The Best Answer
While I'm trying these past few days to be a normal person who has a family to come home to after work, I'm held up at the office most hours because of so much shit to do and so little people to do it. I didn't mind. I love what I do. I just can't help thinking about a couple of things after wasting time on Facebook before I go to sleep every night.
I was part of a religious youth organization way back. It wasn't supposed to be a permanent thing because I was only doing it for my parish involvement thing in school (my apologies to my most favorite CLE teacher in the whole Milky Way). But I enjoyed being there and eventually, I became a regular member. I came every Sundays to do church work and even got to be a part of a big production of a play portraying the passion and death of Christ. That time, I felt like I was being a useful part of the human race and that I'm actually contributing something to humanity. It was, by far, the most fulfilled I've ever felt in my life. But just like everything else, eventually I had to move on. Along with my schedule and some other painful changes in my life, I had to move on. I pretty much stopped attending and stopped answering their messages and calls. As much as I liked hearing my church friends say that it's not the same without me, I chose to go the other way. So I went through the rest of my high school days and my entire college life without looking back, given that Facebook does an awesome job doing that for me. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't able to see how they'd also moved on. A lot of the kids I went to that org with are now different and grown up but still part of that group. While moving on with the changes in their lives, they chose to stay and serve and contribute something. And I was away in a land where everything is about me and where I don't have stuff to worry about. While I'm alone with my fancy, shiny diagrams of human DNA and the world's evolutionary history, they're together in a group that aims to change the world for the better, having fun, spreading love, and moving on without the others who didn't make the same choice as theirs. Believe it or not, I tried coming back but every minute I spend with them only makes me feel like I have nothing to come back to. They've moved on too far, and nothing I can do is gonna make me catch up.
Every time I see pictures of them on Facebook, I can't help asking myself why I was no longer a part of that group, why I can't bring myself back, and why I'm not there.
One time, I visited by best friend in Cavite during his hospital duty. He's practically a doctor now, doing all that cool shit and saving people's lives. He wasn't able to entertain me much during my visit as he had a lot of people to attend to, mostly kids because he was on pedia rotation. I watched him as he talked to those sick kids who don't even have an idea that they're in the most depressing place ever. Despite the clear plastic tubes draining potentially harmful drugs into their system, they were smiling and telling my friend how happy they are that he was their doctor. I watched him talk to them like they're some vital part of him. I watched him care and while my heart swelled with pride for my dearest friend, it broke into a million pathetic pieces at the same time.
Every time I see pictures of him on Facebook with his patients and with all the fancy doctor stuff that he does, I can't help asking why I'm not him, why I wasn't a doctor, and why I'm stuck in an office editing physician reports for a living.
I had the same conversation with another dear friend just last week. Like me, he also feels bad about being able to make a living while watching everyone we went to college with stick needles into people's arms and cutting them open to fix them. Like me, he's also asking why.
Life could be a little bit of an inconsiderate bastard who thinks he's funny. Maybe that's why we're not where we think we're supposed to be. Maybe that's why I'm no longer part of the group I once called my second family and why I'm not a physician but basically a physician's secretary. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I love what I do. It's just that I can't help challenging what came to be.
Why?
Why am I here?
Why am I not there?
Right now, the best answer I can come up with is that I kick ass doing what I'm doing now. I do better alone than being part of a group. I'm more useful being on my own and getting things done than being on team function. I do better being a physician's secretary than being a physician myself. Looking back at that visit in Cavite, I realized that I'm not made for that kind of job. Down to my core, I'm selfish and I put my life above the lives of others. If I were a doctor, I would've sucked big time while putting a lot of people's lives in danger.
Maybe we shouldn't waste time at all asking why we're not somewhere else because there is a good reason why we are where we are. While I don't believe in the notion that it is destiny at work, I'm comfortable with the idea of things being definite based on what each one of us is made of. We are the masters of our own fate and what we are defines where we're supposed to be. It's really just basic Environmental Science—where you are most useful is where you stay, live, and thrive.
