New Year, New Hope

Filipinos are always hopeful. Almost all people I talked to these past few days expressed hope that better days will come their way this new year 2012. Even the lowliest of people have told me  they look forward to have more blessings in the coming days or months.

I wonder where this profound hope is coming from. Is it from our Christian orientation? I just assume it is innate in our culture as a people. In fact, there have been surveys indicating we Filipinos are some of the happiest humans on earth. Yes inspite of all the hardship that majority of our people experience everyday, we still put up smiling faces!

Oh, so we choose to be hopeful and happy despite all odds.   While this attitude is admirable, many times we become complacent and sometimes overly dependent.

Take for example those families who have relatives working abroad. I know some neighbors who remain unemployed and yet they have money to spend everyday. It is because they receive monthly income from abroad. Ah if only they knew how to invest part of this money to make money!

We Filipinos are also dependent on our government leaders. We depend on our mayors, governors, congressman for many things. And now more and more of our countrymen are depending on the government cash-out program. And so instead of striving to make an honest living, many Filipinos opt to just wait for dole outs. How pitiful!

But we remain hopeful - hopeful (not daydreaming) that the daang matuwid of the present administration will lead us to a no-corruption society, hopeful that President Aquino will somehow  uplift the lives of the poor, not by statistical magic, but by providing jobs and social services, hopeful that our once notorious political leaders will be transformed or infected by President Aquino's much ballyhooed integrity, hopeful that the mighty Cojuangco-Aquino dynasty and its tentacles will finally realize the need to share their accumulated wealth with the poor and start distributing land to the landless, and finally hopeful that all Filipinos will do their share in bringing peace and prosperity for all.

  image courtesy of http://www.kaushik.net

Gratitude

As the year 2011 is about to close, it is time to take stock of what has transpired during the entire year. I wouldn't say it is the best year for me. Neither could I say it is the best year for the Philippines and the world.

Personally, the year was a so-so. Okay lang ... and shrugged.  I had many plans but only a few materialized.
On the national level, well, the economy stumbled as per information from projections that economic growth this year would be less than half of last year. P-Noy can always blame others except himself! There were also the historic calamities, i.e. floods that almost inundated Bulacan and Pampanga and killed thousands in Cagayan De oro and Iligan cities, typhoons that destroyed crops in many provinces.

Worldwide, there is the economic fall-out from the debt load of some European countries that stunted economic growth. But the Arab Spring provided a glimmer of hope that people around the world can now decide their futture in a democratic way.

And yet I must concede that not everything was gloomy this year. There is room for gratitude! And allow me to count my blessings ...

1. I am grateful because of my health and economic well-being. I have the nerve to say this even though I piled up tons of debt.
2. My online income has tripled though it is still way below expectation.
3. I still have my loving mother and siblings who are all in good health.
4. I was able to read more books and went on to finish a month's course on film-making.
5. I had more time to enjoy drinking and singing in karaoke bars and at home.
6. I bought some new clothes courtesy of credit card reward points.
7. I met new friends at the Theosophical Society and in other places.
8. I think I have grown wiser. Ha ha ha. This is one is harder to prove.

Of course the list is not complete without mentioning that I learned more from the many failures I had this year. So I say thank you dear life. Thank you universe. Thank you spiritual masters. Thank you all who are always there to help and guide and accompany me in my journey. Thank you fellow bloggers for the visits. I look forward with great hope that next year would be better!

 
 Image above is from http://cookwithabandon.wordpress.com/category/weekly-gratitude/