Travel Light

The past four days had been busy. We had our pre-opening activities in our school. This meant perspective setting and a series of talks and workshops which centered on the theme: Towards New Evangelizing Breakthroughs and Frontiers of Paulinian Education, and on the new strategy that we are going to adopt which is the Blue Ocean.

Every year, all the participants (practically everyone who works in the school whether teachers or not) are given tasks either during the preparation for the activities or during the pre opening activities.  Just like every year, I was again assigned in the documentation committee.  This year, like  last year, I served as the editor for  the official newsletter of the pre-opening activities.

I would like to share with you my editorial for the first issue.  (I'll share the other one tomorrow).  This is for the benefit of those who have already resigned from the university but who still want to know what is going on.

Here is my editorial:

We are just about to embark on another academic year and as we prepare ourselves for the great task that lies ahead, we are reminded of our purpose and calling. We are here to respond to the challenges of a society ridden with problems of corruption, abuse, materialism, greed and apathy. We are reminded that we are here not only to teach the mind, but also to touch the heart. We are here to evangelize and to love. 

We know where we want to go. We are set to sail towards new evangelizing breakthroughs and frontiers of Paulinian education. The ocean is vast and there is so much more to be explored. Together with our students, we want to overcome that which has not yet been overcome, to exceed the limits of our potentials and to explore the great unknown. 

Like most humans, however, we are often enslaved by many things: our attachment to material things and people; negative feelings like envy, anger, bitterness; our hunger for power; our fear of failure and rejection, of losing sight of our comfort zone, of change and all that it brings, our fear of the unknown. These are the ones that paralyze us, that prevent us from being the best we can be, that diminish us to be less than what we truly are. Without even knowing it, we have become our worst enemy. 

Our negative habits, our frustrations and fears may become too heavy and cause the whole ship to sink if we ever leave port at all. The success of our journey lies within us. Whether we reach our destination or not is all up to us. We only have to choose to let go. It will probably be the hardest thing we will ever do in our lifetime but it will certainly be the most liberating and rewarding! 

 It is time to leave the shore and sail forth. It is time to let go of the baggage that we have been carrying around for years. It is time to focus solely on our purpose and our calling. It is time to “let go and let God”.   As we serve our community and society with the passion of dreamers and lovers, let us all remember to travel light.