MY NEIGHBORHOOD LIFE PEOPLE AND ME

My neighborhood is an average one and small. This is a subdivision settled at the foot by the side of a mountain range in my city that nestles atop it - Antipolo. Here, where I have made my home, one sees about dozens of modest houses sitting side by side and housing families within carrying on with the regular routines of each day. A paved road ragged in some areas winds round the neighborhood up hill and down and leads out to the main gate passing the guardhouse where a sentry stands watch day and night. And mingled with the houses are trees lush and green dotting the place everywhere you look. Adding to the green landscape are mini gardens fronting almost every home lining almost every street. If not a garden, in lieu would be potted plants neatly set in a row. Nice and green.

I love this place. And I wish that life and people were so much the same – serene, calm, and peaceful. But it isn’t. Life as we know it is an interesting tapestry of ecstatic moments, surprises, near mishaps, misfortunes, fragmented dreams, and challenges. And people --- are just as diverse as that fascinating mix we call life.

So I like studying people. There is so much I can learn from watching them. They teach me things and stuff I would have not given any thought to at all; they inspire me to be better than I could ever be; they show me how to understand my own weaknesses and strengths by looking at theirs; they tell me what hope is by their show of courage and faith through trials; they increase my knowledge and wisdom by their own display of wit and intelligence; they remind me to laugh by their humor and delight over mundane things; and too understand my own foolishness by watching them stumble with theirs. When I see them in their human form, the complete package of mind, body and soul God so designed --- I see me, myself, and mine. And I begin to understand that we are each at best both teachers and students to one another.