That's the best answer.
I was part of a religious youth organization way back. It wasn't supposed to be a permanent thing because I was only doing it for my parish involvement thing in school (my apologies to my most favorite CLE teacher in the whole Milky Way). But I enjoyed being there and eventually, I became a regular member. I came every Sundays to do church work and even got to be a part of a big production of a play portraying the passion and death of Christ. That time, I felt like I was being a useful part of the human race and that I'm actually contributing something to humanity. It was, by far, the most fulfilled I've ever felt in my life. But just like everything else, eventually I had to move on. Along with my schedule and some other painful changes in my life, I had to move on. I pretty much stopped attending and stopped answering their messages and calls. As much as I liked hearing my church friends say that it's not the same without me, I chose to go the other way. So I went through the rest of my high school days and my entire college life without looking back, given that Facebook does an awesome job doing that for me. There wasn't a day that went by that I wasn't able to see how they'd also moved on. A lot of the kids I went to that org with are now different and grown up but still part of that group. While moving on with the changes in their lives, they chose to stay and serve and contribute something. And I was away in a land where everything is about me and where I don't have stuff to worry about. While I'm alone with my fancy, shiny diagrams of human DNA and the world's evolutionary history, they're together in a group that aims to change the world for the better, having fun, spreading love, and moving on without the others who didn't make the same choice as theirs. Believe it or not, I tried coming back but every minute I spend with them only makes me feel like I have nothing to come back to. They've moved on too far, and nothing I can do is gonna make me catch up.
Every time I see pictures of them on Facebook, I can't help asking myself why I was no longer a part of that group, why I can't bring myself back, and why I'm not there.
One time, I visited by best friend in Cavite during his hospital duty. He's practically a doctor now, doing all that cool shit and saving people's lives. He wasn't able to entertain me much during my visit as he had a lot of people to attend to, mostly kids because he was on pedia rotation. I watched him as he talked to those sick kids who don't even have an idea that they're in the most depressing place ever. Despite the clear plastic tubes draining potentially harmful drugs into their system, they were smiling and telling my friend how happy they are that he was their doctor. I watched him talk to them like they're some vital part of him. I watched him care and while my heart swelled with pride for my dearest friend, it broke into a million pathetic pieces at the same time.
Every time I see pictures of him on Facebook with his patients and with all the fancy doctor stuff that he does, I can't help asking why I'm not him, why I wasn't a doctor, and why I'm stuck in an office editing physician reports for a living.
I had the same conversation with another dear friend just last week. Like me, he also feels bad about being able to make a living while watching everyone we went to college with stick needles into people's arms and cutting them open to fix them. Like me, he's also asking why.
Life could be a little bit of an inconsiderate bastard who thinks he's funny. Maybe that's why we're not where we think we're supposed to be. Maybe that's why I'm no longer part of the group I once called my second family and why I'm not a physician but basically a physician's secretary. Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I love what I do. It's just that I can't help challenging what came to be.
Why?
Why am I here?
Why am I not there?
Right now, the best answer I can come up with is that I kick ass doing what I'm doing now. I do better alone than being part of a group. I'm more useful being on my own and getting things done than being on team function. I do better being a physician's secretary than being a physician myself. Looking back at that visit in Cavite, I realized that I'm not made for that kind of job. Down to my core, I'm selfish and I put my life above the lives of others. If I were a doctor, I would've sucked big time while putting a lot of people's lives in danger.
Maybe we shouldn't waste time at all asking why we're not somewhere else because there is a good reason why we are where we are. While I don't believe in the notion that it is destiny at work, I'm comfortable with the idea of things being definite based on what each one of us is made of. We are the masters of our own fate and what we are defines where we're supposed to be. It's really just basic Environmental Science—where you are most useful is where you stay, live, and thrive.
That's the best answer.
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