By: Maria Reylan M. Garcia
I get all excited every time I have free periods after
lunchtime.Without any concerns of time pressure for the afternoon classes, I'll grab the opportunity to escape from the domineering walls of the university and walk my way to an eatery at a classmate's boardinghouse. I love eating at a carinderia, since I get to spend less and eat more. Imagine, a medium-sized cup of sautéed vegetables, a small plate of kangkong shoots immersed in shrimp paste and vinegar and a cup and a half of hot steamed rice costs less than fifty pesos. All the more was it heaven on earth when you'll realize drinking water isfree. These may be the reasons why I was smothered in disappointment when last week I realized that the drinking water is now being sold at two pesos per glass.
Not to mention, a few pesos increase in some of my favorite dishes. I was in the midst of believing other pessimists,that indeed nothing in this materialistic world is free of charge.Happiness of an affordable lunch with free water refills fades into a belt-tightening blur. But, I never gave in. Hope is still not lost.No, I'm not going to discuss about price hikes and the damaging value of peso. I'm not going to talk about the economic turmoil that our desperately poor country is facing. I frankly don't have a nutshell on National Economics, I sometimes can't even count my change right.Happiness today is associated with money.
You can have the yummiest food, the most fashionable wardrobe, or the latest gadgets as long as your credit cards are loaded. Kids my age find immeasurable fulfillment in half a day's shopping of signature clothes or several hours of online gaming, both equally draining their pockets in exchange for the feeling of euphoria.
Happiness today is superficial and appears to be exclusively for those who can afford.
But never shall I forget the cliché; The Best Things in Life are Free.
Even though our world might be enclosed in a dome of salable joy and bliss, the best things actually remains 100% discounted. You'll spend thousands of pesos preparing for a night out with the trendiest style of outfit , several thousands more with treating your so-called friends some drinks so they'll think you're cool, plus some additional hundreds to pull off your flirting schemes and end up on a date with the hottest person in the club. But, wait, can't you have stayed at home with your younger brother who was pleading all week so both of you could watch the partial lunar eclipse and right after watch a random movie aired on TV? You'll spend nothing by wearing your comfy pajamas, you'll waste nothing by being with your little brother who'll think you're the best sister in the world, plus splurge nothing to have priceless giggles and shrieks while watching a horror flick.
A smile, a hug, a kiss, some words of encouragement and a simple hello, these are all free of charge but we often times disregard their value and focus more on the tagged and bar-coded ones.
You'll spend almost a thousand on a fresh bouquet of carefully picked roses for your monthsary gift to your girlfriend, several hundreds more with a romantic dinner date in a classy restaurant, and while you're at it some cheesy lines and pathetic alibis for forgetting her birthday.
But, hold on, can't you just have smiled at her everyday showering her with nothing but kind praises and part ways with a warming hug? You'll spend nothing when you bring her to a good mood everyday with your smile, squander nothing when you let her feel that you love her not
just in special occasions but in every moment of every day.A compliment to a friend who had a new haircut, a prayer for an ill family member, a hand to warm an anxious shoulder and a few minutes of looking up in the heavens to view the majestic cloud formations; these all costs Php 0.00. But I tell you, these things bring more happiness and peace.
The night with your friends at a night out exists for just a couple of hours, and once you all recovered from hang-overs everything will be as is, they'll still be the same make-up thickened faces you see everyday who only treats you special because you're loaded. The night with your little brother though exists in just a few hours as well, you'll wake up tomorrow with a stronger bond, you'll have another movie to laugh or maul about, and you both have seen a rare astrological phenomenon together. And I guess he'll be a less annoying little brother.We don't need to be promotional products like bite size hotdogs sandwiched in crackers in order to be free.
My friends let us remember that life still offers us a great deal of a bargain. These material experiences may let us be elated and "happy" for a while, but once their expired, terminated, canceled and over so does the "happiness".Those simple acts, thoughts and words may not have the same grandiose initial impact, but once their over and done, we will always look forward to do them again because a tingling and strange feeling remains.
Let us not wait for the time when these free things become priced and beyond our budget. Let us not wait for moments when hug sare rated at 5 pesos per minute, prayers are sold per verse, little brother's laughs are loaned, and a sweetheart's kiss needs a down payment.I'm still dismayed that the eatery sells the previously free water at Php 2.00.
Yet, I'm just glad everything else important to me is free.
The best things in life are still free.
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