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

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

The First Power

The greatest powers are the purest powers. For humans, what would be their greatest powers? How can they achieve these powers? In deep philosophical meaning I am talking spiritual powers. Spirits are the truth and the most powerful beings in existence. Although, there are a lot of powers that exists in this realm like fame, physical strength, fortune, technology and authority, these are far behind than spiritual powers which are not bounded by space and time. The power of love, faith and hope are spiritual powers and indeed great and eternal powers. These three things are use with the right emotions and wisdom. Without proper emotion love fails, without precise wisdom hope and faith fails.

Purity is density. Purity is the beginning, and purity is the return. God is the most powerful of all. He is the purest spirit and the beginning of all great things. Humans and angels were created by God out of His own spiritual body. We are created with God’s purity and spirituality. Although we are also created with materiality so we can live in this material world. Which is a world of lies and wickedness, yet a world of tests and courage. We inherited a great power from God when He first created us. This power is the power of spirit purity. We are given a test of materiality to learn how to distinguish spirituality from materiality. Our mission is to maintain and preserve the purity of our spirit as what we are in the beginning. The first power that we have is the purity of our spirit. This power is also our greatest power, a power which is forever and much stronger than the diminutive powers of money, fame, physical strength, authority and technology.

Humans seek for this power in the future believing that the greatest and ultimate power would be found after certain period of times. What they don’t realize is that the greatest power is the first power, and this is found on us in the beginning of our creation. We don’t need to look forward, but we need to look back on the time when we are pure. This is the time when we are not yet affected and influenced by the impurities of this foolish world.

How will purity works? Purity is density, purity is clarity and purity is brightness, a light that conquers all darkness. Pure spirit dictates pure faith and love. This is the power that will give us true and eternal life.

 

By: Victorino Q. Abrugar

Empowering Self-trust

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American writer, philosopher and orator, “Self-trust is the first key of success.”

Self trust is indeed an important ingredient of success, as I have used it to achieve all of my life’s success. Self-trust gives person a confidence that eliminates wasting of self energies and efforts because of worries and uncertainties. It maximizes and optimizes one’s strength and focus in achieving efficiently a certain goal. However, self-trust is not just an easy as you can instantly have it and tell the world that you trust yourself. Self-trust denotes a very difficult thing called “trustworthy”. Like other kinds of trust (i.e., trust for friends and other people), you cannot immediately trust anyone including yourself if they or you are not trustworthy. How can you trust a person who always breaks his or her promises to you? How can you possibly trust yourself if you always break your promises to yourself? How can you trust yourself if you are fun of cheating your self? How can you possibly trust yourself if you are indolent and wicked? Self-trust, to be the key of success must be a right trust to one’s self. It must follow self-trustworthy because a self-trust is worthless without trustworthy. To be trustworthy to ourselves, we should make ourselves honest, industrious and strong. And finally, we should follow our Almighty God, as He doesn’t lie and He is constantly truthful and powerful, so as His people can always trust and be faithful on Him.

Now, if you are industrious, personally strong, true to yourself and faithful to God, then we can say it’s noble for you to trust yourself.