Chapter 43: Life goes on.

A life far away from home thought me various stuff about life. It also gave me different description on what life is - depending on what situation I am into. My favorite is 'life goes on.'

Life will continue no matter how complicated things are. It will still make baby steps whether you like it or not. The only question that will remain is: as life passes by in front of your eyes, what would you rather do, grow with it or wither like a sunflower while watching the ray of the sun?

A continuous process of growth is what I will describe my journey. "Journey from where?" You might ask. Journey in finding a purpose to life - I would respond. I believe our purpose differs from phase to phase. Back in college my main goal is to graduate and have work after that everything is blurry - at least for me. When I started working, the purpose is to have income to sustain yourself and family. Is there anything else?

When I decided to work in the desert, all I want is to have a high salary. Get the things I want and be able to provide. Period. The material things in life that I want are getting almost reachable now and I can still manage to provide but one day I asked myself- Is there more to life than this?

I begin to question. In a place where you are surrounded by diamond and gold, what do I really want? I never told anyone but the biggest challenge in my journey is loneliness. Being alone physically is bearable but feeling of abandoned and left out is a different story.

In this phase, my purpose changed. I NEED TO SURVIVE. There comes a time that everything is falling apart. Everything seems to fade. The path is getting blurry and if I am being honest, I have no time to feel lost and all because there is so much $*&^ that I need to get a hold of.

I have a job to maintain. I have family to take care of. I have friends to accompany. I have my own self to love. There is so much and breaking down because of the different aspects in life is not even an option. 

That is when I 'develop' this defense mechanism from the reality of life. I need to be okay. And in order to be okay, I need to have a strong will or else I will give up on this battle. I became this kind of person and experience taught me to figure $*&^ out and whatever it takes, I need to be okay.

Because of this, I am misunderstood which I totally understand. I am far from the old me and there are certain things that I seem to forget because I am busy "surviving." I tend to forget the things that matter to people I used to love and here I am, starting to learn again.

Faith is the only thing that is constant in my path. Faith leads me here and I know it will also lead me to places. Maybe places where I didn't plan to be but I suppose that is where I am supposed to.

Life might give us different lessons in life but I hope whatever learnings you got from it, let love be greater than anything. Let your love for family be greater than the past mistakes you've done. Let the love for yourself be bigger that the disappointment you had before. Let your love for your family and community be much more than the misunderstandings you encountered. I know it is easier said than done but wouldn't it be nice to live in a world like that?