Talking of New Year’s Resolution

By Herbert Vego

 

THE year 2020 has left us with no 20/20 vision for the incoming 2021, obviously because of the daily doses of coronavirus cases that print, broadcast and social media have bombarded us with. The news creates panic over the pandemic.

But whether the pandemic is real or make-believe will remain debatable for a long time. As I have repeatedly said in this corner, we can’t afford to think negatively over the COVID-positive. Since more people die every day of other diseases, I don’t see sense in hyping only one to the max. Our health experts seem to have forgotten that the consequential stress, anxiety and depression could be deadlier.

It would do us good to “level up” and “find ways” – to quote Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas and a bank ad, respectively – through a New Year’s resolution. If you had one for the current year, how did you fare?

Writing a New Year’s resolution is what freshmen high school students usually do to fulfill an assignment in English class. I vividly remember when Ma’am Illuminada Delgado asked us, students, to write one. Mine was “to study harder” for whatever I wanted to be. It has paid off.

I bid farewell to 2020, hoping you fared well as I did. At around this time in 2019, I wrote a resolution to be more frugal in my spending in order to save money for whatever unexpected emergency.

The big unexpected one came with so many initials like GCQ, MCQ, ECQ and whatever else concocted by the government.

It paid off that I played kuripot for both thrift and health reasons. I succeeded in preferring carinderias to fine-dining restaurants in order to gorge on fresh fish and nutritious vegetables without hurting my pocket.

To disabuse the minds of those who see me wearing a Lacoste shirt, it’s only because refusing a branded gift is an insult to the giver.

The “sacrifice” has done wonders. I have licked life-threatening diseases like hypertension and atherosclerosis. Slowly but surely, I am recovering from cardio-vascular problems that could have led me to eternity.

A specific disease that I beat is emphysema. I had been told it was “irreversible” but I refused to believe it.

Had I done and fulfilled my “prudent spending” resolution in 1970 when I was single and already writing for a living in Manila newspapers, magazines and even komiks, I could have become a Don by now.

Years ago a retired bank manager advised me to shun credit cards and use, whenever possible, an ATM card for grocery purchases. It’s simply because what’s in the ATM card is earned, not borrowed, money.

Frankly, however, it is not unusual for us Filipinos to break a “prudent spending” resolution. Unexpected emergency situations can drain in one click the money that has taken years to save. I have been through it many times.

We like to think of New Year’s resolution as another Christian tradition. But it is not, as I found out while reading an article by an American preacher. He wrote that that the tradition of making a New Year’s resolution had preceded the Christian era. It began in ancient Babylon over 3,000 years ago.

If we were ecstatic over writing one, it’s because we are under the spell of the illusion that the transition from the old to the new year brings with it a fresh start although there’s really nothing mystical that occurs at midnight of December 31. The figurative “turning a new leaf” could be done on any date.

If a Christian decides to make a New Year’s resolution, what should it be?

While surfing the Internet for this column, I came across a reproduction of the original 15th-century New Year’s resolution attributed to Roman Catholic Bishop John H. Vincent, which I am quoting verbatim:

“I will this day try to live a simple, sincere and serene life, repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity and self-seeking, cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity and the habit of holy silence, exercising economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust and a child-like trust in God.”

Take note that all the items in Bishop Vincent’s resolution are also the stuff contained in ours today. If there were ones not found in ours today – say, the promise to stop smoking – it’s simply because they were irrelevant in his time when only the chimneys spewed smoke.

For a New Year’s resolution to succeed there must always be a strong basis. The resolution to stop smoking could best succeed where fear of catching lung cancer intervenes.

To the reader who wants my two cents’ worth, my first advice is: Be realistic. Betting on a numbers game is counter-productive; the chance of hitting a lotto jackpot is not even one in a million.

Second, be specific. Instead of “I will no longer be lazy,” resolve to “maximize time for work and minimize time for TV viewing.”

Third, look for alternatives to bad habits like waiting for tomorrow what you can do today. As the saying goes, “The early bird catches the worm.”

Finally, when sad, in our Ilonggo lingo you are only two letters away from happiness. So make it “sadya”.

 

MORE POWER PRESIDENT LOVES ILOILO CITY

WE were pleasantly surprised to see President Roel Z. Castro of MORE Power having coffee at Hotel del Rio yesterday. He was with colleagues Jonathan Cabrera and Limuel Celebria discussing the challenges that lie in the year ahead.

Sir Roel is passionate in his determination to energize the entire city with no “jumpers” hanging around because illegal electrical connections overburden the paying customers who shoulder part of the system’s loss. The company is saddled with a bigger percentage.

“If we could minimize the losses,” he said, “we would plow back the savings to fast-track our modernization goal.”

MORE Power has 65,000 paying customers, which could double in the next 365 days with the absorption of power pilferers and new households into the legitimate mainstream.

We asked also asked the humble executive whether he had spent Christmas at home in Antipolo City.

“Dito lang ako,” he quipped. “Spent it with our employees in the office.”

But he was quick to add that he had gone “international” as well through a Zoom application that showcased 40 people – his family in Metro Manila and their relatives from north to south of the planet Earth.

Having spent almost a decade in the province and city of Iloilo, Mr. Castro correctly thinks it’s a better place for him and his wife to spend the rest of their lives.

Impierno na gid abi pangabuhi sa Metro Manila – what with heavy traffic and overpopulation.

If Sir Roel thinks Iloilo is where langit is, so be it.

Say mo, Maricel Guapa?