Passing By November 18, 2007
Posted by Mayee in : Daily Babble , trackbackOn my way home last night, I was passing by some food stalls found beneath the Ayala MRT station before I could get to the Shuttle Terminal beside it. Since it was already past 10 PM, most of the stalls were already closing, except for one, where I purchased a bottle of mineral water. While I was stuffing my change into my wallet, an older man looking like he was in his mid-40’s went over to the sales boy.
Sales boy: (smiles) Ano po yun, sir?
Customer: Ang aking usual.
Sales boy: Sige po, sir, yung usual niyo. (Goes about, stuffing the order into a plastic bag)
Customer: (Whispers to himself, but just loud enough so I could catch what he said) Gabi gabi na lang, Ensaymada. Hay.
The man said it in such a way that it was as if I could already read how he liked his life. He didn’t.
He was wearing a cream-colored pseudo-barong polo that looked like it had been worn out 10 years ago, shabby pants, and black leather shoes, which although they were old-looking, were polished to a perfect shine. I could gather he worked late shifts seeing as he was only going home at 10pm.
I’m no expert, but I could tell you right there and then what that guy was miserable about: the dull routine that made up his everyday life.
I was listening to the radio one morning, while my mom was driving me to the bus station, on my way to school. You might know of the morning show on Magic 89.9, Good Times With Mo. Well on that specific morning, Mo was claiming that people need routine in their lives. That routine was all that was lacking to make people and society better.
Again, I do not claim expertise on the topic of people or society, but what I do know is this: ROUTINE MAKES LIFE BORING. Waking up to the same thing everyday, whether it’s waking up to school, or your dayjob, or if you wake up to a million pesos and everything you can ever need every day, it does not matter. The same thing over and over again will eventually pin you down to a life of repetitiveness and lack of spontaneity.
You may disagree with me on this, at which point I will stubbornly hold my argument up and tell you that you are making no sense. But that’s just me being stubborn. The fact is, I haven’t reached the point in my life where I’m wondering if I’m in the right job, doing what I want and helping make the world a better place… because I don’t work yet. I’m still in the safe haven of being an Undergraduate and not caring how much I make or whose life I’m ruining at the moment.
Now at this point you’d ask me why the heck I even bother to think about these things then, if I haven’t reached that point yet. Well, truth is, it’s harder to not know where you’re gonna be and what you’re going to be doing, than you already being in one place and then deciding if you like that place or not.
I am talking about life.
Am I meant to be a leader? A follower? An anti-social being yet the most productive in the process (think WORKAHOLICS) ? What ? What do I do with my life?
It’s funny that an old guy buying an ensaymada can get me thinking like this.
The perks of being a self-proclaimed expert at character-profiling. I might pursue this as a craft someday. Or not.
Comments»
Routines are boring but when we do these so called routines with a lot of love, they cease to be so. We forget they are routines and remember what we’re doing it for may it be for persons we care about, for our own growth or self fulfillment, for something greater than ourselves. If and just as love can drive us crazy so can it make routinary things transcend from being just mere routines. Now that’s something out of this world. In the end, our routinary actions are not aimless.
routines can be boring, but they also provide a certain rhythm to life, almost a kind of stability. the way i see it, as long as my days aren’t made solely of routine (like, i go somewhere new for lunch, or i try to do something different with my hair), it’s not that big of a bore.
your post reminds me of the pilot episode of “my so-called life” - yung soul-searching “what’s-my-identity” churva. waha. la lang, nagshare lang ako.