LIFE: The challenge of living (an introductory post)

Dear Steemians! This is my first post here… Please support.

I am greatly overwhelmed by the fact that this platform has becomes a mechanism of connecting people worldwide without undermining the rewards for every good content written therein. I am new here, probably, no will even notice my existence in this vast network of steemians keying words every minute from all corners of the world. Nevertheless, I would like to send my warmest greetings to everyone here, those who takes time to read this post. It is my profound gratitude, that as newbie as I am, you have spent considerable time and effort, clicking, upvoting or probably resteeming this content. Your act of kindness will surely not be in vain.

I am Ryan, my story is not so unique than everyone else, like everyone though, experiences are worth sharing. I was born and raised in a very poor community in the mountains of Cebu City, Philippines. Life is hard. My Mom was only Grade 4 and my father never even had the opportunity to start school. The entire livelihood is sourced from farming, a KAINGIN style of traditional farming which will only feed the family.

I could still remember when I was young, my parents would buy sardines and odong (a kind of noodle) which we will cook at least once a month. It was a luxury for us. Early in the morning I almost always wake up with a loud voice of my mom shouting “Mata Na!” “Wake Up”, in our small table, food is ready “Tinug-hong” (a recycled left-over of the corn grits cooked the day before). It’s hot. And it’s good for the cold temperature in the mountains of the City. Five to ten minutes of eating, we have a bolo ready in its place, take it, and run to the Kaingin and start weeding the plants, which would be till 6:30 AM where we should go ready for school. Arrive at school late at 8:00AM in the morning, because we still have to walk 5 kilometers to the nearest public school. On foot, no transportation available, and if there is, there is no money to pay for it. But my parents always told us, “Go to school no matter what circumstances we have, we are not always here in this world, we don’t have riches, we cannot give you anything but your schooling. It’s hard, but you can do it.” Immediately after school, we run home, as soon as we arrive, me and my brothers grab the bolo, and helped our parents in the Kaingin, so that by the next month we could expect some harvest to sustain us for another month. This is of course with the hope that no typhoon comes, or no El Nino will destroy our crops, because if that would be the case, we will be eating less than 3 meals a day, and to have dried fish in the plate will be a luxury.

While the light of dreams keep burning, wind of challenges keeps blowing to put out the fire. I was in Grade 9 when I suffered tremendous sickness. We don’t have money for food, more so, that we don’t for hospitalization. I kept lying in bed for 3 weeks with high fever, and stomach ache likened to no comparison. It’s painful. And the fever causes me to shake like having attacks of epilepsy. I never thought, that I will be able to survive from that horrible sickness, until now, I still do not what it was. Thanks to God, he has given me the second life, probably to serve a purpose he will call me on. More than two months of absence from school, my grades suffered and so I had to take summer class. As soon as I finished High School, My oldest brother, Juan, who could barely walk due to broken leg after being struck by a speeding car, who in fact run away, told us to go on college. He said that while they do not have the privilege to go on tertiary, the three of us, Me, my brothers Lorenzo, and Emilio should take the courage and start the dream.

We are 9 in the family, I am the 9th , then 8th and 7th respectively. The rest only got high school. My only one sister started college but barely finished second year. And here we are, in the midst of tremendous poverty, dreamed of becoming engineers. So the three of us went to the city, and took Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering in one of the colleges in the City. I thought that life in the mountain was hard. I was wrong. Back in the mountain, when we lack food, we just search for potatoes, or corn, or cassava nearby the house or in the Kaingin, all is solved. But here in the City, no money simply means no food, sometimes we have to memorize eating because we don’t have anything to eat, hoping and praying that by the next morning to come, God will somehow rescue us from the horror we are in, until almost nothing left in me but skin and bones.

And so the journey goes on, from the place we live to the small college we are attending has a walking distance of almost 4 kilometers, we will walk to and fro, morning and evening. The challenge was even harder considering the fact that we were taking computer course without our own computer. Thanks to my other brother Eddie, who sponsored a Pentium III computer out of a second hand store in the city, which was hell slow, but was nevertheless very helpful to our studies. I learned programming languages of varieties, name it, Java, C family, .net, php so on. We began to understand the world of computers dreaming that in the near future we will be tycoons in the digital age. It was the time when Friendster was dying and Facebook is gaining popularity.

My mom comes to the City every Wednesday to sell our crops form our farm, when she’ll go home, she’ll leave an allowance of 120 pesos ($2.5) for the three of us, and 5 kilograms of rice. That would be it for the next week. And the cycle continues. Till the school could no longer survive, and has to close. The nearby universities were too expensive to attend. And so Emelio, my dear brother gave up the dream and goes home. I was I considered to be the most heroic act I have ever seen in my life that would cherish forever as long as I am alive. He goes home, and manage the farm that he might be able to send us to school. My brother Lorenzo went to on Computer Engineering, I pursued Political Science with a dream of becoming a lawyer. This time, we are on a little better situation, where my brother Emelio was maneuvering the way for our success. It was a bumpy and treacherous journey, but determination put into action in the midst of all pain and suffering, will propel success with the sweetest victory. I graduated.

            I was the first in the family to have a degree in college, my brother followed, five days later. He pursued his work as an instructor for computer studies at Systems Technology Institute, while maintaining a supervisory job in one of the largest transportation company in the country.

As for me, having been in the Radio Broadcast for 3 at this moment, continued on. I was hired by the way as soon as I started my Political Science years. Political commentary was now the blood in my vein, the same power propelled me as I entered into the College of Law. For the second time, I suffered the wrath of poverty that I cannot go on with the fight. So I stopped for the time being, and decided to take the licensure exam for teachers, one shot, one kill.

I was a broadcaster, now a teacher. And so sought employment in a high school institution reputable worldwide, Don Bosco Technical College. This time I was in the midst of finishing my Master’s Degree in Business Administration. A year later, my path called me to teaching University, and so I gave in. This time, I was in the middle of finishing my Ph.D. in Management, later to finish it, at the age of 27. At 28, I am a humble resident professor, in one of the State Universities in the country, delivering the most important lesson my mentees could ever learn. LIFE IS HARD, IT WILL TORN YOU DOWN, CRUSH INTO PIECES WITH NO TRACE WHATSOEVER, BUT DETERMINATION TO GO ON DESPITE OF ALL THE DIFFICULTIES IN LIFE IS THE ONLY KEY TOWARDS ACHIEVING YOUR AMBITIOUS GOALS. LIFE IS HARD, SO YOU’VE GOT TO BE SMART.

My Mom, My Dad who died almost right after my graduation, My Hero Brother Emelio, My Brother Lorenzo, and the rest of my family, made this story possible. And we are still here to continue rocking the world and see what lies in it. That was a hell long introduction, and so I thank those who completely read this post line by line until this, hoping that at some point I might have inspired you with the difficulties I had and how I hurdled it. I may not yet be in the pedestal of success as I dreamed it to be, I very well know that my God prepared a very long journey with me, each challenge will be worth remembering, every triumph is worth fighting, and living a life consumed in a way never wasted, all for the Glory of God.

@raise-me-up