I have towering confidence to proclaim my past year as a revelation. Everything I target happens in a fortuitous manner, even those I deem impossible.
Applying and resigning in two jobs during a three-month period may be viewed by everyone as delinquent, and I admit that it has little suggestions of rebelliousness in it. I hunt for an occupation after bidding goodbye to volunteer work from SIKAP for two years. After being accepted in two jobs, I resign because of ideological reasons, as one may call it. I experience four months of searching and three months of working. It is also the time of my first plane ride to disenfranchised communities. This is a dream that I have always yearned for and, as God would have it, my flight's schedule is a day after my birthday. I also have chances of working in writing projects which improve my grasp of words and semiology.
Throughout my year, I am exposed to older bosses that I humbly obey in the beginning, but whom I end up contravening after three months. This is not to deliberately insult them but my irritation and somber grow during these times. Most of the time, I do not agree with what they expect me to accomplish. I observe that they are output-oriented rather than empowering to people. It makes me reflect about the leadership styles of both our generations. Eddie Gibbs, an American professor of theology, affirms that past generations' headship is controlling while my era's leadership is reflexive. This doesn't, however, rank which approach is better. In fact, he mentions that today's young people have baggages because of their culture. They are reluctant to take initiative and responsibility; appear to casual and aimless; have anger or detachment towards institutions; and naively idealistic. I deem that this is not only because of our leadership methods but also caused by tensions produced by rapidly evolving societies. Our times shove us to experience conflict between the Universal and the Individual. Do we choose modernity or tradition? Short-term or long-term concerns? Assimilation or expansion of knowledge? In a nutshell, we are being pushed into confusion or into post-traumatic stress disorder.
I realize that I lack courage and initiative when I ask my boss' consent to resign. I enter her small private office decorated with ornaments from around the globe. In the middle of the room lies her big desk full of documents, pens, and odd paper weights. At the right are tons of books and at the left are dusty paintings. Behind the table is an intimidating black executive chair where she sits. I hand her my resignation letter and park myself in front of the counter. She silently reads the note while my heart races and pounds. She looks at me with benevolent eyes. Suddenly, she says no. I give a half smile of reluctance. It ends with her sending me back outside. I ask myself what I should have done differently. How do I assert myself? It takes me a week before I say again that I really need to leave. I can't cite convincing reasons of my resignation. I have accepted the fact that I'm confused. I too am not clear but my intuition tells me to set out. And maybe, that's how it is supposed to be. Glendenning, a well-known psychologist, claims that our generation is experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. We show symptoms like unfitting gushes of anger, mental numbing, curbing of emotions, and lack of a sense of future. But psychologists also advocate changing our notions of health and normal functioning. Maybe post-traumatic stress disorder is healthier that being paranoid and controlling. They urge us to accept multiple identities. How do we take temperaments equally from both stability and disarray? How do we balance a little order within an enormous chaos? They termed this synergy: a juxtaposing of socio-cultural establishments and our individual makeup. This is because we do not change the individual to cope with the environment, or vice versa, but both. How do we, as humans, exceed animal species? How do we become transformative agents with unparalleled creativity and capable of giving meaning to the planet? How do we balance the healing of our individual selves and of the collective welfare? In his book, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck summarizes this point by saying, “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
