To My Beloved Sisters

(I wrote it for my youngest sister's retreat in her last year of college. But I also hope it will be read by my younger sister)


well in my 23 years of experience, i will share what i have learned (and am still striving to uphold):

live honorably. strive to become a person of integrity. 

1. people will study your personhood. but the ultimate judge is yourself. if you want to be not just a merely existing agent of someone else's life, then inspire people to follow what you perceive is honorable. the real you is tested in the hardest, plainest, simplest, and mundane of all times, not in the best times. it means, rich or poor or poorest of predisposition, respect is inviolable. let your actions and words be not bounded by conditions that the weakest of hearts find so obvious the demarcation. your attitude behind the face of stress is worth a thousand picture. if you take it a habit to be genuinely hopeful, and kind, and respectful in all things ugly and uglier, you will acquire wisdom, not of the verbose pretentious type, but the one that people can really see, one so powerful it need not words to describe the potency of how it affects outlooks. every word you speak becomes you. and so with action. it is important not to be swayed by the most trivial of all circumstances. establish a stand on life and support it with conviction. only then, will you find meaning in your own existence. 

2. read and know what to read. if someone cannot make you read what needs to be read, then discover what is it that will make you bite your nails in the name of passion. they say the heart beats because automaticity and excitability initiate its intention. so is passion. reading gives you a power not destined to inflict inferiority, but to effect change in your interpretation of things, and life in general.

3. have fun. always. but have fun, securely. not all are granted so eagerly, for the wise always foresee what others cannot. restrain oneself, discipline is a pervading subject, we all should keep in mind, and that in time, we all shall reap.

4. do not do things you will later regret. in everything, the future is always a part. live in the moment, but also understand how "the moment" inspires/expires the future. think of how your children will perceive you. 

5. cherish your friends. and in time, you will talk about serious things, not just what you see now or think matters now. soon enough you will understand what life is really about. 

6. as of now, plan for your life. if you do not know what to do yet, that's fine. but the answers do not come easily, so it helps to be patient. you have to grasp experience, and reading, and discovering things synonyms i find hard to pen, only then will it lead you to answers you strive to find. 

do not just sit upright and coerce yourself to find meaning when you cannot. let the answers flow through spontaneously, like unedited music. and if you have found it indeed, first, congratulate yourself, and then and still, strive every bit to realize it. perseverance did not exist in our vocabulary for nothing. 

7. understand people. never bite them in the back. if you can understand how demented you really are, their faults are no different from ours. but if justice is not served and your rights are trampled, there is a process we can always follow. 

8. be street smart. be practical within acceptable limits, but do not stretch it further if it compromises your worth. 

9. keep a journal. and write what you think about anything and although you may not initially appreciate it, the proof of the deed's purpose come in time, sometimes unnoticed. 

10. if you plan to do something very big, remember to take one small step at a time. and over time, it will just happen, if and only if the path you chose and the work you have done leads you there.

11. and speaking about destiny, create your own. the lives of others are their own business. do not pattern your happiness at their distorted perceptions.
     
12. patience is the trying of all virtues. sometimes transcending. it says a lot about the truth you wish to conceal and reveal. it is the judge of character. so be patient with faults, with ignorance, with arrogance, with repetition, with failure, with companions, with boredom, with reading, and with time.