Move forward anyway

Netnet Camomot

FRIENDSHIP is precious and priceless.

You don’t see a friend for decades, you meet after, say, 30 years, and immediately morph back to the good old days when you were both young, innocent, and fresh from the farm.

That’s why you cherish your elementary and high school friends. It’s not the school although you do talk about the school when the alumni homecoming is near and everyone else is busy with dance practices. It’s not the teachers although you do talk about them and how you used to close the classroom’s door and windows so… Oops! Nope, you’re not releasing top-secret stories into the wild. It’s not even your favorite snacks at the school canteen: Chippy, siopao, and Coke.

Whenever you’re about to release friendship stories into the wild, the first thing you should consider is this: Will this make the friendship stronger? If yes, then go ahead, make your day. If the answer is no, but you go ahead in releasing that story anyway, then expect that friendship to morph into civil-with-each-other.

There’s always that year when you’re having one realization after another, so that it becomes a Realization 101 teleserye, a series of, hmmm, eventful events that could inspire you to ponder on friendships, loyalty, and the true story.

There are times when the story that one shares and defends depends on the person who he believes has more power, so that the story that comes from his powerful-people list is the one that he keeps repeating to others who care to listen. That story is not necessarily the truth, but because it’s repeated too often, it eventually becomes the truth according to them.

If you happen to be among the few who do know the true story, should you be obligated to reveal that to the world? It will now be your word against theirs. And if their words have been circulating for, say, at least six months, how are you going to erase that from people’s memories so that the only thing they will have in their hearts and souls is your true story?

Sometimes people whom you expected to support you in the first place are not the ones who are there for you. But then, there’s this saying that goes, Don’t expect anything from anyone and you’ll never be disappointed. Let that be your mantra, to help you appreciate every little perk that’s offered to you.

You have to choose to move forward. Don’t dwell on negativity. And if ever you do hear negative feedback, listen well, learn from it, but always move forward, otherwise, it will stop you from being your true self, and the time you waste thinking why they’re doing this to you should have been time invested on working towards your goals. People will always have something to say, anyway–damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

If you want something to happen, as long as it’s a good thing, then make it happen, despite… Hmmm. Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurtzbach has that kind of positivity and look where she is now. She didn’t let people who criticized her for joining the Binibining Pilipinas contest thrice, rain on her parade. She went on to be the star in that parade with her Miss Universe sash and $300-thousand crown. You go, girl!

Success, though, threatens the one who’s not used to seeing it as your constant companion. People can be surprised by your success. Shocked. Like, what the…? They never expected you to have that, and yet, there you are. So, they put you down, belittle your efforts, and compare your success to what they believe is their success. They compare crowns and sashes. They keep on comparing, for comparison is their constant companion, their best friend, their shoulder to cry on.

If only you knew about their survival tricks right from the start, then, that knowledge would have prevented you from wasting time in dwelling on their comparisons. At first, you only felt there was something wrong but could not see what it was. And when you finally realized where it was coming from–voila!

Dory has an advice for this: “When life gets you down do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do?… Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.” She sang that advice in “Finding Nemo” and will soon be sharing more bubbles of wisdom in “Finding Dory.”

Better that advice, since, “It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realize there is always a way to solve problems without using violence.” Hotdog’s Dennis Garcia posted that yesterday morning at 5 a.m. when some early birds were about to cook breakfast, and the first thought that came to mind was, How apt for a Hotdog to post something about eggs.

People have their own way of dealing with problems, they may even go ahead and smash that mosquito anyway, bahala na si Batman with the consequences.

The fragility of a friendship can be tested, too, once a mosquito lands on it. Will you let that mosquito bite? Will you flick it away? Or smash it so that its whole being, including the blood it was able to suck out of that friendship, are now all over that friendship.

Better hibernate in a farm where everything is fresh from the farm. A true friend will always look for you there anyway, no matter how far that farm is.