Love what you do

By Renato Tibon

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

SOMEONE said life is a learning curve. Despite its convoluted context, I believe what is meant is we learn more and have confidence as we age and gain knowledge and experience or new skills. Others would say learning is starting from scratch – tabula rasa, we begin all over again and that’s what makes life worthwhile, its unpredictability and the chance to create opportunities, innovate and carve a name for one’s self. It really amounts to one thing though: life has always been and is about the choices we make. Learning about life, its meaning and purpose is a continuing search that “enables individuals to endure hardship and challenges on a daily basis and effectively navigate life with vigor, alacrity, and grace”. Those who fail to grasp any significance of their existence seek the nearest escape route by ending it.

Like many baby-boomers who were less privileged or had no opportunity for better and competitive circumstances, I had to make the best “diskarte” out of the sundry cards dealt my way. Early on, I learned that life is like playing a poker game, it’s not always strong suits that make you win. It’s the attitude over the cards you were dealt: you choose to play, bluff or you fold. Poverty was not a choice but being the eldest in a brood of seven, totally dependent on a military man’s meager pension in the ’70s, the options were few as the struggle was real. My parents were pragmatic enough to let me choose: enlist in the military or find a menial job after high school and help sustain the family or pursue schooling whatever it takes. The choice was not difficult to discern. As the eldest, I was expected to acquire an appropriate education and a good-paying job to help out the others. Facing many crossroads soon thereafter, choosing a rewarding marriage over a precarious military life, rolling with the punches life has proffered, rising where I stumbled and fell in decision-making, I found more meaning in failures than successes which put me in good stead in my present state of affairs.

According to Victor Frankl, a WWII survivor and founder of Logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy, meaning can be found through experiencing reality by interacting authentically with the environment and others; by giving something back to the world through creativity and self-expression; and by changing our attitude when faced with a situation or circumstance we cannot change. In his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, Frankl wrote that humans are motivated by the desire to find meaning in life regardless of their situation and that everything can be taken from a man except one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. To him meaning came from three possible sources: purposeful work, love, and courage in the face of difficulty.

Three kids, six grandchildren, and many moons thereafter, I came to appreciate that every stone I threw in the pond called life had created far-reaching ripples that stay to this day. As my way of giving back, senior citizen status notwithstanding, I actively offered my help in social, political as well as religious matters, through unwavering membership and leadership in Kiwanis International, Centrist Democratic Party of the Philippines and Couples for Christ respectively. I found purpose-driven work as eternally rewarding, facing difficulties as a normal adjunct to existence and loving what I do as the ultimate expression of gratitude. Life isn’t done with me just yet.

Live, learn, love. I wish these were the secret formula to success and the answers to man’s ultimate quest for power, pleasure, and peace. The point said Frankl, “is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.

As the millennials would have it, “push natin ’to.”

(Renato Gica Tibon is a fellow of the Fellowship of the 300, an elite organization under Centrist Democracy Political Institute with focus on political technocracy. He  holds both position as political action officer and program manager of the Institute. He is the former regional chairman for Region 10 and vice president for Mindanao of the Centrist Democratic Party of the Philippines.)