JACKIELYN D. CABANG
Teacher 1
Guiguinto National Vocational High School
Poblacion, Guiguinto, Bulacan
Everyday life is a grind, a struggle to be the best we can be from what we do, from what and who we are, in our jobs, in our families, our friends, our colleagues. But being just humans, it is but natural for us to err.
When we do, the force of nature lean ill towards us and things seem to all fall apart. We try to reflect and go back to search what brought us the predicament we are facing.
It is then we can realize that maybe, at some point, we failed to really bring out the best we have and there are enough reasons why. Maybe for one, we are not focused, we tend to be distracted. When can many of us realize that there are times the use of social media is rather unhealthy and unproductive.
As we hold our gadgets when we wake up in the morning and before going to bed, social media consumes our most precious time. The events in the lives of so many people we see in our news feeds shattered our attention. The impact to us of the glances we have in the lives of our friends left us with distractive thoughts and emotions. Not only that our time was wasted and consumed by matters with no that huge importance and connection in our lives, little that we notice that we became social media addict. Certainly, we know where addictiveness can get us.
We are not the only ones in this side of the world, not only us Pinoys but, indeed, the reality is, the rest of the world because it is the real world today. When we got home, we preoccupy ourselves with the movies and the series in Netflix, Iflix, HBO, etc. We try to find solace in these avenues. But the question is have we found it? Again, we are not alone in this pattern and practice of life’s dependency in this modern IT world. We cannot and should not blame anybody because all these things are really inevitable in this internet and digitized era.
But there is something in this digitized and internet world that we still can do to refrain and free ourselves of the toxicities that it brings to us.
This is the only thing we can do, yet the most powerful one. We can control ourselves from dwelling repeatedly in the social media, in the movies and series, in the TV drama or anything in the digitized and internet spectrum of our lives.
Let us focus on the simple everyday reality social life we have rather than what social media shows us. While everybody beside you in your family’s breakfast table holds their mobile phones, you keep yours in your bag. As mothers, as teachers, let us bring our attention to the actual lives we have rather than the unreal, “make-believe” realities in the social media.
Rather than the drama in Netflix, let us focus on the real drama of our lives. Let us display our love to our family members, our students, our colleagues, the pump attendant in the gas station, the garland and candy vendor in the drive thru of a fast food chain, the beggar.
Let us do gardening, let us perfect our new recipe, our new menu. Let us make our lives simpler, happier, away from the daily toxicities. As we succeed, we make our lives happy, healthy.
