THERE ARE 12 months in a year and here are 12 things which can be recalled when you are about to hit someone due to difficulties in life.
1. When you are about to be evicted from your dwelling for failure to pay the monthly rent, think about the millions of others whose houses and lots are about to be foreclosed by banks or usurer money lenders.
2. When a kilo of rice or a liter of gas or cooking oil seem to be so expensive or even unaffordable, think of the street people who have nothing to eat or a bed to lay their backs on.
3. When you are a victim of injustice, think of those who lost some family members to drug addicts some of whom got acquitted.
4. When all of your concerns are not moving due to government red tape, think of the suspected criminals who had been in jail for years even if they are not yet convicted thus presumed innocent, due to the slow movement of our wheels of justice.
5. When breathing pollution down the street, think of drivers of public utility vehicles who have to breathe the same continuously for more than 12 hours everyday.
6. When your blood pressure is rising because you might have to waste an hour in traffic in Baguio City or La Trinidad, think of Metro Manila commuters who have to wake up at 4:00 a.m. and go home at midnight due to many hours wasted everyday in traffic.
7. When you are about to get a heart attack after treatment in the hospital due to bills higher than Mt. Sto. Tomas, think of the cancer patient who has to pay the same amount when being sent home to wait for his death a few weeks later.
8. When your electricity or water services are about to be cut off, think of families in far flung areas who don’t have electricity and flash toilets and have to walk quiet far to the river to take a bath.
9. When you are about to shoot your mechanic for repeated car breakdowns, think of the millions others who don’t even know anything about brake, clutch or accelerator pedals.
10. When you are about to cry due to inability to finance your kid’s education, think of the pain of parents of special or abnormal kids who don’t even have the means to feed them well, much less provide them with any kind of education.
11. When you are starting to become envious of those with money, think of the fact that they are spending all their time to make money and at the same time losing their health, and then later they would be spending all their money to try, but often fail, to regain their health.
12. When you are angered by the sight of corrupt officials flouting their stolen money around, think of the bad karma they are accumulating for stealing from the people and as a punishment they might be reborn as abnormal or crazies or with terminal diseases to endure for long periods.
There is always a positive thing to be thankful for and we can think better of a way to get out of our situations when we are thinking positively.**