The Hunger for Power

                                              (image: pinterest.com)

Pinakadato, Pinkasikat, Pinakagamhanan… There are those around you either in the office, school or anywhere else who is feeding on power, fame and/or the root of all evil – money.

Frederick Herzberg (1923 to 2000) and Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 to 1915) were towering figures who presented differing motivational theories on money. Taylor stressed money as a motivation in the workplace. Indeed, workers were motivated only by money, Taylor said. That's why his theory is often referred to as the money as a motivator theory.

Herzberg said his study found that factors other than money are the best motivators for workers. Things like achievement, praise, responsibility, meaningful work, and advancement are the true motivating factors, he argued. By contrast, Herzberg classified things like money, benefits, insurance as "hygiene" factors: items that are necessary to employ workers but that do not lead to satisfaction.

It can NOT be argued however that most of the people look for jobs for the salary. But that can later be clouded with the MEANING of his/her work. If the person finds a sense of purpose on the job, the individual will be more motivated to work because he or she finds meaning to what the tasks are. But, we cannot deny the fact that there are also those who do not transcend to the next level. Performance will be affected once the money won’t come in easy,

David McClelland built on his motivation theory in his 1961 book, "The Achieving Society." He identified three motivators that he believed we all have: a need for achievement, a need for affiliation, and a need for power. People will have different characteristics depending on their dominant motivator. According to McClelland, these motivators are learned (which is why this theory is sometimes called the Learned Needs Theory).

McClelland says that, regardless of our gender, culture, or age, we all have three motivating drivers, and one of these will be our dominant motivating driver. This dominant motivator is largely dependent on our culture and life experiences.

Those who are hungering for power have these characteristics: He/she wants to control and influence others; likes to win arguments; enjoys competition and winning; enjoys status and recognition. These are the things to motivate the person to work hard. Once power is not felt, the individual will NOT be motivated to perform well.

Those with a strong power motivator are often divided into two groups: personal and institutional. People with a personal power drive want to control others, while people with an institutional power drive like to organize the efforts of a team to further the company's goals. As you can probably imagine, those with an institutional power need are usually more desirable as team members!

The New York Times reported: For most of its existence, the field of psychology has ignored fame as a primary motivator of human behavior: it was considered too shallow, too culturally variable, too often mingled with other motives to be taken seriously. But in recent years, a small number of social scientists have begun to study and think about fame in a different way, ranking it with other goals, measuring its psychological effects, characterizing its devoted seekers.

These yearnings can become more acute in life’s later years, as the opportunities for fame dwindle, “but the motive never dies, and when we realize we’re not going to make it in this lifetime, we find some other route: posthumous fame,” said Orville Gilbert Brim, a psychologist who is completing a book called “The Fame Motive.” The book is based on data he has gathered and analyzed, with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

There are those who will grab opportunities to have positions in the government or companies to satisfy the FAME need. By hook or by crook, they oftentimes “buy” these positions out just to address the need. They do not care if they have the capacities or not. They simply do not understand what drives them.

This is where self-discovery comes in. The process of self-discovery is one in which a person is guided, through self-questioning and examination of one's own thoughts, words, and actions, in order to reach his or her own conclusions regarding who they truly are.

Mubashir Mazhar (2019) mentioned that the way to discovering yourself involves a lot of breaking up your life into different layers and removing those layers that do not serve any purpose. Once you know that your layers consist of only those memories that reflect who you truly are, you can start the crucial act of building up new layers that are based on what you learned from the previous experience. These new layers enable a person to recognize their true potential while allowing us to be open to new experiences and lessons. 

With such realizations, we then can focus on MEANING and PURPOSE. We then can infer the importance of a more deep motivation in us.

Intrinsic motivation is the act of doing something without any obvious external rewards. You do it because it’s enjoyable and interesting, rather than because of an outside incentive or pressure to do it, such as a reward or deadline (Santos-Longhurst, 2019).

Let us be contributors to the healing of the universe, not for its destruction.

Submerged

                                      (photo: Malacanang)

Tabang! Tulong! Tulungan n’yo kami!  Eerie sounds and pleas for help can be painful to listen as the video showed nothing but darkness. The audio was hauntingly real as we can imagine kids, elderly persons, women, the sick, pets and other helpless individuals being submerged as the floodwater continued to rise. The social media sites were then filled with screen shots of messages coming from the people who were trapped at their houses asking for help.

