My heart goes to my friends (yes, there were plenty of them) who lost in the recently concluded synchronized barangay elections. I for one didn’t think anyone of them would suffer defeat in the hands of few much younger and seasoned local politicians. Seeing these friends not often as friends should, I relied much on their information on how in their own capacity runs their individual offices. I say individual offices since two of them are running again, one for a higher position and the other for the same title. I would like to believe that I knew them better than our voters do so I indisputably put my faith, my hope and my vote in them without any reservation in mind. After casting my vote, I went back to my place confident that all eight (8) of the candidate-friends I voted would eventually assume office December 1, 2010. Today I got the (shocking) official result, of the eight (8) candidate-friends I voted for, ONLY two (2) won a seat.
Series of open-ended questions came rushing through my mind. All of these questions can be summed-up into one simple understatement, “How the hell did it happened?” I really didn’t know where and how to find the answer now but I would guess that the perfect answer lies hidden in the abyss of my candidate-friend’s consciousness. I voted for my candidate-friends because I completely trusted them to have the right mind-frame for our barangay but how in the good heavens name that majority of my fellow voting-kabarangays saw otherwise? One can contest it’s because of the last-minute hundred thousand peso worth of vote-buying funds of other candidates, but a closer look at this justification creates a deep scar in our communal intelligence.
Much of the anguish I felt on the news of their eventual defeat, I can tell that they are suffering hundredfold of pain not because they lost the election, but the thought of having majority of their kababaryo choose “other” candidates over them is like putting their heads (and the reasons for their existence) on the ground for the vulture to feast on. The challenge of crafting ones political strategy to win the elections is much easier to do than finding the courage to concede and gracefully exit. After all, no one in his right frame of mind would blissfully want to step down, relinquish power and be among the common tao. Only a saint can do that and no one from our barangay I suppose has ever dreamed of becoming one, not even my seminarian nephew.
I have experienced defeat on several occasions. My abrupt political exposure as candidate for MYS Presidency, my professional career and my complicated personal preferences are traces of failures and defeats. It bothered me then but through time, I’ve learned to accept and look at failures not as misses but as opportunities not to miss again. We all have second (and third, and forth, and so on) chances and opportunities DO NOT knock once. In each time that we failed comes another set of unique opportunities for us to take advantage of. All we need to do is to distinguish defeat (failure) from the opportunity, the right from the wrong, left from the right and the truth from our lies.
Just because you lost today doesn’t mean you cannot win tomorrow. Thomas Edison is considered as the greatest inventor of all time. He tested Over 3000 filaments before he came up with his version of a practical light bulb. As shocking as it may seem, this was not his greatest invention. Imagine if he had given up when the first one did not work! In his own words he said, “I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Owen and Lolo, it’s not the end of the world, there’s an amazing sight left to be discovered than fret over things past and you cannot control. So what if we lost today? The very thin line that defines victory and defeat is the manner we spend our lives to the fullest without any doubt, fear, hatred and arrogance after the fact. Let today be part of our wisdom so we can be more wiser when the sun rises again.
No comments:
Post a Comment