REALITY gave me a slap on the face – part 1

The day was September 5, 2009, a day I will never forget. It was the date of the “Best of Young Minds Academy Conference, Awards and Graduation.” When I woke up I thought to myself, finally we are graduating from this program of RAFI, and didn’t care much about it for I was tired and ready to move on with my life.

I and my team did our project presentation and I was thinking “I did my best,” but during the awards and graduation ceremony I got a reality check. I did not get one slap but it was pretty much a barrage of slaps. The first was from an inspirational speech from RAFI Vice President and Aboitiz Equity Ventures CEO Jon Ramon Aboitiz in his inspirational speech (An excerpt of the story of Don Ramon Aboitiz):

“All I have after the war was my name, word and my reputation. Money can be lost and recovered, but once your reputation and trust is lost, then you are finished.”

He then followed it up with values to live by such as Integrity, Trust, Loyalty, Hard work, Fairness, Perseverance, Love of family & concern for others and also emphasized YMA’s 9 Pillars of character and Leadership. We as the youth should seek personal excellence and not just aim for success but also significance.

The 1st slap was the values he emphasized to us which I thought I have, but the truth was that I did have them once upon a time but it was lost and I just kept on pretending that I uphold them. My INTEGRITY is currently at the borderline, having to step foot in REAL WORLD has pretty much tested my character and values. HARD WORK, I do work hard but its most of the time conditional depending if I am interested or like what I am doing. TRUST, FAIRNESS and PERSEVERANCE, I considered myself to be a leader but I no longer do. You see I am the HERO-MARTYR type of leader which means that when things get difficult I have the tendency to be-HEROIC and shoulder almost everything myself.

I do seek to achieve personal excellence, success and significance, but I just realized that my actions are contradictory to it.

The 2nd slap was during the 2nd inspirational speech by RAFI President Roberto E. Aboitiz talking about the “BUGSAY PHILOSOPHY” which comprises of the following: Destination, Round up, Effort and Attitude; in which he placed a great emphasis on ATTITUDE. One must not only have the desire to be a person of character, the will to continuously improve but also the courage to put it into action and continue doing it despite the challenges and problems along the way towards one’s goal or destination.

Being an Industrial Engineering graduate, I take pride in upholding the principle of KAIZEN which is Japanese for continuously improving. But lately it is truly hard to do with so many factors and negativity to fight off. It’s as if I really don’t know myself anymore, I have become stagnant…a zero as emphasized in an example of Sir Bobby aboitiz’s which was about the 3 types of people through a diagram. It was a simple 2 sided arrow, one going to the left, the other to the right; the arrow to the right represented positive, to the left was negative and the center is zero. Sometimes I am optimistic then pessimistic or just simply think that it’s ok. Yes, I am an OK person, never really getting out of one’s comfort zone. But what’s really funny is that I was totally the opposite 6-8 months ago. I seek the pressure, the passion to become more than what I was, the unwavering desire to act and do things excellently and if I failed, I would not surrender without a fight and until I have nothing left to give that is where I accept defeat. But now, I just don’t take things as seriously anymore, it is sickening that I have become such a person having to loose one’s enthusiasm, attitude and one’s self.

See the Part 2 here
REALITY gave me a slap on the face – part 1 REALITY gave me a slap on the face – part 1 Reviewed by Vernon Joseph Go on Monday, September 07, 2009 Rating: 5

4 comments

  1. aaaaawwwww. k ra nah angkul! aja! fight back life! :D

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  2. Vernon, that's what we call "quarter-life crisis"... and you are not alone in feeling that way...we all have to go through such phase one way or another.. at the end of the day, what matters is how well u have fought.. :)

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  3. hope tanan CBS bloggers mabasahan ni nila... the quotes of Don Ramon are all very well said. Inspiring jud!

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  4. i do understand ur sentiment, epecially when you use the term "HEROIC-MARTYR" type of a learder. Life is always like that, and will always be like that...

    ...I dont believe that you are no longer a leader...

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