All Smiles

I'm fascinated by how most Filipinos still managed to smile amid adversities and challenges that we experience everyday.

Life is getting harder as time passes by. Jobs are getting scarce, money is hard to find, casulaties are everywhere yet we still have the courage to show big smiles with our friends or even to strangers that we feel to share our positive outlook in life.

I've been dealing with numerous foreign citizens, most of them are colleagues and some are long time friends. They feel weird everytime they see Filipinos laughing while chatting with friends on the streets and still have time to sit back and relax on coffee shops and restaurants. As for most them, we should be thinking of other ways to keep our lives better, either by looking for a better paying job, keeping up with debts and dealing with national issues.

If you will ask me, my logical side will say they're correct. We should have been a little more proactive in looking for possible ways to live better and more comfortable other than being contented on what we currently have. We should have the initiative to do our own small ways for a progressive nation building. We should be working harder than what we do to keep up with other countries who leave us behind economic progression.


But if you will ask my practical side, I think, there's nothing much that we could do. I'm not saying that we can't do anything at all to correct what we've done wrong in the past. I just would like to justify that if we need reforms, this should start with revising the current system. If we will live with the system that we're used to, regardless of how we work hard, it will just be worthless, as if like we're saving money in a pocket with a hole.

We Filipinos love to smile, to laugh and to show the world that we are still contented though life is harsh. This is our own way to at least forget our miseries, our failures and misfortunes. This shows our appreciation to life and it's blessings however small. This is who we are. This is the Filipino trademark.