I was 7 years old. We were getting used to the habit of managing hunger. It was a challenge to get food for more than once in a day. I remember going to bed without food on some of the nights. Whenever we get food, it used to be plain rice, tinoghong, salt, milo, sugar, bulad, tinapa etc. Sometimes, a very plain tasteless food and not easy to eat.
One night, my mother sent me to a nearby store to asked for some canned goods, noodles, and rice as we were hungrier that day. I went to that store, asked the store owner for a couple of utang lists. She flatly refused, as we had not yet cleared the earlier debt. I came back empty-handed to home and could remember seeing the tears in my mother’s eyes. After some time my mother somehow arranged a little amount of food from neighbors and fed us. But she went to bed hungrier. Many times, she remained without food, but somehow fed us food as much she could arrange to make us survive. She would not even take a small portion of food. Though I was young, I could see her pains and sacrifices.
Being born into a poor family, you would be exposed to this self-sacrifice at an earlier age and you learn that the self is above everyone. As you learn, you start practicing. At an earlier age, you would eat less as much as possible, so that your family could eat. This practice would soon extend to friends and strangers. In whatever little food/money you have when you see somebody struggling worse than you, you would go and help. In later life, this habit makes you help people without expecting anything in return from them. You learn to put certain things above your own desires and comforts.
I was around 8 years old. One day, while having dinner, my parents were arguing over something. Suddenly my father got angry and kicked the dining table. Our food fell on the floor(It was sad to see food being wasted considering the situation we were in). I got frightened. My father rarely shows anger. That day arguments turned uglier. The effect lasted for many months. I had seen arguments getting uglier in our neighbor’s house, as my friend’s father was a drunkard. It was a violent neighborhood at times.
One day, in a fit of rage, my father almost squeezed my mother’s neck in an argument. I have seen how emotions take control of their minds, release a sudden surge of anger/depression forcing them to do things beyond their control before their rational mind could react.
I had seen how Emotions explode in an instant and when it explodes, a massive physical and mental damage happens. The frequency of those incidents and their impact had taught me to be aware of my emotions and be cautious so that I could avoid emotional bursts and maintain healthy relationships. I had taken efforts to avoid the emotional build up in my mind.
The way to control emotional bursts is through Empathy for others and Self-reflectiveness during those turbulent emotions. Emotional bursts do not happen due to a single incident. It builds up over a period of time towards somebody.
If we keep thinking about those incidents/problems, the emotions become intense and affect our life’s stability. It was important to forget, forgive and move on. Learn to be non-reactive, develop empathy and suspend judgments at those moments.
Though poor, my mother wanted us to be self-reliant, have self-respect and live a dignified life as much as possible. Being starved most of the time, it would be natural for any child to grab food as soon as somebody offers them. As we were afraid of our mother, we restrained ourselves from taking food or water from other’s homes, whenever we visit them.
Sweets, chocolates — though we had it rarely in childhood, and it was very tempting when somebody offers, we had developed a habit of controlling the temptation and refuse the offer.The research shows that the children who resisted temptation were more socially competent, personally effective, better able to cope with the frustrations of the life.
A child would be emotionally upset if he or she had to constantly worry how his or her mother was going to pay debt, provisional store expenses, school fees. It was painful to see neighboring store owners refusing to provide rice, vegetables or rice when mother go and request them. Yes, we should not blame them, as they also need to take care of their children’s future.
My mother would repeat that the only way to get out of poverty was through education. Study hard. She would say “Your education would turn our life”.
Since we had limited knowledge about the external world, the only goal I had was to score at least the top 5 ranking in my class and not worry about anything else. This simple goal was very clear and easy to achieve, rather than thinking about larger goals in life.
Instead of focusing on many directions/goals, I had a simple task to meet my goal — Take books and keep reading. Put efforts, work hard and do not think whether you have the talent or not.
This simple goal gave me the ability to motivate myself, persist in the face of frustrations, to control impulse, to regulate one’s moods, keep distress from swamping my mind, mastering mind to foster productivity, fight inner battles in mind so that I could focus on work and have clear thought.
Humans naturally keep higher value on objects that are scarce or about to be lost. Due to poor economic conditions, there was a constant threat to my education. How could you study when debts need to be paid? How could you study when getting food itself is tough? How would you pay school fees, college fees? There would be pressure to join some job as early as possible. After High School, I was not sure whether I could join college, but then worrying does not help. These potential threats made me value the education and study as hard as much as possible.
Sadness is one of the basic human emotions and is usually triggered by a difficult, hurtful, challenging situation. Sadness lingers for a long time even though the experience andI corresponding emotional hurt have faded. Sadness would sap our energy, close down our interests in many things. I had seen how persistent sadness had drowned some of our neighbours into depression — few of them tried alcoholism — further fell into the trap and ruined their lives. After witnessing the negative effects of gambling and alcohol, I promised myself not to try them at any time.
As the only child. Having no siblings is so lonely— I would be playing at home, talking to my pillow, to my mute uncle "Amang". Being active and occupied helped me to overcome sadness most of the times, though it was not intentional. You cannot forget the emotional and physical support provided by my uncle throughout the life regardless of his disability.
Another factor to avoid depression — friends.
In childhood, every day sometimes I had friends coming home after school. We generally walk together as a gang to school and walk back again as a gang. Roamed around in Ricefield , mango farm as a group — the guys always cracked jokes, teased each other every time in a creative way interlinking with some filmy dialogues, did mimicry, sang localised songs, told stories from films, and it was fun forever. Spending time with friends had the potential to even turn an introvert into an extrovert. Generally, when a person is sad, he would like to isolate himself and remain lonely for some time, to self-reflect. Loneliness and Isolation may lead to depression. I was lucky that socialization with friends helped me to avoid that depression. Unless you distract your mind from the sadness, it would be tough to focus on studies. Friends became a source of your distraction from sadness.
