Expectations
Last Friday my family and I buried my 93-year-old Lola, and oddly enough though I was certainly saddened by her death I found myself more afraid than anything else. I wondered, almost out loud, if when the time came for me to bury my parents, I would be able to do so. Specifics on my personal finances aside, I haven't exactly put aside a whole lot of money for a rainy day. I asked myself just what I've been doing with my life.
It then hit me that by 2011, the youngest of us will have turned 35. Though thanks to medical advances, this number no longer necessarily represents middle age, it certainly means that the excuses we used to give for not being able to achieve what we set out to do when we graduated from college are a lot fewer now. Questions will arise if we've lived up to the potential that people like our teachers and parents saw in us when we were still snot-nosed, awkward, rebellious teenagers.
I've noticed that with a few notable exceptions I can think of (no names now), those of us who've achieved some measure of professional or financial success have had to leave Philippine shores to find it, something that is more an indictment of the lack of opportunities for decent work here than it is of our abilities. Others among us are able to hold down respectable jobs with relative if not altogether certain stability, and others still are just basically winging it.
Whatever degree of success each of us has experienced, it's pretty clear none of us is exactly running the world just now, though that's more of a dilemma we'll come to face in our forties and fifties, I guess. So for a number of us the question remains a valid one: are we where we hoped we would be ten or fifteen years ago?
I'd like to think that I fall into the "respectable job" category, but often (especially in '06 and '07) it's felt like I've fallen by the wayside. In short, the answer to the question "have I lived up to expectations" is a big fat "I don't know."
I take some small degree of pride knowing that as a lawyer and even as a law student, I have spent a fair amount of my time helping people and not just the people who wanted to hang onto their money but quite often the people who don't really have any, so if nothing else I can say I have, to an extent anyway, lived out the "man for others" credo we were taught in high school. But still, I ask myself, shouldn't someone be able to be a man for others and able to put a roof over his family's head? And I fall back into that state of frustration and inadequacy.
I wonder how the rest of you guys feel about this.
It then hit me that by 2011, the youngest of us will have turned 35. Though thanks to medical advances, this number no longer necessarily represents middle age, it certainly means that the excuses we used to give for not being able to achieve what we set out to do when we graduated from college are a lot fewer now. Questions will arise if we've lived up to the potential that people like our teachers and parents saw in us when we were still snot-nosed, awkward, rebellious teenagers.
I've noticed that with a few notable exceptions I can think of (no names now), those of us who've achieved some measure of professional or financial success have had to leave Philippine shores to find it, something that is more an indictment of the lack of opportunities for decent work here than it is of our abilities. Others among us are able to hold down respectable jobs with relative if not altogether certain stability, and others still are just basically winging it.
Whatever degree of success each of us has experienced, it's pretty clear none of us is exactly running the world just now, though that's more of a dilemma we'll come to face in our forties and fifties, I guess. So for a number of us the question remains a valid one: are we where we hoped we would be ten or fifteen years ago?
I'd like to think that I fall into the "respectable job" category, but often (especially in '06 and '07) it's felt like I've fallen by the wayside. In short, the answer to the question "have I lived up to expectations" is a big fat "I don't know."
I take some small degree of pride knowing that as a lawyer and even as a law student, I have spent a fair amount of my time helping people and not just the people who wanted to hang onto their money but quite often the people who don't really have any, so if nothing else I can say I have, to an extent anyway, lived out the "man for others" credo we were taught in high school. But still, I ask myself, shouldn't someone be able to be a man for others and able to put a roof over his family's head? And I fall back into that state of frustration and inadequacy.
I wonder how the rest of you guys feel about this.
posted by Jim Arroyo at 2:57 PM
8 Comments:
excellent article jim. it's the kind of question that you have to look into yourself to answer. this is that certain level of depth i've been missing. while i've always wondered, sometimes outloud, i've never really heard anyone else echo my (somewhat past) quarterlife (though still ongoing) crisis.
i have no family of my own, and i'm envious of the people i know of who have kids. though i do know my life would change irrevocably once i do start a family. a frustration of mine is that even though i consider myself smarter than paris hilton (or any other celebrity) any one of them nonetheless make millions more than i do without possessing any of my skill sets. (an aside: no i have never thought paris was dumb. i know she's intelligent but the media's made her the postergirl)
This comment has been removed by the author.
hmm. i guess i would like the following: $2 million in the bank (cash), a house (a nice one, hehe), cars, a loving wife (whom i love back), kids, and several ongoing businesses on different continents.
well, while i'm at it, why not shoot for the stars? sure, i'd like some "fuck you" money. i don't mind spending a million bucks to burn someone's ass. i guess a networth of $150 million doesn't sound too bad.
but seriously, the best way i know to "be a man for others" is to have a business that keeps them employed.
I'll have what you're having :) with the slight modification that I'd like a stable of ridiculously exotic sportscars, vacation houses on at least three major continents (here in Asia, South of France, somewhere in the Caribbean, etc.).
I'm actually back in the "building up experience" phase of my career that got stalled when I left the law firm I joined a couple of years ago and settled into a professionally stagnant government job. Fourteen months in I'm definitely enjoying myself but a small part of me is wondering when the time will come to cash this check of "experience" and get into some seriously high-paying employment. It's not like I could just open my own law practice at this stage (though some of my peers have, bless their courageous, borderline insane hearts). Still when that day comes that I trade up in terms of salary I could always do my conscience stroking by helping out at Bantay Bata or something like that.
Now I have to wonder, are you and I (and occasionally Joey and AA) the only people who read this blog anymore?
i believe there are other 4j lurkers. their indifference to contribute really bothers me actually. given that i am away, it is my only way to connect to old friends. anyway a blog is not a private enough forum for topics i would like to discuss.
oh I'm definitely still around. my current job (now ex-job) made me too busy to comment online. but given that I'm on my way out, will now have the breathing space to do so.
and I do enjoy your travelogues, ryan.
Post a Comment
<< Home