I couldn't help but notice that on the way home I saw long lines all over the place.
Turns out that a lot of people are buying Lotto tickets.
I found out yesterday that the jackpot was up to over 111 million pesos, an amount guaranteed to fulfill anyone's dreams.
People would wait in long, winding lines just join in a lottery where they would probably have a 1 in a billion chance of winning the jackpot.
1 person going up against probably another 60 million people; what are the odds of winning the jackpot prize?
But people still cling to the hope that somehow fortune would smile on them.
And so they spend 20 pesos or more on lottery tickets, hoping that they would win, hoping that fate would make the balls in the lottery machine show the combination they have on their tickets.
Filipinos have a long tradition of hoping that some higher power would help them in their lives.
Chance, fate, destiny, religious figures, etc.
We all at some point in our lives find ourselves hoping that some, if not all of them, would relieve us of our problems.
We find ourselves praying in churches, consulting fortune tellers, believing in superstitions, checking our horoscopes, analyzing feng-shui...
However, we rarely do anything else to solve our problems.
We run to religion, to superstition, to chance, to astrology.
Our favorite saying is "bahala na": leave it to fate.
Yet we can never accomplish anything if we leave our lives to fate!
We are human beings.
We make our own destiny.
As the saying goes, "Nasa Diyos ang awa, nasa tao ang gawa."
We can never raise our country out of poverty if we keep on trusting to fate.
We have to work for change.
We have to do something, instead of offering sacrifices or wasting money on impossible dreams.
We may win the lottery if we trust to chance.
We can change a nation if we trust in ourselves.
1 comment:
One good thing to note is that true faith in God always leads a person to action. Also, for any Christian or religious person praying is just as important as action itself. They compliment each other. People don't just pray to ask God to alleviate them from poverty. Most people pray so that they will know, through God's guidance and perfect plan, what to do to help themselves.You see, it's God and the believer in cooperation, in communion with each other, taht leads to a person who moves effectively. Another thing is that action does not necessarily have to be active, it can also be passive. Being still, relaxing, communing, and praying are all actions in preparation for even more actions, usually of bigger proportions. These help us make better choices and act efficiently. Lastly, don't point a finger on religion or even fate/faith for the laziness of some people. Again, faith should lead people to action, although what action it is varies from case to case. Also, the Church never thought their believers to be lazy. In sharp contrast to that is how the Church considers sloth as sin, to be avoided at all costs! To think that the Church promotes an attitude so contradicting to their teachings as sloth is absurd.
By the way, I agree with what Ms. Ria here has said. She explained it beautifully.
God bless you.
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