As I was coming out of the comfort room a hotel boy noticed that I was searching for something in my vest. He came near to me and offered a box of tissue paper. He thought that I am in need of a handkerchief. With a smile I told him that it was actually my prepared speech that I was searching for. Well, I lost my speech somewhere while hurrying up to this occasion and I have to say sorry to that gentleman who intelligently penned my supposed message for tonight. The only thing I could recall in what he wrote is the salutation, “Distinguished guests, fellow graduates, ladies and gentlemen”.
OK. Speaking of change let me tell you of this lady whose family has gone ahead of her to the Philippines for their yearly Christmas holiday because she still has to attend their company’s two-day conference. Her mother had also decided to stay and will just travel later with her. On the day of her trip she called the part-timer maid and said: “Inday, I would be out for two days so you must take care of my ailing mother and of course, my daughter’s cute little Muning.” “Yes Ma’am, she replied”
As expected, she came home after two days. First thing she asked was her Muning.
“Aaaah”, Inday nodded and said sorry, then left. “By the way Inday, how is my mother?” the boss asked. Inday paused for awhile and said: “Well, Ma’am, actually, I was watering your plants upstairs, your mother jumped over the window, ran through the roof…… The boss put her hand on her head and collapsed.
In the new age of super megabytes, do we take computer courses just to be in? We want to gain new knowledge for several reasons: Most of us, expatriates, say for career advancement, others for personal development, some just want to have this knowledge, or even ease in ordinary life. We call it objective.
We Filipinos came here to improve our lives. Gaining new learning from these courses we have taken is just an icing on the cake. If we would look deeper into the FCC organization, we can find that we are not only trained to be computerate but we also learn how to interact with our countrymen coming from different areas and of varied cultures. We learn to cultivate our hidden talents, like in the cultural club. We enhance our leadership qualities; we train ourselves to talk with confidence in front of an audience, as we do in our group presentation in the HTML courses.
Have you ever thought of what this tissue box means? This is a fine example of an organized thoughts and patience. I could say of learning as well. You pull one sheet and another follows through. The sheets are aptly organized. It is a simple mechanism but very meaningful. You cannot reach the end of the sequence without picking the leaf one by one. In real life, you don’t enroll today and get the training certificate the next day. There is a process that you have to go through and this must be dealt with patience. One secret of learning success is to admit to yourselves that you know nothing. This is what I call “ABSORPTION”.
What I am emphasizing here is we must set our objective before setting foot to acquire new learning. We must ask ourselves of our real purpose. We must, however, indelibly inculcate in our minds that no matter what success we gained from learning new things, we should always keep our feet on the ground. Never use it in insulting our less fortunate friends; don’t use it as an instrument in attacking people. Because, He is up there watching us. And we may never know the payback time.
Bottom line is, learn new things with proper approaches in our modern life, make ample preparation, organize ourselves, and be humble.
This tissue box came into existence because there is a purpose. It will fail if God wills it. In all of our endeavors in life, we must always glorify God Almighty for his greatness, for not a single leaf will fall to the ground without His permission. Thank You.
[This speech was prepared by Mr. Marvin S. Dimarucut and delivered by himself during the FCC-D Graduation cum 6th Anniversary on 13 December 2002 at Marriott Hotel - Deira Dubai, U.A.E.]