The Unbroken Reverie

Thanks to the Lord for this weekend. It feels like months since I had a decent rest. The past days were nauseatingly grueling to cry the least. Pressures were through the skull. Life is never easy. Stressors are oh so everywhere. Ha-ha. Lucky are the evil ones, for fewer expect them to be good, and they don’t need such stress in their lives. If you are bad, poor, or inferior, no one has high expectations, right?

Some people (the good ones) have a somewhat complex reputation to maintain. In general, they are never allowed to do anything that is not pleasant. They are never allowed to be anything but good. Why? Because when a supposedly good person did something wrong and people saw it, all would change at once. This is what makes good people so defenseless and vulnerable.

Sometimes I question if it pays being good all the time. When I am being nice, everything is good for all those around me: I would treat them so that they would feel they’re cared for, console them so they would feel alright, advice them so they would be motivated, entertain them so they would feel happy, and all that. But then, most of the time, it looks like my efforts are not even recognized. It seems that when I am the one who needs them, they won’t be there.

Let us be honest. It is so much easier to earn millions of cash through kidnapping for ransom than to work, for example, as a jeepney driver, carinderia server, internet café keeper, magbabalut, or a mop boy. How many months do they need to toil, strive, sweat, and salt away just to buy a pair of shoes for themselves, pay their debts, or serve a wholesome meal for their families? A lot of people in the Philippines have to endure poverty. It is easy to think that some of them must steal, holdup, or enter prostitution because they think it is the easier and faster way to earn and give to their families. It’s bad? So what, at least they get what their stomach requires! (However, it is amazing to see that most poor Filipinos still choose a dignified and moral living.)

Why should bother being good when it is so much easier to be bad anyway? Riot now! Wake up, people! - Just kidding.

"For the manner in which men live is so far removed from the way in which men ought to live, that he who leaves the common course for that which he ought to follow will find that it leads him to ruin rather than to safety. For a man who, in all respects, will carry out only his professions of good, will be apt to be ruined among so many that are evil. A prince therefore who desires to maintain himself must learn not always to be good...”