Be Yourself

Be yourself…

 

if yourself is good,

 

but if yourself is bad…

 

change yourself,

 

after you do that,

 

that’s the only time we can say…

 

be yourself.

 

By: Victorino Q. Abrugar

A Man’s Greatest Ambition

In a classroom of sophomore high school students, a teacher ask his students what ambitions do they have in their lives. These young and idealistic students then answered one by one. All of them tried to make their ambitions become the highest one. One student answered he wants to become a lawyer. Another student wanted to become a doctor. One bright student said he wants to become the president of his country. All of us had our own ambitions in life. One person I know, her great ambition in life is to travel around the world. Some people even aim to be number one in the world. These persons want to become the richest, most famous, most intelligent, most powerful and even the most beautiful persons in the world. Some benevolent persons of our world devote their lives in helping other people. Their ambitions in life are to be able to help the poor people of this world. Different people have different ambitions. All of them thought their own ambitions are the greatest ambitions in the world.

In my philosophical point of view, I classified human’s ambitions into two. They are ambitions which are impossible to achieve and ambitions which are possible to achieve. In my entire life, I already had different ambitions. As I grow, my ambitions changes and grows. Like other people, I also make sure that my ambition would be the greatest ambition in the world and beyond. I even aim to become a God. However, after my mind becomes matured, I realized that this ambition belongs to an ambition which is impossible to achieve. I will be so foolish if I continue such ambition. For this reason, I started to think and deeply analyze how can I reduced such impossible ambition to become a possible ambition but still become the greatest human ambition. I can be the most famous, most beautiful, richest and most powerful person in the world. But what if I die? Those things would suddenly become useless. So I need an ambition which doesn’t ends and perishes. One thing that doesn’t perish is our spirits. Indeed I cannot become a God, but still I can be with God. I can be in his kingdom and had an everlasting life. This is the greatest thing that can possibly happen to a man. This is the greatest ambition a man could ever have.

Men’s greatest ambitions need the greatest steps to achieve such ambition. These are the hardest and the most difficult steps among other steps for achieving ambitions. These steps need great things to guide us. Love, truth, humility and kindness are some of the great things we can use to achieve this ambition. We must do hardest things to succeed the men’s greatest ambition. Two of the most common and irresistible sins of humanity are the two L’s, the “Lust” and the “Lies”. We must resist on these sins together with the other sins of humanity. We must clean our spirits and fill them with love and kindness. Let us obey God’s commandments. Let us make our selves appropriate for God. With these steps we will achieve the greatest ambition of humanity. That is to be with God, be in His kingdom and have an everlasting life.

We are all free to dream and have our own ambitions. But let us aim the highest possible thing. Let us dream knowing our limitations. “Limitation keeps us in position”. And if you go beyond the limitations, you will be out of your position. The truth will guide us and God will always be just on us.

By: Victorino Q. Abrugar

I Will Therefore I Am

For some great philosophers of our planet, the world that we can see is just an illusion. It’s a world that is untrue and perishable. The Bible even says that the things which you can see are temporary and the things which are unseen are eternal. These great philosophers and of course the Bible is right. Spirits are the truth and physical matters are illusion. The money you are counting, the car you are dreaming to have, the jewelries you are safely keeping and the face and body you always beautifies are all illusions. These things are bounded by time and space and therefore will perish. But some people define existence with the maxim “to see is to believe.” For them, what they see is what exists. This concept is so vulnerable and breakable. Love cannot be seen, but it exists. Minds are also unseen, and if they argue that only things which are seen only exits, they are defining the humans as mindless creatures. We have minds, we have emotions and we have thoughts, these things are unseen but they indeed exist and we have them.

If only unseen things are real things, then how about humans? Are we real? We truly see humans. But we can’t see all of human structures. We only see the human physical structures but not their spiritual structures. When God created Heaven and Earth, He created two kinds of things. These things are things which He made out of physical matter and things He created out of Him. God is a pure spirit. He purely exists and He is purely true. Aside from angels, only humans were created by God through Him. But God also created humans partly out of physical matter. So that humans can fully take good care the physical and natural world and ultimately learn to leave materiality and ascend to spirituality. Spirits are the truth as I said earlier. The spiritual world is the true world. This is the world which is not bounded by the law of chemistry and physics. Humans are composed of matter and spirits and therefore we are composed of real and unreal things. We are both living in a material world and a spiritual world. But we must prioritized and focused on spiritual living because this s the real things and this is the eternity.

