#jrnl

0815:0816 | taguig (aka u-tag charot)

Finally finished The Courage To Be Disliked. I must confess there were moments of frustration and grappling with the ideas and literally tossing the book away lol. Welp, it really challenged my mind's framework but coming into the last chapters, the pieces finally fell into place.

"The life that ends at the age of twenty and the life that ends at ninety are both complete lives, and lives of happiness." This is my nth self help book since my mom died. Idk, perhaps I'm looking for an affirmation or something about her life, her death, or just human life in general. And this felt like it. Every time people talk about my mom, most of the time, it goes about how untimely it was. And even within my own family, I would constantly hear my brother say "sayang, hindi ko man lang naparamdam kay mama 'to *insert typical milestone*"... I know (and it also awfully pains me tbh) that she died without experiencing a lot of things. She didn't get to see my brother finish law school, didn't get to see me in my Sablay on a stage, didn't get to see another country, didn't get to see us married or have grandchildren, etc. I totally get the guilt and regret, but there's also a strong internal debate that it isn't right to feel that her life went about just like that because she missed some "core memories." I know deep in my heart that she lived earnestly and the people saying "sayang kasi hindi *ganito*, hindi *ganyan*" - we are all wrong. She's the kind of person who actually lived the series of moments of her life (that's why she's such a sunshine even if she's just playing candy crush or watching K-drama) and that is enough. Her life wasn't unfulfilled just because she didn't get to see these milestones set by others and arrived at their expectations.