Progress, not perfection
“To be or not to be,” wrote William Shakespeare. “To be is to do,” said Dale Carnegie. “To do is to be,” according to Socrates. “Scooby-doobee-doo,” howled Scooby Doo. “Yabba dabba doo,” muttered Fred Flinstone.
But what I like best is this: “DO BE DO BE DO,” from Frank Sinatra (humming…)
Progress, not perfection.
If I may lecture for a moment, we need to remember that in life, though many of us attempt to be perfect, there is no way that we ever will or can be so. Hence, instead of aiming for perfection, aim for continual progress. Remember that the pain you are experiencing now is only for a short while, don't choose to suffer from it, rather, choose to overcome it.
I chose the topic “Progress, not perfection” because my philosophy in life is geared towards this direction. If I may tell you a piece of my life story, let me start from the moment I was
born. You might say “Oh, we are not interested since that was a century ago.” Anyways, I have the power of the podium, so to speak, so better listen.
Having been born in the brood of 9, the youngest at that, I was kind of a residual substance, a dreg in the bottom of a container, the last hurrah of mother dear who was already 46 years old. Ever since, I never waited for the perfect time to see the world but instead slipped smoothly from the loins of my mother while she was standing beside the bed post. I banged my head in the process, at the bottom post.
As a young boy, I sometimes squirmed and felt embarrassed when my mother’s friends would tease me as the boy who went down and crawled down my mother’s birth canal without asking permission. Among the 6 boys in the family, I am one of the two who is not blessed with the height I wished. My other brothers stand much taller than I do and much handsomer than I am. Earlier, I became aware much of my imperfections.
When I went to high school, due to some circumstances foreign to me, I jumped from one school to another, from a small town to a bigger one, providing me a bit of progressive experience. In the hope of getting a law degree in college, I started working on my Bachelor of Arts, heeding the advices of my barrister cousin who have tried for 3 times but failed. He eventually made it to the bar on the 4th. With the seemingly difficult ordeal to pass the bar, my father prevailed upon me to leave Arts and shift to Engineering – I chose Chemical Engineering for the freshmen year.
Later that year, two of my board mates who were then fresh graduates from the Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT) fortunately got hired by then Atlas Mining. One was Chemical Engineering, with a salary of P 340.00 a month and the Mining Engineering with a salary of P 1,200.00 a month. Naturally, it bothered me with a lot of thinking. With the prodding of my uncle who was then working here as a security officer with Atlas, I moved to the neighbor department in CIT, Mining Engineering. After years of struggle, my parents became proud of me as the only registered Mining Engineer in our clan. In my thirst for learning after my baccalaureate graduation, I enrolled myself in Computer Engineering with a USbased
correspondence school, a law degree (at my expense), graduate and post-graduate school studies.
I consider them all, part of my journey… progressive lifelearning experience with no intention to become perfect but only to enjoy the opportunity to savor intellectual transcendence.
My career as a working professional spanning 37 years and counting, ranges from as a cadet engineer, production, drilling and blasting guy in the mines, academician, marketing skunk, government worker in the environment and in the community organizing sector and now as safety man of this organization. Would you believe, 12 organizations in all? Never perfect, but I call it personal progress with a shiver. It helped a lot in shaping a better person out of me.
I will brag a little more, my dear friends. In this entire exercise, would you believe if I tell you that despite this lowly representation, it has brought me to 9 different countries?
Yet, my life’s journey has been full of surprises. I have experienced setbacks and failures. And yes, in countless ways, I have encountered the truth of the saying, “The road to success is always under construction.” Big and many obstacles. Stretching my resolve and testing my endurance and allowed me to taste the bitterness of defeat. And yet, these are indelible footprints, some straight, some crooked, in the corridors of my lifetime. But as I believe in the Almighty God to enlighten my ways, He never failed to deliver my heart’s desire in his time.
Progress is getting back up after we have fallen, learning why we fell before, and avoiding going the same route. We will keep progressing.
Also keep in mind that the struggles that we face in life are meant to make us better, we don’t let them sour our attitude or mindset, and make sure that we continue to try with every morsel of fight left inside of us. We strive for becoming the best us, not becoming the perfect us, because when we reach for perfection, we reach for something that can only be attained by reversing the hands of time.
Progress, not perfection.