Things Learned and Fervent Wishes

It’s been around four months since I left the halls of Ateneo wearing the blue toga that was donned by many others before me. Four months after four years of many firsts — adventures, misadventures, attractions, distractions, love advice, life lessons. Sometimes, when I don’t feel that life is in too much of a hurry, when it’s slowing down a little, allowing me to simultaneously catch up with it and take a moment to be still (at least in my head), I think about how everything came and went too swiftly. How I turned from ignorant fledgling to little-less ignorant adult in less than half a decade. From professed know-it-all to know-a-little in one undergrad journey.

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However, the changing’s far from over. Tomorrow I will embark on my greatest personal journey yet: the first day of law school and, by extension, the first day of the rest of my life. I’m writing this down more as a personal promise of continued adventures more than anything else — of mornings where I will chase the sun as it makes its way towards the heavens, of evenings where I will relive my ancestry as stardust, of people and places from whom I will learn life from more than cases and torts, provisions and laws, of times when I realize that some of the best adventures are those that include pit stops, arguments, beaten-up bodies, and disenchantment. I’m writing this down because in the four months that I was out travelling and exploring and attempting to find myself, I have learned a myriad of things I know would serve me well in law school, and for what’s to come after it.

First, I’ve learned that it’s important to never lose your purpose.

It’s always easy to grow disheartened when your travel plans don’t go as smoothly as you would’ve wanted them to be. Late arrivals make for delayed trips, dirty water for upset stomachs, bad weather for destroyed tents. When all these happen, it’s all too tempting to decide to pack up, leave, give the trip a mental middle finger for destroying your plans, and never come back.

Unfortunately, leaving would also mean missing out.

Never lose your purpose. When you’re close to quitting because the rocks are mossy or the trail is muggy, and you’re too focused on your steps — mindlessly counting each time you lift your leg and imprint them on the soil, remember how magical it feels when you’re at the summit and there’s nothing up there that separates you from the wind. Remember how it’s like to feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, or the coolness of the breeze tickling your nape, as if the warm winds and the cool winds were playing tug of war behind you. Remember that everything around you is surreal if you let it — the giant trees, the cerulean skies, the ants lined up in perfect army formations…

Remember all these, and continue to take step after step after step until you’re no longer focused on your steps, but rather on the things that are around you and wait for you at the peak. Whenever you’re beat up or getting mad or feeling bored, remember why you’re doing what you’re doing — whether it be for check on a bucket list, personal accomplishment, bragging rights, what have you — and keep yourself fuelled by it.

Second, I realized that a huge part of travelling involves doing tasks that seem boring, but don’t have to be.

Ticket buying, lining at airports, filing papers, sitting on buses for hours on end — these are all mundane tasks. Tasks that, because of my tendencies to be impatient, I especially hate.

However, in retrospect, I’ve realized that adventures wouldn’t go as smoothly as they would if not for these “roadblocks.” The sooner you realize that journeys take time, the better. It’s not a journey if all it took you from here to there was teleportation. What makes it a journey are the things that you underwent throughout the process, including the seemingly boring ones. Looking back, you realize that the people you met during the 13-hour bus ride and the stories you got from them are as much a part of the adventure as the electric blue sea and the tortoises you swam with afterwards. You realize that lining up at the airport taught you more about patience and time management more than you initially gave it credit for.

I’ve realized that it’s the little things that make a trip for the books. If all you wanted was the view, then all you should have done was look at photos of it. Travelling gives you much more than the view: it gives you lessons on waiting. It reminds you to always greet people with a smile. It tells you to make friends. It urges you to make more — much, much more — of what you currently have.

Third, that it’s okay to trust.

Travelling, I’ve learned, involves lots of trust. You have to trust that the airport personnel with handle your luggage with care. That man you asked directions from? You have to trust that he knew what he was saying and that he would lead you to right path. You have to trust that girl you sat with in the table at the eatery — that as you stood up to go to the restroom, she would not meddle with your pack. Eventually, you’ll learn to trust the words of the natives, of where to go and where not to go, and trust that as you give up your initial itinerary for their personalised ones, you will have a much better time.

Trust extends to things far beyond those you can control. You have to trust that the airplane pilot has enough skill under his belt to get you to your destination safe and sound. You have to trust that bus driver who has been on the road for more than half a day already; that he will exercise enough caution to make sure you’ll arrive just fine. If you don’t trust, you’ll perpetually live in fear, awake on a bus at 2 AM staring out at the window, resisting the urge to scream when the bus overtakes another vehicle or when it curves a particularly sharp road. Trust that the mountains will let you climb them, the seas will let you swim in them, the skies to let you fly.

Similarly, you have to trust in yourself. That you know enough about life to navigate your way through a busy country, that you know enough about human decency to know not to be rude, that you know enough about relationships to know not to divulge personal truths about yourself the first time you meet someone. Trust in your gut and trust in what you can do. Much of what we have accomplished in life are results of us trusting ourselves and believing it will be alright. That doesn’t change just because you’re in transit.

Fourth, that if it doesn’t make you see things differently, it isn’t worth your time.

If you feel that travelling to a particular place would not change your perspective on life, then don’t bother. Travelling’s done so you can see things from different vantage points. If you want to change, be changed, and make change, then by all means, go out into the world.

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I don’t know, maybe it’s a little too early to make these lessons for law as well, mostly because I haven’t even experienced my first day in it, but as far as I’m concerned, these travelling lessons are lessons applicable to life, and since the law will become my life (by transitive property), then these lessons I can apply in law.

I really, really don’t know. I’m honestly too scared for what’s to come. I have never particularly felt the need to slave away in high school, moreso in college, and so the thought of devoting 18 hours a day studying just seems unsurmountable  a task. But then again, I’ve never thought I could climb a mountain before the first time I did, right? I’ve never thought I could surf prior to last month, or ride a bike prior to April, or run 15 kilometres prior to last year, especially since 6 kilometres used to bring me on my hands and knees.

I guess I’m ready, then. Whatever law school has in store for me, I’m going for it. National Geographic said it best, “You can plan trips, you can’t plan adventures.” Law school’s the trip, but I’m gearing myself up the unplanned excitements that will come with it. And then one day, maybe you’ll see me practicing international and environmental law, finally turning into reality what has always been the dream.

So, dear readers, I need you to do two things.

First, I need you to remind me of life outside law school when I have become so disenchanted with academics. To remind me of the feel of sand and mud. Sea and freshwater. Rock and soil. Clean air and cool breeze. Of silent desires to catch up with friends and make new ones. Of the value of walking aimlessly and getting lost. Of the occasional spontaneity. Of sometimes making blunders. Of genuine smiles and hopeful dreams. Of youth and never truly letting it go.

And second? Well, I really hope to kick ass in law school. Wish me way, way more than luck.