We thought that Marikina, Rizal and nearby places were the ones severely affected by Ulysses. We were not prepared when the images of devastation materialized on our phones via the newsfeed. Cagayan Valley, Isabela and other parts near these areas looked gloomy as brown water swallowed their place only showing the helpless roofs and the tips of the surviving trees…

 Emmanuel Tupas of the Philippine Star reported: Ulysses (international name Vamco), the 21st and deadliest cyclone to hit the country this year, tore through the main island of Luzon late Wednesday into early Thursday, just as the country was reeling from Super Typhoon Rolly (Goni), the world’s strongest typhoon of 2020, which killed 25 people and flattened thousands of homes.

Tens of thousands of homes were engulfed by the floods, and as the water receded in areas such as Marikina, homes covered in debris and caked in mud emerged.

The report continued that the Philippine National Police (PNP) reported yesterday that the number of people who died during the onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses has climbed to 53. It is mentioned that 17 of the fatalities were recorded in Cagayan Valley, followed by Calabarzon with 12.

As the sad facts were being presented, there are pictures of the so-called “Filipino humor” posted on the social media sites cropping up. There were those who made their flooded houses as pools where the people are enjoying the dip. Some were shown drinking with their buddies amidst the flood as if everything is normal.

Some politicians and even writers started having commentaries and suggestive inputs the Filipinos are indeed resilient with such natural calamities.

But there are those whose senses are intact. As Typhoon Ulysses caused widespread damage to Luzon last Thursday, many people were demanding a much more efficient government response. Moreover, holding leaders into account for negligence was called for. However, there are some who highlighted the resiliency of the Filipino race (Corcuera, 2020).

Ella Hyacinth Golez from Forum-Dimensions said that “We, Filipinos, are more than our stories of struggles and resiliency. We should be the reminder and the face of accountability. We deserve better.”

Joshua Corcuera of The Daily Guardian wrote: We tend to over-romanticize individual stories of suffering and recovery to the extent that we forget holding into account those who are unresponsive to the plight of such individuals. As a result, the resiliency of the Filipino has been abused. It is important for all of us to call out those in power and force them to do their jobs, and not merely sharing how the people — whom they should serve — are standing up to their suffering. Merely telling such inspiring stories imply that the people are on their own and cannot expect anything from the government.

Accountability is not simply taking the blame when something goes wrong. It’s not a confession. Accountability is about delivering on a commitment. It’s responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks. It’s taking initiative with thoughtful, strategic follow-through (Bregman, 2016).

But we as a people must also understand that we have to learn from our mistakes. We just do not have to accept the fact that “KAYA NATIN” is always applicable to every situation be it tragic or not. There is always a room for us to be able NOT to waste resources and worse, lives.

Personal accountability simply means you choose to take responsibility for your words, actions, and behaviors, and for the outcomes that they produce, managing those outcomes if necessary. And that you do what you tell yourself you will do. In this case, we need to do what is best like: following orders from the local government to evacuate, do something to protect the environment and the like.

A responsible citizen does not just blame the government officials but becomes a good team player with them. Based on the principles developed by Glenn M. Parker in the best-selling Parker Team-Player Survey, this shows in detail the four primary team-member styles in action -- the contributor, the collaborator, the communicator and the challenger. The object is to make the most of each team player's unique perspective. To accomplish this goal, team players must learn to identify their own style and the style of other team members, use the appropriate style to maximum team advantage, and learn to switch their style when it suits the needs of the team.

We need to work hand in hand and be part of the efforts to learn from our past mistakes. Pointing fingers will always be counterproductive and this is high time for us to ascend from being submerged.

Instead of saying “Kaya natin ito,” let our mantra be “Hindi na dapat maulit ito”.

  

Indolence

                                 (art: artnet.com)

Poloho! There are theories that as people age, their drive towards being productive would lessen. A lot of studies refuted that. There is no direct relationship with age and the interest to be functional. Although physical movements can really be affected as time goes by, it is the mind that stimulates the so-called interest. Motivation, as countlessly mentioned, comes from a psychological point of view. That is addressing the needs or deficits in a person. Ergo, the motivation of a person simply depends on his or her drives to satisfy a certain need. If this will be curtailed or impossible to attain, the person would simply become unmotivated.

According to Kiki (2019), many people have a lack of responsibility for their life and live blaming others, justifying, seeking pretexts and even giving up their dreams. They believe that the world is against them and that the “enemy” is outside them, not inside. They fail to realize that their own enemy is themselves.

