By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
When I got hospitalized, there were things strongly going for me. In a sense it was a good head start.
The first thing was I have been a vegetarian for the past 50 years so only a few adjustments were required for me to cope with my failing kidneys. It was not enough to limit food to vegetarian menus. A lot of veggies and fruits had to be avoided also particularly those high in potassium and phosphorus and food items with chemicals. Almost all condiments had to be shunned as these were not kidney friendly. Since, I wanted to survive and hopefully get out from dialysis, I followed everything.
But the best thing going for me was my daily meditation which, I would say, is like intense and extended prayer. I had been doing Ananda Marga yoga meditation also the past 50 years. So, all I have to do now is to be more intense in the practice.
I do think meditation is the ultimate solution to anything. At the break of dawn I would wake up, freshen up and sit in meditation or prayer. It is the time to commune with your Maker and there is only One who made all of creation. He might go by so many names but there is only one limitless or absolute entity.
I usually would throw in the yoga physical exercises for health and to enable better concentration but I could not the past two and a half months as there is the catheter beside my neck, the access for the dialysis process. Perhaps I could go back to the practice once my fistula on my upper arm will be able to server as the access. That would certainly boost my health condition in a big way.
Since I can go about my daily routine now, all I need to do is become better in what I am doing and maintain the discipline required by my condition.
With all of these, I can comfortably say, what will be will be.
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Here is regarding the matter you might have always wanted to ask me. How is ZigZag Weekly now? A big and very valid question especially considering that newspapers had been folding up everywhere, locally and internationally. Quite a number of those had long been existing for decades, if not centuries.
Here is the deal. I think we will have to go on the way we had been going the past two and a half years. That was ever since I suffered a heart and kidney failure. We had been just coasting along just to be alive. No innovation as that would have meant a lot of changes entailing a lot of cost. And the market has tremendously changed I could not safely fathom what it can absorb or take.
So this time has to be a continuation of the chance to slow down. A time for me to recuperate and see also how far changes in the environment will go. In the technological realm things are unrecognizable now. What can it absorb and in what form, business-wise?
I am giving my self up until December this year for the directions we have to take and the kind of changes to be implemented. For sure, change we must. **
