Ano ang gusto mong maging paglaki mo?

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question asked as soon as you can count or recite the alphabet.
For the boys, it is almost always a soldier, policeman, doctor, priest, or join the crocodile world of lawyers. For the girls, it would be a flight attendant, chef, teacher, doctor, not necessarily in that order or even all of the above.
For me, the ever naughty kid, a daft answer must have been “Malay ko, haan ku ammu. How would I know, I’m just a kid!”
Aside from my everlasting foolishness, which does not only cause me regret but also shames me – Me non solum paenitet stultitiae meae, sed etiam pudet, I was blessed with a little brightness, err wisdom, hence my recollection was that of wanting to be a priest.
As I always say though, “Many are called but few are chosen,” thus, I was called but I was not chosen.
So, after getting caught in the confessional box playing lucky 9 with the pages of the bible, the next best thing was to move on and had the need to be lawyer, which I did at a Jurassic age of 24. Of course, at the twilight of my life and looking back, I got what I wanted and more than more.
Speaking of seminaries or noviciates, three nuns were talking and comparing notes.
The first nun said, “I was cleaning the rector-father’s room the other day and do you know what I found? A bunch of Playboy magazines.”
“What did you do?” the other nuns asked.
The first nun answered, “Of course I threw them in the trash!”
The second nun said, “Well, I can top that. I was in father’s room putting away the laundry and I found a bunch of condoms!”
“Oh my,” gasped the other nuns.
“What did you do?” they asked.
“I poked holes in all of them,” she replied. The third nun fainted.
Come to think of it, the female specie of the kids forgets about motherhood.
“Gusto kong maging nanay!” That would be the most iconic dream one could have, yet taken for granted. It’s Mother’s Day today and we pay tribute to all mothers via Kahlil Gibran, whose mantra – “The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word “mother,” and the most beautiful call is the call of “my mother.”
It is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything – she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness.
Everything in nature bespeaks the mother. The sun is the mother of Earth and gives it its nourishment of heart; it never leaves the universe at night until it has put the Earth to sleep to the song of the sea and the hymn of birds and brooks.
And this Earth is the mother of trees and flowers. It produces them, nurses them, and weans them. The trees and flowers become kind mothers of their great fruits and seeds. And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.
So ano ang gusto mong maging paglaki mo?
I guess the lessons in life says that we should be asking the toddlers the “proper and politically correct question, “Ano ang daan na hahatakin mo sa buhay?”
What road would you take in the journey of your life? The kids then would maybe want to carve their routes and live out their journeys towards a goal that would have a meaning, make them happy, take a trek down the road called destiny.
Then all takes are passion and intensity, so that you can say to yourself, “I have lived a good life!”
Sigh.