One of the major reasons why people become unmotivated is that they are SELFISH. They do not perform anything which cannot benefit them in one way or the other. LIFEHACKS mentions that focusing on yourself will not get you far. You will be your own enemy when you refuse to give, help and serve others. You should be a generous person who knows that by giving and sharing (time, effort, knowledge and even money) you are sowing the seed to make a better world and leave your mark on it. Helping others will come back to you, sooner or later.

But is laziness or sloth an innate characteristic developed during childhood in the confines of the home? The probability is strong. Children are great mimics and can adopt the behaviors of their parents until sufficiently motivated to change their own behavior, most likely in pursuit of a relationship or objective goal. This was theorized by Levine in 2015.

This is one of the problems in organizations during these demanding times. There are those who do not SEE the enemy in them. The Dalai Lama said: When your mind is trained in self-discipline, even if you are surrounded by hostile forces, your peace of mind will hardly be disturbed. On the other hand, your mental peace and calm can easily be disrupted by your own negative thoughts and emotions. So I repeat, the real enemy is within, not outside.

Usually we define our enemy as a person, an external agent, whom we believe is causing harm to us or to someone we hold dear. But such an enemy is relative and impermanent. One moment, the person may act as an enemy; at yet another moment, he or she may become your best friend. This is a truth that we often experience in our own lives. But negative thoughts and emotions, the inner enemy, will always remain the enemy.

They are your enemy today, they have been your enemy in the past, and they will remain your enemy in the future as long as they reside within your mental continuum. Therefore, Shantideva says that negative thoughts and emotions are the real enemy, and this enemy is within.

When the person cannot identify the inner foe, he or she will continue to blame the outside forces and then become unmotivated and eventually become unproductive. There is nothing more powerful for self-motivation than the right attitude. You can’t choose or control your circumstance, but you can choose your attitude towards your circumstances.

A person is being lazy if he/she is able to carry out some activity that s/he ought to carry out, but is disinclined to do so because of the effort involved. Instead, s/he carries out the activity perfunctorily; or engages in some other, less strenuous or less boring activity; or remains idle. In short, s/he is being lazy if the motivation to spare effort trumps the motivation to do the right or expected thing (Burton, 2014).

Synonyms for laziness are indolence and sloth. Indolence derives from the Latin indolentia, ‘without pain’ or ‘without taking trouble’. Sloth has more moral and spiritual overtones than laziness or indolence. In the Christian tradition, sloth is one of the seven deadly sins because it undermines society and God’s plan, and because it invites sin.

A mature person must understand how to situate in the community where he or she belongs. The understanding of what the person can give to others is the main consideration since selfish motives are beyond the individual’s mind and intentions. The person is able to transcend the SELF and has defeated the inner enemy.  He or she must find the meaning of life through the small tasks he or she is doing. The person is not indolent for it kills the inner gift to be of purpose to the greater good.

Else, the person’s life will become meaningless if not absurd.

Albert Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd in his essay of 1942, The Myth of Sisyphus. In the final chapter, he compares the absurdity of man’s life with the plight of Sisyphus, a mythological king of Ephyra who was punished for his chronic deceitfulness by being made to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll back down again.

There is more to life than doing nothing. There is meaning in life when we work hard in serving people. There is no other enemy worse than the inner one. Let us conquer it and become better versions of ourselves.

Insatiable

 

                                  (image: medium.com)

Kuyang pa! Yes, it is true that we are consumers. But it seems that we are obsessed of consuming even if we already have enough. What is the reason why you bought that new shirt when in fact you have around 20 of them? Is the 21^st significant or you just played the victim to consume more?

A marketing strategy refers to a business's overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of the products or services the business provides. Peter Ducker aptly said that the aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. But it was Sergio Zyman who intelligently said that the sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often and at higher prices.

Have you ever wondered why cellular phones are constantly upgrading into new models? This is for the consumers to continuously buy them. If one stops and be contended with the old one, the business won’t thrive. Fashion is evolving. Without the new trends, why buy for more?

Products and events are marketed for the consumers to have more…

Take for instance the celebration of Halloween (which is not a Filipino tradition but a copied one). We see spaces being populated by the commercial establishments indirectly telling us that we must wear costumes. The social media sites are posting little kids doing “trick or treat” and we fall into that marketing stuff. We even fail to dig deeper why we encourage kids to be exposed to scary props with decapitated heads. We just want to do them since others are doing it! Costumes and customized items for the event are saleable during these induced events.

