Contributor: Mister M
This is how the 30 minutes of my life changed me into a better person.
It was one rainy afternoon; I went out of the premises of the university to meet my sister. We were supposed to meet at 5:00 but at 5:30, she informed me thru a text message that she cannot make it on time and that we will meet at 6:00 instead. Since I had nothing else to do and I was tired to go back inside the university, I decided to go to Ninoy Aquino Freedom Park. “After all, thirty minutes isn’t that long,” I thought.
As I sat down under a huge tree along the pathway of the park, I began texting the contacts in my phonebook – after all, I availed of the unlimited text promo of Touch Mobile (TM) at that time. There was a high level of excitement as I started texting. It has been more than two months since the last time I reloaded my cellular phone. After exhausting my fingers sending messages to all the Globe and TM subscribers in my phonebook, I anticipated a lot of replies—I was gone for a long time, so I thought that gives justice to my anticipation.
But what happened was quite the contrary. To my frustration, I only received five responses, and what frustrated me more was that three of those persons only responded a bold “Hu u?” Ouch! That was painful and insulting, right?
After that, I didn’t bother reintroducing myself to them. I realized that people interpreted my long absence differently. They thought that I changed my sim card, or maybe they thought I never existed at all. Whatever their reasons may be, I was hurt.
I checked the time. I realized that I still have to wait for 20 more minutes. That’s when I placed my cellphone inside my pocket and focused my attention to a group of youngsters chatting from afar. At first, I thought they were only playing but as I stared closely at them, I realized that the children were not playing. In just a wink of an eye, one of the children started running. Then, the rest of the group chased and cornered him. The poor child abruptly removed his bag and clenched his fists. Yes, he was aware of the next scene and he was prepared for it.
He picked one opponent. But just when he was about to release his valiant punch, his bigger opponent’s kick landed on his stomach first. It ended the poor child’s valor. He knelt on the grass gasping for breath. The kick badly hurt him and he wept while he was down on his knees. Then, the rest of the little goons also flew away.
The poor child was left alone. There were many college students around but nobody dared to help him. But after a couple of minutes, the child recovered and looked for his playmates despite what they did to him.
Before I was able to observe what’s next for the poor child, a group of athletes jogging at the park grabbed my attention. It was an ordinary exercise at first glance, but as I paid more attention, I realized that it wasn’t. They were led by their coach. I didn’t know how many times they planned to jog in the entire park; all I saw was that the poor coach was not aware that some of his students were deceiving him. While their coach was religiously enjoying the jog, some of his students at the back were taking a short cut so they could finish one turn faster. None from the group noticed this scheme until their third round. When one of the joggers turned his head, alas, the scheme was revealed before his very eyes.
He immediately reported his co-members’ cunning act. And that’s when the coach witnessed his three students taking the short cut. Being outsmarted by his students, the angry coach immediately ordered the three students to give a couple of push-ups as a punishment. After that, the rest of the students laughed over what happened to their co-athletes who couldn’t move a muscle after serving their punishment. The coach also laughed in disbelief that he was outsmarted by his students. Then, they continued jogging and the coach chose to be the last person so he could man his students properly.
Seeing those occurrences, I realized that I missed those simplicities of life. It woke me up to the reality that life is as simple as children changing moods, or even as simple as how the coach made me realized that I have been soaking myself in various works lately that I even forgot how to smile truly—without hiding anything.
And now I’m thankful that I spent that thirty minutes of my time at the park for it led me to a realization that life is simple. It’s only us who are making it complicated.
Sometimes, believing that we are not the shallow type of person, we dig deeper for the things that can make us happy. As a result, we overlook those simple things which, if we examine closely, are our real source of happiness. It’s just a matter of laughing over corny jokes or being contented with our simple life that we see the beauty of life. It may be shallow but it’s genuine.
At six o’clock, I found myself sitting again, not at the park but at the burger stand chatting with my sister. I also found myself laughing out loud as I told my sister the story of how I spent the happiest thirty minutes of my life at the park.
And that’s how this simple story ends.
*Mister M is a graduating student from the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a self-proclaimed artist.
