The Chick’s Lesson from Shit

This story is inspired by our little farm in Mindoro during my childhood days.

Hope you’ll like it. Here’s my story:

One windy afternoon, as the mother hen and her chicks are hurrying to return to the farmer's nipa hut to avoid the sudden gusts of amihan (or the strong trade winds), one of the chicks decided he doesn’t want to leave the farm yet. “You are all cowards,” he said to the other chicks. “After all, all I have to do is hide under the talahib grass to avoid the sudden gusts of amihan.” 

Soon, however, strong amihan winds blow and he realized he cannot make it to the talahib grass to hide. The first wind gust throws him nearby a rushing river with grazing carabaos. He realized that, just another wind blow will throw him in the river and will mean instant drowning. 

He just closed his eyes just as he heard the coming wind, buzzing like bees. Just seconds before the strong wind came; a carabao walked by and shits directly over the chick. The carabao’s shit covered the chick’s body, saving his life. 

He was very happy to be alive and he happily chirped and tweeted, until a passing eagle noticed him. The eagle quickly do a deadly aerial dive towards him, clawed him out of the shit and ate him.

So what’s my point here?

• Well first, those who throw shits on us are not necessarily our enemy.

• Second, not everyone who help us get out of the mess is necessarily our friends. 

Do you agree? Please share you story on the comments section.

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Image Credit:  Dmitriy Polyakov's Illustration

The School of Life and My Shoes

I arrived early for my job interview in Makati City and I still got two hours to kill before my scheduled time. Bad thing is I forgot to bring a book and the nearby mall is still closed so I think of something to do while waiting. I decided to take a short walk to buy a newspaper. 

Just outside the building, an old shoeshine man sitting on the sidewalk beside a newspaper stand caught my attention. He is carefully arranging his shoeshine paraphernalia like those were his prized possessions. He seemed nice and my shoes badly need a little makeover so I approached him to get my shoes cleaned. I noticed the man’s shoes were full of dusts. How ironic, I ponder how a shoeshine man never cleaned his shoes, yet I didn’t bother asking. He silently cleaned my shoes efficiently and with precision. I just sit there, just observing him, enjoying the elated feeling of being served and of being pampered and respected. I paid him, asked for my ten-peso change and stand up without even asking his name. I didn’t even say thank you. It’s his job anyway. 

The lady and the old shoeshine man

I still got plenty of time so I go to the magazine stand to buy a newspaper. I heard the shoeshine man asking a fortysomething corporate looking lady who were browsing some magazines to shine her shoes. The lady just smiled and declined. But the shoeshine man was persistent, almost pleading.

The smiling lady said something to the shoeshine man, and to my surprise, the shoeshine man stand up and sit down on his customers’ chair while the lady took his place.

I realized that the lady turned the table on this old man and offered to shine his dusty shoes – and pay him 500 pesos to do it. They both smiled and laughed while the man seemed to be excitedly telling his life’s story, as the lady sat on the ground at his feet and cleaned his dusty shoes. Some passersby looked at them bewildered. The newspaper vendor and some of his customers smiled too.

But I felt different. A wave of emotion hit me and for a moment I held back. I quickly returned to the building to read my newspaper but I can’t focus. The old man’s face, smiling as if nobody ever shined his shoes before, keeps flashing on my mind. Why did I deny that shoeshine man’s moment of joy?

I kept staring at my shining shoes – assailed by conflicting emotions, there was neither shame nor remorse.

"Change your heart!" said my shoes

To give importance, to treat others as an equal, to appreciate simple things, even if only for a moment which is very easy to give, was that lady’s gift that I will long remember every time I will wear my shoes.

It will always remind me that if we change our heart, then look at the world, the world would be a happy place to live.

By the way, I didn’t passed the job interview, but I learned an important life's lesson.  

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Photo Credit: Monica Jackson - Is That A Shoe?

The Crazy Side of Me - Livin' la Vida Loca

We made this cool video during one of our barkada trip at Enchanted Kingdom. On the left is me, my friend Bar (center) and Stup.

This is my way of telling you people that, yeah, I can be funny and crazy sometimes.

Sometimes the only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy.

How Do We Catch Sand Crabs in Mindoro - Learning from Nature

Aside from building sandcastles, we used to catch sand crabs for fun during my childhood days in our town in Occidental Mindoro. Sand crabs usually stayed in their deep holes along the sandy coastlines. One way to catch them is to dig their holes, but that takes a lot of time 

The crabs are foolish too!

It is well known, especially among the Filipinos, that crabs are selfish. The term “crab mentality” is used to describe a kind of selfish, short-sighted thinking which runs along the lines of “if I can't have it, neither can you.”

Only a few know that crabs are foolish too! That foolishness, of holding on to something dangerous, makes them easy to catch. 

Foolishness is deadly

To catch them inside their deep burrow, we use clotheslines or a small rope. We tie a piece of fishing net on one end of the rope and insert it in the crab’s hole. When we feel the crab’s claw pull in the line, we will keep on twisting the small rope and slowly pull it out of its burrow until we catch it.

All it needs to do is to let go of the other end of the rope to escape being caught, but it clawed that “something” that invades its territory, believing that it is an important fight. The crab doesn’t know that holding on to something unimportant and lifeless will cause him his life.

Nature is a great teacher on how to live our life

For the past years, I am like a sand crab. I keep on holding on to “something.” But I don’t even want to name that “something,” it has no name.    

It is hunger perhaps.

I hunger for growth and change from my old ways, from my old habits and thinking, but I keep on holding the other end of that “something,” defiantly resisting change, believing that it is an important fight.

I am a fool. Even if I already feeling the tension and the pain it is giving me on my daily affairs – crazily nurturing my frustrations, I still keep on holding on.

Maybe that “something” is “expectations.”

Yes, I guess it is “expectations.” the damn process of what may happen scares me - expectations from family, work, friends, life, career and myself all build paralysis in my mind.  Conversely, I feel frustrated when I have thoughts of expectations from these, draining my spirit and circumvents my growth, it is frustrating expecting anything. I hate it to be honest. 

Or maybe it is silence.

This silence – this silence that keeps feeding on my strength. This silence that breeds more silence, nourishes my indolence, nurtures my weakness, keeping me stagnant, forever staring at that lonely star before dawn. I am becoming weak, growing weaker still – this silence has bereft me of sense.

My soul itself gone stark, mad perhaps because I know longer acknowledge REASON. Like that foolish crab, I keep on holding to something lifeless and unimportant.  

I need to abandon all, to break silence, to kill expectations, to feel life, to end my hunger, and start living my life.

Starting Today, Be Afraid that Your Life Will Never Begin

As I go on with this crazy life, I learned that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let me down probably will.

I had my heart broken more than once and it's harder every time. I learn to break hearts too – only to regret it because it always reminds me how it felt when mine was broken.

I fight with my friends. I blame a new relationship for things an old one did.

I can’t understand why time is passing too fast: I'll eventually lose someone I love.

So, starting today, I will take too many pictures, I will blog too much, I will laugh too much, and love like I’ve never been hurt because every sixty seconds I spend upset is a minute of happiness I'll never get back.

To those who are taking time reading my posts, don’t commit the mistakes I did.

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin.