When I was
working in a corporate world, I can simply identify each employee if he is a
“conyo” who is a graduate of a prominent university in our country or he is
just simply a “promdi” going to Manila finding luck to earn more money. I can
simply identify each of them just by their appearances as I am a great
“observer”. Like the conyo for example, he will enter the work with a very fresh and pore-less face
wearing his signature, pressed outfit while holding his car key and phone and
on the other hand is a lunch box cooked by his yaya because the company canteen doesn't serve brown rice. While the promdi, he will enter perspiring with
a very haggard face after fighting for his own life inside the MRT while
wearing a backpack and inside of that is a lunchbox cooked by himself early in
the morning because he just simply can’t afford the food in the company
canteen.
After 3 years,
I resigned from that big, international company for various reasons like very stressful transportation and polluted environment. So I decided to go back to province to work in
a government agency earning a fair salary which I think for me is enough to
raise a family in a decent way.
Few people had
asked me if how much do I earn which I believe that asking
someone’s salary is a very mean question. But out of respect for these people, I
told them a rough estimate of the amount. Then their reply is textbook: Study
in Masteral Degree so you have to be promoted! (Promoted means bigger salary).
I was shocked by their reply and brought me a big question. Do people now live life
by earning money to get rich to buy whatever he wants, to order food whatever
he likes, to book a flight wherever, whenever he wants to travel? Is that
really the purpose of our life?
WOW! Is this
now really the mindset of people? Each of us has its own fate. It’s just we
have different perspective. We choose different directions. Some choose this
way, some choose that way.
For me to live with a happy family, with food
enough to satisfy our hunger and by not skipping a day thanking the Man
why I breathe today is already a blessing. Wealth cannot determine my
being, character does. The character on how I live my own life and my relationship
with others and to God, that is for me the purpose of life, my purpose of life.
