resignation
According to Marx, Man is work. I have had work for more than a year now. I could honestly attest that I am my work. I have come to define myself by this work, and the fulfillment I get from it. This work makes me happy. Yes, it makes me tired, but for the better part, it makes me happy.
Then comes the point wherein man has to choose. It would have been fine if choosing was the only agenda, but wouldn’t you quite agree that we are all judges in our own little star search? We rank the prospective stars according to skills, according to importance. The star that ends up on the bottom of the list does not remain there, or remain in the search for that matter: they get ELIMINATED. Now, scrap stars and put priorities in their place. It does not matter if the star (or priority, in this case) makes any significance. The fact that they ended up on the bottom of the list is enough to let go of them.
I had to make a star search choice just recently. The stars: Health, School, Family, Kalasag, Work, Friends, God, and Sanity. I had to let one go. I had no choice.
I value my relationships too much, and so I couldn’t quite let go of Family, Friends, and God (I have to especially work harder when it comes to my relationship with God). This is my last year in University, and I think I owe it to myself and my parents to at least graduate a Cum Laude, and so School remains in the game. That leaves Health, Kalasag, Work, and My Sanity.
I made a promise to stay, no matter what. They know it, and I know it as well as they do. I try to keep my promises as much as I can, and so Kalasag is saved from the bottom three. Funny, isn’t it, that my bottom three priorities are Health, Sanity, and Work? My mom would strangle me if she knew my health isn’t as important to me as it is to her. Roa Ming would just probably smirk at the thought that I’d rather drive myself insane as long as I get to live in the spirit of magis. But work? No one deems it important. Who gets to benefit from it other than me, right? Well, for the record, my work has taught a number of Koreans proper English. My salary has helped a classmate study for another semester. My salary has been able to pay for unforeseen expenses in Kalasag (despite my pleas, apparently unheard, of letting me know beforehand of any expenses). Lastly, it has helped me become fulfilled, something that my schooling and extracurricular activities can no longer supply as abundantly.
But I’m letting go of work. I just did. I passed my resignation for August 15, 2008 this morning. And the more that I think about it, the more I feel strangled. I need my health and my sanity, because they are all that I have left to battle the world. I made promises I could never break. I have goals I have to achieve. I have love in need of giving out. But I can’t have that one thing that makes me who I am along with all of that. I miss my work, my students, and my colleagues already. I miss them so much I think I would have jumped off the highest floor of the highest building in Davao City if I were just a millimeter less sane.
My last day would be on the first day of my 21st year on earth. I will no longer think of it as a punishment. It will be a new start. For the life of me, I’ll make sure it will.
Now that I have found myself some room to rest, I think I deserve more. Next week, my application for a 2-week leave-of-absence from Kalasag. This time, no one better stop me. I swear, I’ll kill.