A View On My Side of the Coin

By Ina Pizzaro

4 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

I give great importance to the things that dictate who I am as a person. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. My parents know who I date. I only party when I have my parents’ permission. I have never crossed the line. For most these things don’t matter, as they believe these are the stuff that comprise a teenage life well-lived. YOLO, right? Well, I disagree.

"Dude, drinking is part of growing up!"

What is there to growing up really? Isn't it ironic how most people claim drinking as part of something that’s actually a process of molding us into becoming better, into actually “growing up"?

My high school teacher assured me that I was going to learn to drink the moment I’d be in college, especially that he knew I was going to study in Manila, away from my parents. I told him not to generalize, because I was different. But he doubted it, shrugged his shoulders and said, “That’s what everyone said." I just smiled. I didn't want to argue about something I still couldn't fully defend myself from, as it is still something that is going to happen. I was certain in my heart that he was wrong but I kept my mouth shut. I knew only time could tell.

Isn't YOLO supposed to remind us that this is a one-way life? That there are no U-turn slots? That the world doesn't care if you took the wrong turn? YOLO. YOLO! YOLO? It is, I think, something that’s very much misunderstood. As I have learned in class, and as a Christian, “Freedom is not doing whatever you please, but doing whatever you ought." With that being said, I guess I don't have to sound so omniscient by dwelling on this matter. I just really know it means different from what most people think it is.

I was raised by a Dad who doesn’t smoke, who doesn’t drink for “fun" and whose only real contentment is a good conversation with the family at home. My Dad is very God-fearing and family-oriented. Whenever I open up to him, his final advice would always be to “talk to God about it" because he said He always listens. I guess it is why I have learned to always communicate with God, and to always believe that everything happens for His reason. I was raised by a Mum who told me not to believe that drinking is part of growing up, because she turned out more than okay without ever having to gulp a spoonful of champagne in her whole life even when everyone else was enjoying their mojitos and screwdrivers and flaming ferraris. From her I learned that it is indeed my choice whether to just freely go with the flow or to choose to brave the current.

I don’t want to be a person I’d end up regretting, because this is indeed a one way life. My idea of living the life is having a family whom I can totally be myself and have real conversations with. It is surrounding myself with things which, and people who, truly matter to me. FUN doesn’t have to involve alcohol or nicotine intake. When people tell me I don't have something to laugh at when I grow old for I haven't really done something crazy in my teenage life, I laugh at them. I guess I have come to a point in my life that, even when I'm only eighteen, I have already sincerely realized the things I can always choose to live without. What is there to a last-friday-night-was AWESOME moment that makes it worth remembering anyway? What’s so cool about allowing other teenagers dictate how life should be lived?

I am no saint. I make mistakes, and, like you, I constantly sin. But I’m most willing to put my life on the line every time people try to judge me about my principles. NOT EVERYONE is the same, even our fingerprints can prove that. I’m not saying that what everyone else is doing is wrong, because who am I to say really?

My point is this: in this generation, even when most just laugh at people who choose to live like I do (some might even already be judging me now at the back of their heads), we can still always choose to stand firm by our principles and be strong enough to go against the status quo. Because really, in the end, what matters are the things I can bring with me to heaven, and who I have grown to become the moment I face my God. I was blessed with the freedom and the will to choose my own path and to make my own life. This way, I don’t just exist—I actually live. And this is who I choose to be. This is the life I want.