But, what is really is the deeper motivation of this?

It is said that without GREED we would still be living in caves but, left unchecked, the insatiable desire for more and better material things can be destructive.

The definition of greed is an extreme or excessive desire for resources, especially for property such as money, real estate, or other symbols of wealth (Taflinger, 1996). In basic terms, "excessive" is possessing something to such a degree it's harmful. But how could a desire for wealth be harmful? Every person needs a degree of wealth to survive: you need to buy food, pay the rent, clothing, transportation, haircuts, and cable TV. Without money, you could starve or freeze to death.

People who are consumed by greed become utterly fixated on the object of their greed. According to Neel Burton, M.D. (2020), their lives are reduced to little more than a quest to accumulate as much as possible of whatever it is they covet and crave. Even though they have met their every reasonable need and more, they are utterly unable to redirect their drives and desires to other and higher things.

These people are fixated to their desires and will forget to be humane. They see others as competition. They compare their possessions to others. With the social media sites where people display their acquired wealth, new clothes and travels, the need to have more intensifies.

The FOMO (fear of missing out) was theorized with the coming of the information technology. It refers to the feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are. It involves a deep sense of envy and affects self-esteem. It is often exacerbated by social media sites like Instagram and Facebook (Scott, 2020).

Greed, Burton continues, is also associated with negative psychological states such as stress, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and despair, and with maladaptive behaviors such as gambling, scavenging, hoarding, trickery, and theft. By overriding reason, compassion, and love, greed loosens family and community ties and undermines the bonds and values upon which society is built.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow called the bottom four levels of the NEED pyramid ‘deficiency needs’ because a person does not feel anything if they are met. Thus, physical needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are deficiency needs, as are security needs, social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy, and ego needs such as self-esteem and peer recognition.

On the other hand, Maslow called the fifth level of the pyramid a ‘growth need’ because it enables a person to ‘self-actualize’, that is, to reach his or her highest or fullest potential as a human being. Once people have met all their deficiency needs, the focus of their anxiety shifts to self-actualization, and they begin—even if only at a subconscious or semiconscious level—to contemplate the context and meaning of their life and life in general.

With these theories, one can conclude that people who are still on their “deficiency needs” are the ones who are trying to accumulate more. They often feel empty even if they have enough since there is the absence of MEANING to their existence. Self-evaluation is necessary to transcend towards the next stage which has the “growth need”.

By doing so, the hunger to have more will be replaced by the need to have meaningful relationships, contribution to the society, humane and altruistic, and the spiritual awareness to be one with the universe.

The Will to Learn

 

                                            (photo: sunstar.com.ph)

Padajon! This was overheard as someone encouraged a student to endure the challenges encountered with the new learning modality. You see, a lot of the learners are given modules and worksheets which require them to read. Yet, reading is a least favorite among the learners. People who are even using social media sites skip those posts with lengthy words. They skip such blogs and proceed to a more visual and entertaining content.

People consume a lot of entertainment these days. The media platforms provide such to the point that hilarious posts and vlogs are the viral ones compared to the more serious and academic posts.

Phil (2017) posits: I think some people just aren't "built" to enjoy the written word as much as readers do. How long does it take you to read an average book? Let's say 10 hours. In that time someone else could watch 5 or 6 movies or hockey games or a whole season of Game of Thrones or play Call of Duty or just go talk with friends for 10 hours and they would get more pleasure than if they read the same book as you did. There's nothing wrong with them; we're all just different.

This is consistent to the theory of Multiple Intelligences of Howard Gardner. In his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, he suggested that all people have different kinds of "intelligences." In order to capture the full range of abilities and talents that people possess, Gardner theorizes that people do not have just an intellectual capacity, but have many kinds of intelligence, including musical, interpersonal, spatial-visual, and linguistic intelligences.

Differing intelligences require varied preferences. Probably, most of the learners now are not inclined to have linguistic intelligence.

According to Heick (2019), students are increasingly seeking briefer, more visual, social, and dynamic media. Because not only are these media forms effortlessly entertaining, they rarely require meaningful investment of themselves. And it is this kind of connection that makes reading–or any other media consumption for that matter–feel alive and vibrant and whole. When readers are younger, there is a natural ‘give’ between the reader and the text, their imaginations still raw and green and alive. But as readers grow older, there is less give–and more need for texts to be contextualized differently.