I learned a lot from some of my friends — They applied the same mindset to other instances in life. They were average in studies. If they received test results of total average around 45%, instead of feeling sad, they would feel happier. They focused on the positives than the one negative. This character is contagious and I was happy acquire those skills unconsciously.
As we were growing up, I did a full-time jobs after school hours, so that I could share some of my daily expenses and support my aunt which serves as my mother in repaying our family debt when my parents left me working overseas. Almost 15 years I didn't saw my Mama and my Dad is so emotionally depressed given that I am not the man he expects me to be and he didn't accept my sexuality at that time for stereotyping is rampant for the members of LGBT community.
Growing up in the 90s environment — We used to teach subjects to our friends, neighborhood kids and we were a kind of sought-after people for education in the neighborhood. If you are spending more hours than anybody in studying, you would obviously be better than others who had not spent that much time. You would feel happier, emotionally better when you see a progress in the life of people whom you have helped. When people comment on your activities, appreciate your help — it increases your confidence further. These things had helped me to keep the sadness away and forget them.
What would you do if you or your friends could not afford toys?
We had to make our own toys with whatever materials available as none of us could afford buying them. We made cars using tree branches and wooden cable reel holders. It was a great learning experience in self-reliance, resource planning. As a kid, we had learned to use a single product for multiple applications.
During those days, it was rare to see parents playing with the children. Most of the parent’s mind was occupied with their own set of worries. Coming from a broken home, I never expected my aunt spend time with me. So, I'm not dependent on my relatives, for my entertainment — I'm free to explore and make my own ways of playing.
As we all know, Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. The more we are aware of our emotional feelings, the more skilled we are at reading the emotions of others. A recent study says that poor people are better at Empathy. Social struggles had built the caring attitude in the minds of poor people. Without relationships, you cannot survive in the violent neighborhood and Empathy builds those relationships.
When a drunkard husband hits his wife, his helpless wife would show her anger toward her four-year-old child. Whenever parents fight, they show their anger, irritation to their children. Some of the children who had undergone intense emotional abuse, emotional neglect, cruel sadistic threats, humiliations, plain meanness in their early childhood had a tough time in adjusting to the society in the later years of life. It was not a peaceful atmosphere. I have seen how some of the Kid’s lives were ruined due to this childhood emotional turmoils.
When I see criminals, outcasts — I would suspend judgment of their character, as we were not aware of his childhood life — I would try to understand why he did that in the first place.
Growing up in a peer pressure, constant humiliation necessitated a permanent change in the personal characteristics of some of our friends and had forced them to drink alcohol, be aggressive, fight with others.
At that moment, I realized how my father would have fallen into a bad habit. I had a better environment, better education than my father. Even then, I had seen some of my own friends fall into the trap as they were growing up. I could understand how my father would have felt defenseless against his adulthood temptations aggravated by the troubled childhood. Blaming him for our turmoil, our poverty is not the right thing to do.
As I grew up, I looked at psychology and habit formation in detail. I understood that mere emotional blackmails, pleadings will not work(Everyone of us hoped that people would change for the good due to emotional connect with their family) — Poor families could not afford the time, money for the required psychological treatments — Their problems continue to haunt them unless the next generation changes.
I had a mentor (she is one of my High School inspirational Dominican sisters, Ludivica Anseno O.P) who supported me with all of my emotional challenges, depression, and anxiety.
She gave me another important piece of advice for life -”You should not miss anybody’s marriage if you are invited. Do not miss any of the funerals. You could miss marriages due to some situations, but make sure that you attend all the funerals. If any of your friends were sick, please visit often, spend time with them. You would be doing a lot of good to the society if you do this.”
Being poor, as you grow up, many would feel sympathy for you and would come forward to help by offering money to pay the fees, by offering part-time jobs. Without that kind of people, I would not have joined the higher school, college. They helped me without expecting a counter help. The only advice they gave me “I understand your struggles. Once you grow up, I would like you to understand other’s struggles and help them. We do not want the money back” — The art of Empathy.
Most of the mothers in our neighborhood had unsolvable, unpredictable family problems, but they would hide their emotions and show a different, pleasant face to the outside world, including my mother. But you could figure out it easily. How? The environment would teach you to subconsciously learn and understand nonverbal communications like the tone of voice, gestures, postures, facial expressions, and body language. Body languages play a major role in most of the fields and I was lucky that I was subconsciously trained to observe the body language and facial expressions.
We are all unique. Everyone’s childhood life is unique than anybody else. All of us can write a nice book about our own life, which could! be an example for others. Every one of us will have a lot of little stories, moments of their life, which could teach others. There is no need to look at others for motivation. We need to just look inside of us and look back at our own past life to understand our strengths, uniqueness, and use them to move our life and other’s life forward. I hope and pray you learned something from my humble beginnings, I know each one of us fighting our own battles in silence. Don't lose hope. Just bow your head and talk to HIM. Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be open to you! Feel free to see my transition on how I embrace my sexuality. For as long as you know your Truth, you can never go wrong!
According to Desiderata, Do not compare your life to other people for you may became vain and bitter person for always there will be a greater and lesser person than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans in life. You are no less than the trees and the stars. You are right to be here! And whether or not it is clear to you. No doubt the universe is unwild as it shows. It is still a beautiful world. Be careful and Strive to be happy!
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely love 💓
Kimma
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