I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder: do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book when, shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So... good night, dear void.
My family and I know these lines by heart; they come from our favorite movie, "You've Got Mail." All this time I've been thinking along the same lines. Life is confined to these small and shabby streets in Manila; the circumscription extends a bit to Laguna, a bus ride away, and to one other home in Manila, close to DLSU. It is a small life--valuable, but small--and I have often wondered if I did it because I liked it, or because I hadn't been brave enough to pursue any of the things I really wanted to pursue. Day in and day out, a routine.
I guess I should have stopped to remind myself that bravery doesn't consist of great deeds or of living a swashbuckling or particularly romantic lifestyle. It may take great bravery to die for something, but it's a special, heroic brand of bravery that makes you get up every morning for an ideal. This is the bravery asked of us--living the same routines and struggling not to get bogged down by discouragement or daily difficulties, by a rude store clerk or the sneer of a classmate or traffic or smoke or illness. I may be like an ant moving over the same little anthill over the same tired little paths, but in some ways my heart is large enough to contain the universe... because my eyes are set on heaven and my mind turned to eternity.
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