SURVIVABLE

When I was in my early teens, an uncle of mine took me for a ride on his ’67 Mustang as we were on our way for a funeral procession for an aunt who died. He told me that I am so much of a risk taker and that if I wanted to live a long life, then I should be like him… a coward.

Straight to the point he uttered the Filipino word for coward… Duwag! He said that practical men should be cowards so as not to put themselves and their families in harms’ way.

I lived my life in the exact opposite manner. I tried my best to be brave in my decisions in life, true to my convictions and courageous in front of all the challenges life threw my way. And believe me; life threw a bunch of them my way.

Life is such, I have always said. It is a cycle of different things. You have good times, you have bad… and sometimes, when it rains, it pours. When life takes a potshot at you, you either end up with a wound enough to keep you down and make you a coward or an injury survivable enough for you to recover… you’ll be back on your feet, you will be stronger, you will be better and you will be braver.

Bad things happen to good people. That’s what I’ve heard but I believe that worse things happen to bad people.