By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
The success rate of every attempt to sleep on a moving bus is about as reliable as our power staying on during the stormy season. We get lucky and we can have lights out in an instant. No matter how many sudden curves there may be on the road. Sometimes, it is an uncomfortable and excruciating experience similar to finding whatever there is to do before the lights return. Nevertheless, the destination will ultimately come into view, and whatever the quality of sleep one could manage in a large moving vehicle can come to an end. And bid farewell to a bittersweet moment or a painful one.
Of course, there are the naturals. The ones who can seemingly fall asleep in an upright position as if they were laying on their beds back home. It is an ability I can never seem to replicate. Only through repetitive long and dreadful trips have I been somewhat able to grab ahold of that convenient ability. Now, after some considerable amount of time on the ground and not a moving bus, I fear I may have lost hold of that unique skill. And a perilous almost certainly nauseating experience must be undertaken to get it back again.
In a classroom or in life, we meet people with outstanding God given abilities. It can really put someone down, if they see it in an open view, and forget to look in an open mirror. A strong faith and strong self-belief can get a person very far in life. They can drag us out of the mud and into a wide open plain, where success can be seen on the horizon.
Without that strong belief in the self set up as an armor, we often open ourselves to irrelevant invading words of self-depreciation and negative notions. Then they ravage what is left of anything resembling confidence. But, thankfully, we were all made to be durable, confidence can be grown again. With the right seeds sown, the right water to nourish, and the positive sunshine, we can all grow a better and improved belief in ourselves. One that does not put others down in order to go up, but builds on what the person learns climbing ever higher in the process. One that helps the person behind and offers a helping hand. Not too fixated on what is ahead but looks around him always.
The allure of riches and success can drive a man far from morality and lean towards irrationality and greed. It can instill in any of us that fierce drive to move forward, although through the shaky path made up of fellow peoples. The continuous and sensitive balancing of ego can fall out of place in mere moments. But, when we find the right balance, when the weighing scale between confidence and faith are in harmony, then perhaps insecurity can no longer hold us back from learning and self-improvement. And what is guarding all that life has to offer be removed.
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