"The Cards We Are Dealt: Refusing to Fold"

 "The Cards We Are Dealt: Refusing to Fold"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

If you view life through a certain lens, there will never be a shortage of bad things going on.

Rains that seem to have never stopped for a month. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times the sun has actually come out.

Floodwaters that have affected work, businesses, and education, as well as the lives of those who have been badly affected by nonexistent or poorly implemented flood-control projects.

Manila now declaring a leptospirosis outbreak after the threshold for the disease has been reached, while hospitals are already struggling with the number of patients.

The ongoing increase in gas prices that trickles down to everything—from passenger fares to the prices of basic goods and services.

The inability to pass an ₱85 increase that could at least provide some relief from the rising cost of living.

Nothing seems to be going the way of the Pinoy.

And yet, we are known for two things: our humor and our resiliency.

So what do we do?

Do we blame the government again and again?

Do we blame ourselves for the choices we have made?

The truth is probably somewhere in between.

Sure, the odds are stacked against us. We can go to the streets and shout as much as we want, and I am not discounting the power of protest or the need for change.

But I have always believed that if you want change to happen, it should also start at home.

I cannot offer a magical solution to everything that is happening around us. The government will not always save you. Nature certainly will not save you. And at the end of the day, what you have is yourself and your family, if you have one.

All I am saying is that we should have the resolve to better ourselves first.

Work.

Hustle.

Learn.

Adapt.

Overcome whatever part of the stacked deck is within our power to overcome.

Low education.

Walang padrino.

Walang pambayad ng placement.

No qualifications.

Stacked odds.

And even more hurdles waiting around the corner.

One mayor recently suggested building a second floor as a solution to flooding. While that suggestion may come across as tone-deaf, one can also argue that there are neighborhoods where even having a second floor would not be enough to survive a serious flood.

There are households that cannot afford that kind of infrastructure. There are families who cannot simply move somewhere safer because they cannot afford to relocate.

And perhaps that is exactly where the conversation needs to begin.

We cannot pretend that everyone has the same starting point.

Some people are already running uphill before the race even begins.

Some families are one flood away from losing what little they have.

Some people do not have the money to simply move somewhere safer, build a second floor, go back to school, or start over.

It is easy to tell people to "work harder" when you are not the one carrying the weight they carry.

So no, I am not saying that personal effort will magically solve everything.

It won't.

We still need better governance.

We still need accountability.

We still need competent infrastructure, better education, decent wages, and leaders who actually understand what ordinary Filipinos are going through.

But while we wait for those things to change, we cannot simply wait for someone else to save us.

If there is something within our control, then we should do something about it.

Learn what we can.

Work with what we have.

Save when we can.

Prepare when we can.

Help our families.

Help our neighbors when we are able.

And when an opportunity comes, take it.

Maybe that is what resiliency should really mean.

Not simply smiling after every disaster and saying, "Kaya natin 'to."

It should mean getting back up and asking ourselves:

"What can I do differently this time?"

Because the odds may be stacked against us.

The system may be broken.

The rain may keep falling.

The floodwaters may rise.

The prices may keep going up.

But we cannot allow the difficulty of our circumstances to convince us that we have no agency at all.

We may not be able to control the hand we were dealt.

But we can still decide how we play it.

And sometimes, surviving isn't about having the best cards.

It's about refusing to fold.