“Human living is living for something other than itself.”

 Journal Writing Reflection: According to Marcel, “Human living is living for something other than itself.”

a. Give examples from your own life when you focused on the welfare/good of another person. 

b. Describe your experiences when you met people who are selfish, self-centered, haven’t de-centered at all. 

            This is one of the hardest reflections I’ve encountered so far. When I tried to remember all my life for the last 18 years, it is just about me, how I struggled and suffered to get what all I want. I have written several times in my last reflection journals that I am a self-centered person. That is why I really can’t remember anything I have done for the sake of others. Maybe I did one or two times but it was always for my own sake. It is me that I’m thinking before doing so. It is like I am thinking what good things will I get from sacrificing a little of myself. If I see that I will not benefit from it, I will not do sacrifices. 

             But since I need to wrote an example, maybe it was agreeing to live at my grandparents’ house. I was six years old when my parents left my sister and I to work in Manila. I have no idea that it will took that long. I have no idea that I was not going to see them for the rest of my childhood except during holidays. All I knew was I need to take care of my sister. At a very young age, I learned that no one’s going to help me except myself. 

             Every day, I helped my grandma clean the house, prepare meals, and also managed our grocery store. During weekends, I have no time to play with our neighbors because I need to take care of my three years old sister. I studied a lot on my own. I have to do all my school works alone because I have no one to rely on. Whenever I have scout camping or three days competition where I needed to sleep in other school, all my teammates had their mothers to support them but I was all alone. When I need to review for my first Quiz Competition, I have no idea what will happen nor how should I review. All my classmates’ parents attend during PTA meetings. My grandmother attends my sister’s class so I need to listen with my class’ agenda. All my grade school cards have no parent or guardian signature. I only saw my grades during enrolments. I am the one who signed my parents permit whenever I forgot to ask my grandmother for it. There are so many things that I don’t understand but I don’t know how to express them. All I knew was no one’s going to understand life the way I see it. Aside from that, I don’t want my parents to worry about us. 

             Although my grandparents took care of us like we are their children, I always feel the emptiness inside me. I need to be strong therefore I don’t store emotions. I talked to my parents in phone but I always lied. I told them that they don’t anything to be worried. I told them that I can handle everything. I told them that I was alright. Little do I know, that emptiness was full of hold pains I bare for a long time. Half of my life was all about taking care of my sister, my grandparents, and my parent’s trust. There might be some times I feel like giving up but I have no choice. It was so hard to live without proper parental support but you need to keep going in order to survive. I know that they don’t want to leave us alone but they also don’t have a choice. They need to provide us everything we need. They have sacrificed all their lives working just for us. If I have faced hardships pretending to be strong, my parents have suffered much more than I am. They don’t want to leave us alone but they also don’t want us to suffer either. I understand that they needed to do this just to provide us everything we deserve.

          At this moment, I am not mad nor regretful that I have born in this family. I have learned so much from the past years. If I will be given a chance to change anything or go back in time, I will choose to be here all over again. Sometimes, when I struggled to understand things on my own, it is such a relief whenever I talked to my parents at the phone. 

         I always wanted to meet myself. The self-centered me in people’s eyes. However, I cannot explain how I feel whenever I met someone with little self-centered similarities as me. It is so hard to just judged someone. I knew how that person feels. I knew that he/she has the reason why that person acted that way. But sometimes whenever I lose my morals, I got irritated at people that gives no considerations. I really get frustrated at people for being so narrow minded at unreasonable. I sometimes ask myself why people are so unfair. That devastating feeling of valuing them but they don’t even give you the same thing. I really hate giving so much expectation on people.