A lot of people are saying that 2016 has been the worst year ever, for some it is the best.
It is the best for people who voted for Trump as President. It is the best for people who voted for Duterte as President.
But what do I really feel about it?
What did I learn in 2016?
For starters, I learned that losing your baby due to a miscarriage on a New Years Day sucks.
Yes, last January 1 2016, my wife and I lost our first baby, which for three years we’ve been trying to have.
In the midst of grieving, then came the campaign of Duterte, where I lost at least half of my friends and relatives on Facebook because of their rabid almost cult like worship of Duterte.
To top it all Duterte won and if that isn’t the end of it, then came the issue of the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. In the heroes cemetery and the historical revisionism that came before and after on Martial Law.
But it didn’t just end there, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled in favor of the burial and then the sudden burial of the late dictator in the heroes cemetery sparked protests in the entire country.
But wait, there’s more! The newly elected President hasn’t even lasted for 6 months in office and yet his war on drugs has already gathered 6,000 (and growing) victims of extra-judicial killings and strings of human rights violations. AND the proliferation of fake news sites!
To note the year ender tops it off with a congress approving death penalty and looking for the lowering of the age of criminal liability from 15 years old to 9.
This is just looking inside the country but outside it is much much worse.
Trump winning the U.S. elections really did it for me and made me question humanity as a whole.
But enough about politics, let’s focus about me.
2016 made me learn that I am exhibiting symptoms of high triglyceride levels in my blood that could develop to a heart problem, despite the fact that I go to the gym two to three times a week and eat only brown rice and grilled chicken.
Doctors said that it might be hereditary, so they gave me a drug that I spent a fortune on only to realize that I was allergic to it.
They gave me another one, but it didn’t carry much effect, so they gave a new one now that I am taking at least thrice a day.
To note I can’t eat almost half of what I usually eat before and I’ve shifted to corn rice instead of brown rice to counter the effects of high triglyceride levels.
As for the other facets of my life, everything remains in tact.
My Family is fine.
My Career is fine.
My Spiritual life is fine.
My Monetary issues are fine.
I met new friends too!
Everything is fine, I guess until, every now and then someone dies.
I mean this year might be counted as the one with the most people (friends, famous or not) who died.
I am not sure, perhaps its just social media pandering its propaganda, but then again this is the first time it happened since the time I first used Facebook.
So what did I learn in 2016?
I learned a lot.
I learned how to be patient.
I learned how to resist.
I learned how to say no.
I learned about human nature.
I learned about history and the revising of it.
But ultimately I learned about perseverance and faith.
How about you, what did you learn?