Thursday, December 31, 2020

2020: THE YEAR OF LIVING CAREFULLY Part 3

 It's official.  

In three hours, 2020 will be all over and we have pinned all our hopes that 2021 will treat us more kindly.  As I have written before, I am not of the belief that the moment the clock strikes twelve that all our challenges and agonies embodied by 2020 will be wiped clean like a Magic Slate. 

Nope.  As Elsa said in that Ricky Lee classic filmed by the great Ishmael Bernal, " Walang himala!"   Tomorrow we will wake up to realize that 2021 is but a sequel to 2o2o but (again hopefully) with a better narrative that is less interesting but more compassionate.

As part of my personal superstition I made it a point that all pending jobs and bills have been fulfilled and paid before the year is over.  I have made it a personal mission to make sure that all my work for 2020 is duly accomplished and that the utility bills have been paid --- insuring that there is enough stock of rice, salt and sugar in the pantry.  Such are the beliefs I inherited from my mother.  You do not want anything of 2020 to stick to you as you cross the border of the following year.

Then there is this thing about New Year's Resolutions.  I mean --- do people still make these "To Do"-lists in the name of self-improvement as a year comes to a close and the prospects of another twelve months mark a new beginning?  I do think the Gen Z-ers are even into that considering their Weltenschauung is all about "Whatever!"  But then again it is interesting to list down all the areas that require improvement as far as personal assessments are concerned.  Y0u do not need a New Year revelry to pinpoint where you can improve your life.  

Maybe it is because the internalization is far better when you are philosophizing after consuming half a bottle of red wine or maybe seven straight shots of Jose Cuervo.  

So as a final word to mark the end of The Year of Living Carefully, let me list my so-called resolutions for the Year of the Ox.  The Year of Mickey Mouse wasn't too good or entertaining --- so let's see if we can dance around the Year of the Bull.

(1) I shall be more concerned about my health than my waistline. 

When you reach that certain age, you will come to accept that no one is going to love you because of your body.

No one in his or her right mind would want to ravage your body with his or her love.

No amount of hours working out, Keto diet and visits to your favorite heaven-sent cosmetic medico can ever reverse what the Law of Nature dictated involving aging, metabolism and the passage of time.

So if I spend a good hour to an hour and a half doing my cardio, it is not because I am aspiring to regain my 32 inch waistline when I was not even half my present age.  I shall be content with the use of moisturizers and sweating it out to get rid of the toxins but I am not going to delude myself into thinking that I can impersonate any of the Bench Body models.

Love me as a cream puff ... or leave me.  If you cannot handle my love handles, then you do not deserve my love. Naks!

(2) I am not giving an flying f--k about opinions of people who I know do not also give a flying f--k about me.

I think if you have lived for more than six decades you gain the license to choose to think the way you want to think as long as you do not go around deliberately hurting anybody --- most especially yourself.

When I was twenty, I learned that half of success is getting along with others.

When I was thirty, I found out that success involves choosing the right people to be with.

When I was forty, I realized that success is not fulfillment and you need to charter your course with the right advice from people around you.

But when I turned fifty I came to the point of accepting that the world cannot be defined by your needs alone ... and that there is no one else like you so deal with it.

And now that I am sixty plus, I have decided that since I cannot please everybody ... then I should stop trying to do so and only define my happiness by giving joy to those who really give a s--t about me. 

Regardless of how good a human you are or how evil you have become, someone will always find a reason to give you the finger.  So if somebody tells you to f--k off, give the creature a head to toe look and ask, " And who you? "


(3) Affirmation in life is not like Facebook: it is not based on your number of friends and likes you receive in a day. So I will give more appreciation to the people in my life rather than the acquisitions to define my environment.

The best people in my life (aside from my nephews and nieces) are those I have known more than half my present human existence.

There may be some additions here and there but I realized that each time I host my Christmas dinners, even the so-called new friends have been around for nothing short than a decade.

I would like to keep it that way.  As Stephen Sondheim said in one of his songs in Merrily We Roll Along, old friends are the true treasures because they are there not for keeps but hopefully forever.   There are some people who are like those who pass through the revolving doors of your life but others stay.  And those who stay are your true treasures --- and not the temporal material things which you sometimes mistake as the ultimate gauge of how lucky you are.

Some possessions appreciate through time but they can never give you the love and comfort that true friends can yield ... especially at times when you need them the most.

I do not think you can find any sort of credible consolation hugging your Benz when you feel all alone in the world. And if you do, get the f--k out of my sight.


(4) I will choose to say "no" when I want to say "no" and not feel guilty about it.

Tama na, sobra na, abuso na.

I am sometimes surprised how I can still be bamboozled by emotional blackmail.  Or this Filipino sense of obligation, utang na loob and all that sort of cultural diversionary tactics.  It makes refusal seem so heartless, morbid or even ... uncivilized.

But it is not.

Again,  I find myself trying to please everybody at the expense of myself because I want to save face or look good and,  in the process, practicing civilized hypocrisy. There are moments when you feel you have to give in to requests because you would feel like a rectum personified if you said no.  As I said, more often than not, you fall into the same old trap over and over again because you do not want to come across as arrogant, snobbish ... or at worst, entitled.  More often than not, you succumb to your own personal paranoia AGAIN about what other people might say ... think ... feel or even conclude.

OK.  Enough of that.  If I feel it doesn't fit into what I want, then I will say NO and will not require myself to apologize ... or even be demanded an explanation. It is a privilege that comes with age and not stature.

There is just no more time for that sort of bullshit.

And finally...


(5) You have to make time for what you want as much as what you need.

Enough of the pressure of deadlines, requirements and expectations.

There is such a thing as creative selfishness and it has got nothing to do with this seeming obligation to hug the world and sing Kumbaya.  It is all about centering on your own wants while being aware of your needs. It is about self-love which is as important as all claims of altruism or wanting to save the world.

I must go back to that practice of reading a book every ten days.

I must go back to sketching ... which I gave up so many years ago for a variety of reasons.

I must really cut down on television binging because it has become an addiction that subtracts time for me to do other things.

Although I respect deadlines, I will not allow myself to be terrorized by unmanageable scheduling.

Most important, I will cease from endless trying to prove that I am still relevant because in the larger scheme of things, who really give a f--k?


In short, regardless of challenges and obstacles, I will try my damn best to make 2021 more than fulfilling.

I shall choose to be happy.


















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