life or something like it...

well well!

I am pleasantly surprised that despite months of neglect, my blog site is still up and around.

Life is a strange mix of the weird and really annoying. Where sometimes doing the right thing is punished and doing the wrong thing is applauded. Take the example of the doctor who forsakes the life abroad only to be ridiculed as being stupid or the man who helps a roadside accident victim only to be arrested as the perpetrator.

Doesn't it make you just want to scream sometimes!

Recently, I had an occasion to read an article about why doctors are leaving the country for greener pastures abroad. It goes on to list the reasons that me and my friends have been talking about oh so many years ago while we were still in med school. While it's sad to see that the more that things change, the more they stay the same, it dawned on me that maybe the phenomenon of migration is more a problem of perspective than anything else.

Many of our professionals (not just medical mind you) see only the corruption and never ending strife that is ever prevalent in Philippine society. Coupled with the slap dash approach our government takes in addressing these issues, I say who can blame them for wanting to leave this "hell hole" of a country. This is further aggravated by the very small amount of money that they are able to earn which in turn gives rise to the daily battle with the household budget.

Let's face it. Who wants a life wherein day in day out you have to think about where your next meal is gonna come from or in the middle class perspective, where you're gonna get the money to pay off your credit card debt. I, for one, always dream of the day when I would have unlimited amount of money so that I could pursue my interests without regard for the vagaries of daily life.

But honestly, does this day ever really come? From the stories my parents used to tell me, it appears that the moment that you have gotten a respectable amount of money, you end craving more. And since our world is consumption driven, then we have just created a reality wherein we will never be happy. We will forever be looking for the elusive utopia which allows for unlimited consumption.

Therefore, the real hell is whereever we want it to be. Wouldn't it be ironic if the moment you get abroad and get the much dream about money that you're gonna make, you lose your spouse to infidelity or you realize that $80,000 a year only sounds like a lot if you're living in the hell hole of a country called the Philippines. Or that you make all this amount of cash by working 6 days a week only to never enjoy it coz you reserve Sundays for chores.

These statements though are not to discourage all those wonderful souls who wish to better their lot in life by moving out of this country. I just want to air out that other side of the argument that's often lost in the talk of how much I'm gonna earn once I'm over there. Coz, let's face it, the moment you get over there, you'll learn to live a life concommitant to your income and in the end, your friends in the hell hole might be living much more fulfilling lives than you.