my company makes enough money for me to see effects on my salary. So there you go.
I admit, that seems pretty mundane compared to winning the Nobel Prize, but what else is there to do? For crying out loud, I don’t even know how to enter the darn thing! Besides, the book that was supposed to win it has long been shelved and forgotten, taking a back seat to project deadlines, daily meetings and weekly status reports.
So, what have I been reduced to? A twenty-something individual worrying about her career, her love life, the economic crisis, her love life, pollution, her love life, global warming, La Niña, her stagnant bank account, the current Philippine President, the prospect of giving birth, and her love life. How about that? I’ve actually managed to land somewhere between Captain Planet and the perversion of Melrose Place.
I have officially been sucked into the 20-something time continuum where everything dismally plateus off. For two decades I have been scaling a steady incline, eager to reach the top, only to find at the summit a vast expanse of… desert plain.
There’s something about the twenty-something age . It’s totally pointless. Since infancy, life has been marked with clear milestones. As an infant you have a goal: to walk. You walk and you’re a toddler. Then you’re looking forward to pre-school, and then prep. You’re in prep and you again have a goal: elementary. Then you’re looking ahead to graduation. Six years and that’s a lot, but hey, you know what to expect. It’s structured, it’s progressive, it’s… SIX YEARS. On to high school, and you have another number: 4. Four years to attain your next goal: COLLEGE. When you’re in college, you feel like you’re doing something that will really map out the rest of your life. You make that crucial decision. You pick a course, and depending on that course, you have a fairly clear idea of how long it will take to achieve your most important goal so far: your college diploma. So you screw up and maybe stay an extra year or so… or so. Okay, an extra couple of years or so… whatever, the road ahead is still clear.
That day arrives, you graduate, you get your diploma, you’re finally out of school. And then… and then what? You’re twenty-something. You’re twenty-something, ladies and gentlemen, and you will be for the next eight years. You then realize that as you step into the portals of the twenty-something zone, life as you know it suddenly ceases to exist. There are now a whole new set of rules to follow, the First Commandment being: Thou shalt no longer ask thy parents for money. Indeed, thou shalt no longer ask thy parents for ANYTHING, you freeloader!
So you get a job, fine. Later on, though, you’re stuck with doing the same old thing you’ve been doing for the past three years. Back in college, each semester was sure to have something new in store. And as you ticked off each subject required to complete the course, you knew you were getting somewhere. In the twenty-something life, what is there to tick?
This pointlessness eventually gets to you when you find yourself spending your nth company Christmas party with that same company you spent your first company Christmas party with. And you have to think back over the last n years you spent in the twenty-something time continuum and wonder: what am I doing? I mean REALLY.
Sometimes I sit and wonder if that was the very idea of going through those arduous years in school. To get an office job where you find yourself in perpetual catatonia, doing the same things day in and day out, then going to bed looking forward to a whole new day of… doing the exact same thing you did the previous day!
Looking back, I now realize that adolescence isn’t even half as bad as being in the 20-something stage. When I was 16 and contemplating a college course, I thought I was lost. I didn’t know what lost was until I found myself on my third year of sitting behind a desk and working to make the rich shareholders of a company even richer. I’m not out there saving baby seals or feeding malnourished kids or drafting peace programs. I’m working to make the rich shareholders of a company even richer. Why? So I can be recognized and get promoted and hold a really hot shot position in some hot shot company, have hot shot power lunches, drive a hot shot car, live in a hot shot condo, then I can talk really loudly, like those hot shot bosses who love to talk really loudly to each other (have you noticed?). They especially love to do most of their yelling just as they are about to leave the room, lingering by the entrance in full view of the staff, and talking about their diminishing finances with such candor "kaya pare, let’s take your car na lang. I tell you pare, never get an Accord. Mamumulubi ka sa gas! Tamo nga, wala na akong pera! " just to let everyone else know what regular chaps they are. Then I can get married to some hot shot guy, get old, retire, and watch my children and grandchildren grow up to make a new generation of rich shareholders even richer. I’m a terrible human being.
Somehow the noble dreams of childhood that sought to make the world a better place lost its place in my priorities along the way.
Take Tabang Mindanaw, for example. Do you know how many times I planned to make a donation for that cause? Then the next thing I know they’ve printed out and are thanking all the donors of Tabang Mindanaw in the papers, and I still don’t even know what address I was supposed to put on the envelope. By the time I finally get around to sending off my donation, the residents of South Central Mindanao will most probably already be a happy, healthy people.
Then there’s the question of why I wanted to make a donation in the first place. Not because of some deep-seated desire to help the destitute, it’s so I can feel that my life is not totally without substance. Which I inevitably began to feel when my primary concerns shifted from victims of land mines to increasing digits on my paycheck and getting a pat on the back from my bosses. I’m a terrible human being!
And it doesn’t help that I’m working for a multi-national company. Whatever happened to the nationalistic ideals of boycotting foreign-owned corporations and using "the talents that God has given us for the betterment of what is Filipino?" The ideologies that I held in my pre-yuppy days have been pushed to the farthest recesses of my brain, toyed with occasionally, but never actually paid attention to, accorded just enough thought-time to convince myself that I have not totally forgotten the ideals instilled in me during my years in my left-leaning high school.
In the mean time I am stuck in the 20-something time continuum, each day as identical to the next as the previous one was, sitting around with friends after work to drown the voices of past ideologies in an occasional round of beer just so I can convince myself that being an active participant in this self-furthering, self-advancing world isn’t so bad. And all I can do is rue the passage of time and wonder what will become of me in this lifetime. When I die, will the world be any better for it?
A beverage commercial actually advises us that easily finding a parking space in Makati on a Friday night is a light and bubbly moment and should be cause to celebrate. Wow. Thanks a lot. That makes me feel so much better. Putting it that way, my life now makes so much more sense. Somebody shoot me!
