PAIN IS SIGNIFICANT

 

PAIN IS SIGNIFICANT

By: Joyzenn W. Manangca

 

  No place is too far if you keep on walking. One day, you’re gonna reach your destination.

 

  September 11, 2020, Friday, me and my friends decided to go on hiking and water fall hunting. We’d been planning this for a couple of weeks already, and it just became a reality that day. The road was difficult, though. It’s like we’re walking from seashore to mountains after mountains. It was past 5 am when we start hiking, and we arrived at our friend’s place past 7 am. To be precise, we were walking by land for more than 2 hours before we arrived. 

 

  After eating some native delicacies, we decided to go to my place because my parents were already preparing bukos for our buko salad. Then, tada! We walked again from mountains to rivers for the water fall hunting, which was actually one of our primary goals behind that so-tiring trip.

 

  We ate our lunch beside the first water falls where we swam and took pictures on. We were having so much fun while enjoying our “pinobre” foods that what we actually did, seemed like a picnic. Yeah, kind of. The next thing we knew, we already became so addicted to it that we kept on following the river flow to find another water falls. 

 

  And we actually did find some. But it was when we actually felt so tired of enjoying what we’d found that it appeared in our sight. Of course, no matter how tempting was it and the idea of enjoying it for some moments, the joy and excitement weren’t there at all. They all faded to nothingness, and was replaced by pain and tardiness. We felt so tired, and what we thought was light to carry on our shoulders felt heavier and heavier as minutes and hours passed by.

 

  We’d done so much things along the way-- the way we let ourselves slide on the rocks because we’re too afraid of finding our heads kissing the ground with our feet on top of us; the idea of seeing ourselves all scratched by the gravels, rocks, stones, bamboos, branches of trees, and all that we ended up doing different positions termed as “kulob, hayang, tuwad, tikangkang”; and the way we fell and stumbled everywhere, everytime. It may sound funny to hear, but trust me, we didn’t even laugh while we’re on it. It was a matter of survival. Finally, we arrived home after 4 hours of walking. 

 

  Well, you must be wondering what’s my point here. Actually, it was a matter of overcoming difficulties. Amongst the 11 of us, no one had ever followed that river from where it begins to where it ends-- we did it altogether. We didn’t even know if we’ll be able to go home looking similar as how we started the hike, or the opposite of it. We just thought of it as a lifetime experience that’d help us realize some things in life. 

 

  Looking at our 45-year old friend who was actually consumed by her own “law of anadity” plus nearsightedness, I realized that it’d be easier to start doing whatever you wanna do in life at a younger age. To explain it further, “anadity”comes from the Cebuano term “anad” which means “getting used to”, hence, Law of Anadity states that the more you do something, the more you get used to it; the lesser you do something, the lesser you get used to it and the idea of it. 

 

Moving on, every second in our life counts so, let’s rather enjoy our youth. Do not let your sun disappear while you are still on the same spot-- sitting, standing, laughing, and killing every second of your life. Time will come, you’ll regret for not doing anything, and that’s gonna be too late.

 

  I am not the optimistic type. Well, I am the counter of that. I don’t have the ability to always look at the bright side of things, but I do learn from experience. I’ve been through lots of pains too difficult to bear but still, I am thankful because everything that’s difficult makes us stronger and wiser. We become more learned because of who we were. Nobody wants pain, but even pain has significance.