Receiving Grace

One afternoon, my officemate and I were talking about practices of different religions. She told me that she is actively involved in church activities and that she enjoys them very much. Years ago, she would have preferred night out with friends and have fun like the usual teenagers do. But now, she found herself tired of her old ways and started to discover the intangible rewards in serving God. She eventually became active in hosting church events which also helped her grow and mature as a professional. This became her avenue to share and develop her talent and skills.

On the contrary, I admitted that I used to serve the church through singing with the choir. But I suddenly stopped doing so because of the people I was with. Simply because, I expect them
to be as good-natured as what they preach. But as I involve myself, I saw something very disheartening. Every week, it just keeps piling up. Every word, just makes me think twice. The disillusionment was just too much that I had to withdraw my membership to avoid such "negative" crowd.

Then my office-mate told me "Maybe you are expecting too much and you are also forgetting that they are just human beings"

All of a sudden, my mind cleared up like how the ravishing waves of the sea clears the shore. Suddenly, I received Grace from Grace- yes, that's my office-mate's name.

Me and Grace

Because of her, I now believe that spirituality is internally rooted. It really depends on you and how you stay true to what you believe in.

Today, I commit to see each day- every moment as an opportunity to practice church's teaching gracefully. I believe that is one of the best ways to serve God. It also shows the value of integrity- where we choose to do the right thing even no one is looking. We can cheat the world, but we can never cheat ourselves.

"What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God"-Hans Urs von Balthasar

Happy 114th Independence Day

Just saw a very striking message posted on facebook today, and it goes something like this: Today we are celebrating our independence day because we are free! Free to do almost anything, like throwing trash anywhere, crossing the street whichever way we like, whenever we like.

I remembered one of my classes back in college, our professor who is also a nun told us that freedom is not freedom without responsibility. God gave us freewill to choose what we want to do in life and intellect to choose wisely. But somehow, maybe, over time it got lost in translation that we forget to think about the choices we make and how these choices affect the present and the future. We become trapped in situations where, if in the first place we could have just chosen to avoid it.

I just realized that for months now I've been trapped in my own mindset. Thinking that everything I know will deliver the results I want at work. But I was wrong- so wrong. It felt like yesterday, I just graduated from gradeschool then luckily got accelerated to college. Now teachers are different, classmates are different and classrooms are different. I felt like a freshman getting lost in a huge university where I don't have friends, class schedules are long and no more spoonfeeding of information from teachers. I am on my own. I am on my own. Or was I really?

Bottomline is- I just have to accept change. "Don't resist it" as my mentor told me that night, when I was already feeling so hopeless and helpless. Just those three words and I knew I was doing something wrong about the whole situation.

On my way home, I decided to reboot my mindset right away. I looked back and reminisced why I wanted to be here now and why I signed that job offer. Then all of a sudden everything became clearer. And the support I needed suddenly appeared.

Set yourself free. Free from all doubts and fears. If there is anything right now that is stopping you to move forward; to love again; to learn, to unlearn, to relearn; and to forgive. Start now! Start with yourself. Set youself free!

Happy independence day everyone!

Are we meant to be?

I was out last night with some close friends from medical school for our monthly get-together and updates (a.k.a "chismisan sessions").

Our fun and insightful dinner conversations progressed from Piolo Pascual being spotted with Mark Bautista at Belo's Clinic, then the most likely follow-up topic was of course KC Concepcion's new show then showtime's finale episode that morning to K12 educational system implementation and finally PNoy's handsome and hunkylicious PSG hehe. Glad we didn't touch on the impeachment trial for I think it will seem like we are getting old indeed.
Then we talked about some friends we know from school, updates on who got married, who will get married and the likes.

And the story that gave inspiration to this blog was when we were talking about someone (let's just call that person "negatron" to protect his/her identity) who is so negative about starting full-time hospital work- complaining that there will be little or no time to do other things like friday dates, saturday booze and night out, lazy sunday afternoons etc.. I admit I felt that way too before and it is one of the major factors why I left, aside from the fact that I wasn't able to handle physical and emotional demands of being a doctor. Then my friend said, which I think is a very good way of looking at it- "negatron" must accept that being a doctor is the life. It is not as if you are erasing or depriving yourself of a component of life. It is really just a choice to commit to your passion.

What is your true passion? It is never too late to find out today. Ask yourself "What will bring me true happiness?" the one that will last until your days are over.

We only have one life to live, so why waste your time on things or people that only makes you sad. I guess it all boils down to making that one solid decision -to be truly happy. And that happiness depends on you, on how you define it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen is how you'll know if you and what you're doing or whoever you are with are simply.... meant to be.