(But), data from Learner Enrollment and Survey Form (LESF) showed that 8.8 million parents preferred modular, over the 3.9 million who voted for blended learning, which is a combination of different modalities: module, television and radio or radio with online. Parents who opted for online only numbered 3.8 million (Ciriaco, 2020).

Since modular learning is the preferred modality, it is now time to adapt. It is expected that difficulties and challenges will be encountered since this is a novel delivery of lessons. Intelligent WILL must be embraced by both the parents and the learners.

Modern psychologists, according to Graeme (2011) often use the word volition in preference to “Will”. Volition is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving, and is one of the primary human psychological functions (the others being affection [affect or feeling], motivation [goals and expectations] and cognition [thinking]).

The author continued that volitional processes can be applied consciously, and they can be automatized as habits over time. Most modern conceptions of volition address it as a process of action control that becomes automatized.

Within Gary Kielhofner’s “Model of Human Occupation” volition is one of the three sub-systems that act on human behavior. Within this model volition considers a person’s values, interests and beliefs about self-efficacy and personal capacity.

In this case, the cliché “If there’s a will, there’s a way” can be applied.

If modular learning is the most feasible way to continue learning, parents and learners must WILL themselves to gain a lot from it and allow the processes to hone their capacities NOT to curtail their mental development. Later, if this will become part of the norm, we will see the silver linings on the seemingly dark clouds.

Padajon!

 

 

Module Legends

                                      (image: read.cash)

Kaarang ini na modules! This is just one of the lines we overhear from TV and on the social media sites as the opening of classes took place on October 5 of this year.

Over 24 million elementary and high school students start their classes Monday after four months of delay due to the continuing threat of COVID-19 that has so far infected more than 322,000 people in the country. But unlike in previous years, campuses remain closed, following President Rodrigo Duterte’s directive to suspend face-to-face classes until a vaccine against the new coronavirus becomes available. Instead, students will be learning from their homes through a mix of modular learning, online learning, and television and radio broadcasts (philstar.com).

Meanwhile, Members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) held a sunrise protest at Mendiola in Manila on Monday, the first day of classes for school year 2020-2021, according to Super Radyo dzBB reporter Isa Avendaño-Umali. ACT Philippines secretary general Raymond Basilio said basic needs for blended learning such as printed modules were still not yet in place a day before classes were to start (gmanetwork.com).

Despite the protests of ACT and some parents, DepEd successfully opened School Year 2020-2021. Claiming victory over the coronavirus pandemic that forced students and teachers to shift to distance learning, Department of Education Secretary Leonor Briones formally declared Monday the start of the new academic year.

“Today, we celebrate a great victory. We declare our victory over COVID-19, the destroyer of our lives, the destroyer of our economy and our way of life and society. But we will not allow COVID-19 to destroy our children's education and their future,” Briones said (Cabico, 2020).

As the day progressed, pictures of teachers on top of school buildings looking for internet signal were shown; one was featured swimming a river to allegedly deliver modules to the other side and many situations which could oftentimes degrade the teaching profession. Of course, we understand human interest stories but when these stories are induced for gimmickry that is already another story.

With the importance of managerial skills which school heads are expected to acquire, seeing teachers on top of the roof looking for internet signals is a question of management. Why is it that the school head was not able to link with the stakeholders for internet connectivity? Seeing a teacher swimming in his uniform with the unwrapped modules on his hands, a viewer can question the integrity of the story and the storyteller itself. The one who filmed it was riding a boat while the teacher swam?

Education is a serious matter. Educators must have a progressive mindset with the intentions to serve not to be served. The professional educator, in accepting his or her position of public trust, measures success not only by the progress of each student toward realization of his or her personal potential, but also as a citizen of the greater community of the republic.

On the other side, there are parents who are complaining about the modular delivery modality. The question to come up in this writers mind is: Can they propose a better modality which allows the learners to learn? If we stop educating the young as what others are proposing, how will we deal with learning gaps?

Generally speaking, learning gap refers to the relative performance of individual students—i.e., the disparity between what a student has actually learned and what he or she is expected to learn at a particular age or year level. One of the more consequential features of learning gaps is their tendency, if left unaddressed, to build up over time and become more severe, which can increase the chances that a student will struggle academically (fsdeu.com.au).