We truly exist because we have spirits. All things on Earth which are not spirits don’t really exist. Human spirits can choose to love or choose to hate. This I because of “free will” which is the unique attribute of a spirit. If a thing has s free will or the ability to choose what is right or wrong, then it is a spirit. Even the ability to think does not distinguish a physical matter against a spirit. Today, a computer had already the ability to think. It already had logic and can perform an analysis. But still, it doesn’t have the ability to choose what it wants to choose. It doesn’t have a “free will” and does not have the ability to choose between right and wrong. It only does what it was programmed to do. It only decides what it was programmed to decide after some results of analysis. A computer cannot choose to answer a “four” or a “number aside from two” on a question of ‘one plus one equals what?”. But a human can even answer “I don’t care about your question” on the same question above.

God created laws on earth for humans. He did not created laws for seas, mountains, rocks, trees and even on animals. The snake stated in Bible is not an animal but an angel called Satan whom disobeyed God’s commandments. Aside from Gods and angels, only humans have the free will on Earth. This is what makes us true and existing. Although our physical bodies are illusions like other physical things on Earth, our spirits are real. We are real. We are spirits. We have the free will, and therefore we exist. “I will therefore I am”.

By: Victorino Q. Abrugar

The Narrow Gate (Choosing the Right Way of Life)

For thousands of years of our world’s tradition, majority always rules. The common people decide and the few are left behind. From the crucifixion of Christ in the cross to the election of most of today’s world’s leaders in their presidency, it’s always the majority of votes that becomes the cause. The good choice is the choice of the common people. But can we indeed rely on the choice of the common people? Well, to answer that question, I have enumerated some facts that describe the common people.

Fact 1: Lying is common to people.

Fact 2: Majority of the people crave for money and fame.

Fact 3: Majority of the people are proud.

Fact 4: The common people lack patience.

Fact 5: True love is rare to common people.

Fact 6: Wisdom is uncommon to people.

Those facts are facts and we can’t deny them. However, I am not concluding that the common choice is always a bad choice. Sometimes, the common choice makes a right choice especially when it is directed or influenced by few extraordinary people. Nevertheless, greatness and good virtue are only found on few people and reliability is not absolute on the majority of the people.

We all need decisions to change or continue our lives. A good decision will bring us success while a bad decision might bring us tragedy. In making a decision, it’s very important for us to know what is a right or a wrong decision. Most people follow the common decision while some people go into unusual decision. If we will base on the hidden truth behind the people mouths, majority of them would chose money and fame rather than love. Most humans will choose easiness rather than difficulties. They would choose pride rather than humility.

Life is a decision to make. It is a gate to enter and a way to walk. There are two kinds of decision a person can choose. These are the hard decision and the easy decision. In most cases, the hard decisions are the right decisions, but these are not chosen by most people because of their hardships. Most people like ease and hate sacrifices. That’s why they don’t succeed in their lives. One example of a hard decision is to love truly. True love is full of sufferings and sacrifices. Because of these, most people avoid true love. They avoid love to avoid pains. But what they don’t realize is that they are avoiding the greatness and righteousness of life. Difficulty makes life a real life and true love makes life a great life.

In life, there are also two kinds of gates we must choose to get in. There is a wide gate that most people enter because of its effortlessness and convenience. There is also a narrow gate which only few enter because of its difficulties and sacrifices. The wide gate offers convenience, fortune and fame. In the wide gate there are almost no rules and laws to be followed. You can just lie, boast and you can just wear anything (sexy dress is allowed) in the wide gate. It’s such a majestic and decorative gate. It’s colorful like casinos and night clubs. That is why many people are attractive and enters in the wide gate.

On the other hand, the narrow gate is full of pains. That is why only few people enter on it. These people are the ones who are god fearing, enduring and humble. They are the persons who are well disciplined and possess the virtue of honesty and kindness. We must choose the right gate for our souls. We must pass on the right way for the survival of our soul. We must belong to the few people who enter into the narrow gate. Remember that majority of the people lie and becomes proud. What we need to do is to make our selves extraordinary, extraordinary people who are straight and beyond the usual people who are proud and liars. We must become persons who are great and inherits true life and eventually inherits the kingdom of our Almighty God. Nonetheless, the choice is still yours. Where would you want to enter? The wide gate which offers effortlessness? Or the narrow gate which offers difficulties?

By: Victorino Q. Abrugar