This is how the 30 minutes of my life changed me into a better person.
It was one rainy afternoon; I went out of the premises of the university to meet my sister. We were supposed to meet at 5:00 but at 5:30, she informed me thru a text message that she cannot make it on time and that we will meet at 6:00 instead. Since I had nothing else to do and I was tired to go back inside the university, I decided to go to Ninoy Aquino Freedom Park. “After all, thirty minutes isn’t that long,” I thought.
As I sat down under a huge tree along the pathway of the park, I began texting the contacts in my phonebook – after all, I availed of the unlimited text promo of Touch Mobile (TM) at that time. There was a high level of excitement as I started texting. It has been more than two months since the last time I reloaded my cellular phone. After exhausting my fingers sending messages to all the Globe and TM subscribers in my phonebook, I anticipated a lot of replies—I was gone for a long time, so I thought that gives justice to my anticipation.
But what happened was quite the contrary. To my frustration, I only received five responses, and what frustrated me more was that three of those persons only responded a bold “Hu u?” Ouch! That was painful and insulting, right?
After that, I didn’t bother reintroducing myself to them. I realized that people interpreted my long absence differently. They thought that I changed my sim card, or maybe they thought I never existed at all. Whatever their reasons may be, I was hurt.
I checked the time. I realized that I still have to wait for 20 more minutes. That’s when I placed my cellphone inside my pocket and focused my attention to a group of youngsters chatting from afar. At first, I thought they were only playing but as I stared closely at them, I realized that the children were not playing. In just a wink of an eye, one of the children started running. Then, the rest of the group chased and cornered him. The poor child abruptly removed his bag and clenched his fists. Yes, he was aware of the next scene and he was prepared for it.
He picked one opponent. But just when he was about to release his valiant punch, his bigger opponent’s kick landed on his stomach first. It ended the poor child’s valor. He knelt on the grass gasping for breath. The kick badly hurt him and he wept while he was down on his knees. Then, the rest of the little goons also flew away.
The poor child was left alone. There were many college students around but nobody dared to help him. But after a couple of minutes, the child recovered and looked for his playmates despite what they did to him.
Before I was able to observe what’s next for the poor child, a group of athletes jogging at the park grabbed my attention. It was an ordinary exercise at first glance, but as I paid more attention, I realized that it wasn’t. They were led by their coach. I didn’t know how many times they planned to jog in the entire park; all I saw was that the poor coach was not aware that some of his students were deceiving him. While their coach was religiously enjoying the jog, some of his students at the back were taking a short cut so they could finish one turn faster. None from the group noticed this scheme until their third round. When one of the joggers turned his head, alas, the scheme was revealed before his very eyes.
He immediately reported his co-members’ cunning act. And that’s when the coach witnessed his three students taking the short cut. Being outsmarted by his students, the angry coach immediately ordered the three students to give a couple of push-ups as a punishment. After that, the rest of the students laughed over what happened to their co-athletes who couldn’t move a muscle after serving their punishment. The coach also laughed in disbelief that he was outsmarted by his students. Then, they continued jogging and the coach chose to be the last person so he could man his students properly.
Seeing those occurrences, I realized that I missed those simplicities of life. It woke me up to the reality that life is as simple as children changing moods, or even as simple as how the coach made me realized that I have been soaking myself in various works lately that I even forgot how to smile truly—without hiding anything.
And now I’m thankful that I spent that thirty minutes of my time at the park for it led me to a realization that life is simple. It’s only us who are making it complicated.
Sometimes, believing that we are not the shallow type of person, we dig deeper for the things that can make us happy. As a result, we overlook those simple things which, if we examine closely, are our real source of happiness. It’s just a matter of laughing over corny jokes or being contented with our simple life that we see the beauty of life. It may be shallow but it’s genuine.
At six o’clock, I found myself sitting again, not at the park but at the burger stand chatting with my sister. I also found myself laughing out loud as I told my sister the story of how I spent the happiest thirty minutes of my life at the park.
And that’s how this simple story ends.
*Mister M is a graduating student from the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a self-proclaimed artist.
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