Life, time, and money

First, we are fascinated with our uniform and the job title. Second, we stayed long in a company and realized our source of income is not enough. Third, we consider practicality and find another job to compensate for our family’s needs. Lastly, we do business which is not in line with our course or maybe migrate to another country to start a new life.

For those of you who are now in their adulting stage or maybe those who are late in accepting pragmatism as a way of life, perhaps we both go through this kind of story. Life is truly hard to figure out. Someday you don’t know where you’re heading to when you are knocked out perfectly and feel wasted. Have you ever felt this way? I remember a line from a movie starring Eddie Murphy where he says “Man plans, God laughs.” Yes, it’s true. Let’s just say God doesn’t want to destroy your plan but things out of your control just happen. We don’t know why but to understand it easily, that’s life. A man says that if anything goes wrong, it will.

Let's talk about money here. Everybody loves money but only few want to talk about it. One common factor of stress in money. It’s no joke to be broke in our 30s or 40s and to be drowned in debts in our 50s or 60s. It’s not easy to give our fake smile to anyone we meet when we are behind on our bills. Why can’t we get away from these things? Why is money important? Why do we have to work for it?

No doubt in this civilized modern world, money is our means of exchange for products or services. It’s obvious that we need to have it in order to experience what we need or want. Supposedly, it appears to work in proportion with one another. The more we want or need, the more money we should have.

The funny thing with humans is that we have so many wants and needs yet the less money we have. By this kind of equation surely we would get a negative result. And the crucial thing about this negativity is that it hides itself under the idea of probability.

If we want to know what this is about, it is the uncertainty of life. Many people find it hard to measure probability or uncertainty since it doesn’t exist yet. However, by the record of human history, we all got the same situations that appear repeatedly on every person in this world at different times. What we are emphasizing here are the uncertainty of our market, the uncertainty of our job in a company, the uncertainty of getting serious diseases, the uncertainty of death, the uncertainty of natural disaster, and many more.

They may not come together yet they always have the chance to happen to us anytime. When they come, most of us are not prepared. That's why we got that story of being broke, changing our job, learning new skills and career, or worse, getting lost in life's direction.

We are not gods who can predict life’s uncertainties but we are capable of mitigating them. We all need that good habit which will help us balance each side of our lives (exercise, reading books, prayer, saving, celebrating, etc.) Whatever path we take to enjoy and maybe to start a new one just look at life and time in a wider view. You are what you seek as they say. Take care of yourself.

John Caballes

Cebu City