And People Say They are Contented.

I used to take the MRT to go to work everyday.
It bothers me that people seem to be so absorbed in getting to work. I can see the complaints in the faces of employees from the time that I take the jeepney from our village to the north EDSA station to the Ortigas station where I alight. Everyday is a struggle for us. For what? For survival.

And people say that they are contented. I have nothing against this statement but now that there are means to having a "Plan B," it pains me to know that the future of close-minded people are going to be so predictable. People going up the stairs to the tracks pretty much resemble zombies in the morning. I am content with what I have now as well. But God gave me these abilities and this healthy body to do more for myself and for people around me.

As my unemployed friend told me, Hindi mo naman yan madadala sa langit. Right.
Pero hindi ka ba concerned sa maiiwanan mo dito sa lupa? I told him. And he just shrugged off the confronting question. I’m learning a lot of things from my job right now and I’m grateful for the fact that I have a source of income to provide for my needs. But there’s more to life than meeting deadlines at the office and beating the timer to get to the office at 8 am; there’s more to the joy that you receive when your boss praises you for a job well done; there’s more to receiving your salary and spending almost all of it for your own expenses. There’s more to the excitement of purchasing items on sale thinking we got a great bargain.

More than the salary, there's also the time that we devote for work. There are a lot of people who can benefit from what we can do with the 24 hours given to us. I think it’s unfair to our loved ones when we feel contented with just providing them 3 meals a day and paying the bills to get by. And after all these, the time we can give is just a small fraction of our time devoted for work. Is this really how things are supposed to be? Which game should we be playing - winning the rat race or winning the money game?