Why do learning gaps form? In general, learning gaps are compounding, which can be troublesome for students beginning to fall behind. But, it's not always easy to identify. As learning is based on building blocks, students are always challenged to expand on topics over time and apply them to new concepts as they progress. Learning that is achieved at one grade level serves as the foundation on which the understanding of more complex ideas and concepts is built.

According to tutordoctor.com, this learning structure grows throughout a student's academic career, with new skills developing from the skills the student has already mastered. Not every student learns at the same pace, though – which is why what starts out as a small learning gap can eventually become a more serious problem.

Also, the modular delivery modality will allow the learners to value reading. Since they do not have anything to do but peruse the materials. This will eventually turn their minds to be critical-thinkers. Allowing the mind to dwell into an analytical state through reading hones mental capacities and skills.

Reading improves vocabulary, organizational skills, and the ability to read, comprehend, and analyze text. ... Moreover, literature can help students develop the critical-thinking skills many employers think are lacking in today's college graduates before they even get to college (Maxcer, 2015).

Whatever our perceptions are, we still have this collective belief that education is very important whatever delivery it may be given.

 

Old Tree in the Forest

 

There is a vast forest full of opportunities. The lush vegetation can be threatening to a newly-sprouting plant. Other plants might overshadow it and be deprived of the sunshine needed for photosynthesis; for survival. The plant must endure the challenges around. For it to survive, it must learn how to compete with others. The nutrients from where it is rooted must be consumed for it to grow. In its nature, survival of the fittest is the name of the game.

Other greenness are thriving. There are those who have become trees blooming with flowers. A beautiful sight full of promises is displaying around the forest. Someday, fruits will hang on their branches. Birds and other organisms will flock towards these trees to marvel and feed on the fruits: the result of the trees’ effort to exist… to survive.

The new plant must wait for its time. Moments of endurance and persistence are needed to develop its sturdy stem. The roots must be planted to a very rich and healthy ground for it to thrive. Weeds are there around threatening to overpower and sometimes can weaken the efforts to grow. But then again, endurance must be considered.

Many years will pass and the tree starts to grow tall. Other birds will notice its potential and would soon start visiting the promising branches. The bees will also look forward to the blossoming of the flowers signaled by the buds sprouting on the branches’ tips. But, there will be weeds and parasites which will start destroying the roots and seeping out the nutrients from the bark. The parasites will start to envy the thriving tree. They might as well seep its goodness for their own benefits.

Still, the tree can endure the tests of time. The weather can also be a foe. During stormy days, strong winds break the branches; too much rain loosens the soil the base might be uprooted. The cruel rays of the sun withers the leaves sometimes depriving the tree to produce food for itself… There are times when the tree surrender to its own fate. But it still continues to endure.

After the blooming, fruits come. The birds are now flocking around it. The tree is now one of the famous ones in the area. It is one of the most-visited plants in the forest. Bees, insects and even birds from other parts of the forest are coming over. The struggling tree before is now a celebrated member of the land.

More years will come. The tree will start to become older. The branches will become strong and the barks will thicken. It will become bigger and will create a shade. Ferns and other plants grow beneath it. They will feel protected by the shade of the old tree. The birds will nest on the branches and more insects live and multiply on the different parts.

The old tree in the forest will not mind on these happenings. It is now contented with what it has contributed with its surrounding. Envy and competition are not on its being. They are not important anymore. It will become happy with its help to the smalls plants starting to thrive near it. It will not mind on the birds nesting on its branches. In fact, the tree will be happier with more birds utilizing its branches as their niche. The tree will not mind on the plants and insects living on its different parts. In fact, it will become happier if more of cocoons will be formed on the leaves turning out to become beautiful butterflies soon.

The old tree in the forest will stand proud unafraid of the trials ahead.

                                                            **********************

We are in this vast forest called life. Whatever phase we are in with our growth process, we need to endure. The weeds and other envious people around must not hamper our growth. We will stand the test of time. The challenges we encounter along the way are as natural as the weather. We allow them to make us stronger.

Our contributions, the fruits of our labor, will be noticed by others. They can even be envied by others. But we must continue to bear fruit. Other people need them to survive. We can help supply the needs of our families and those who are needy.

In the end, we will become that old tree in the forest. We will be there for others. Our main existence will then be dedicated to the development and growth of those who are around us. Our contentment will not be centered on our insecurities but the well-being of others.

It will be a waste of life if we won’t become the old tree in the forest. We must have transcendence and self-actualization and live for the common good.