Title Page

The Seven Goals of Life

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Copyright © 2019 Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol.

All rights reserved.

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This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

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Published by Rodolfo Martin Vitangcol.

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Email: rodolfovitangcol@gmail.com

PREFACE

IF YOU YET WONDER OF MEANING OF LIFE,

it means you’ve none of worthwhile goals in life.

For if you’re so engrossed in pursuing,

you’ll find out getting them is the meaning.

WANT TO BE COUNTED AMONG HAPPIEST?

—Have goals and pursue them all in earnest.

Want to be counted among the saddest?

—Have no goals except to work, eat, and rest.

DON’T MOVE ABOUT IN LIFE SO UNKNOWING

of the very reason you’re existing.

For as long as you cannot define it,

yours a moving body without spirit.

WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE GOALS, YOU MOVE BY INSTINCT

—like chicken changing courses in a wink.

When you have goals, before you move you think

—dropping those things to your goals have no link.

CAN YOU PLAY BASKETBALL WITHOUT A RING?

That’s what goes when without aims we’re moving.

If a bird is not a bird sans its limbs,

man is not man without his goals and dreams.

DO SET YOUR GOAL—TO MOVE WITH CLARITY.

Set a goal—that suits your ability.

Raise the goal—with your rising energy.

Always move with goal—lest you move slowly!

THEY SAY: “HARD WORK IS EQUAL TO SUCCESS.”

But I’ve seen many whose life is a mess.

I say: “Hard work plus goal equals success.”

Take out the goal, hard work brings nothingness.

THE JUDGE OF ALL THINGS YOU DID IN THE PAST

is where and how you’re now in this world vast.

The judge of all things you are doing now

is when far days come, where and how art thou?

LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE WITH LIBERATING GOALS;

stop wishing wishes, start pursuing goals.

If the lights of your goals and dreams are off,

there’s no happiness to even speak of.

WHEN YOU HAVE A GOAL AND YOU LOVE YOUR GOAL,

there’s none in life that can dampen your soul.

Everything that sucks gets tolerable,

all because of wanting to reach your goal.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Hard Work Plus Goal Equals Success

The First Goal Of Life: The Family Goal

The Second Goal Of Life:  The Career Goal

The Third Goal Of Life: The Financial Goal

The Fourth Goal Of Life: The Health Goal

The Fifth Goal Of Life: The Mission Goal

The Sixth Goal Of Life: The Self-fulfillment Goal

The Seventh Goal Of Life: The Spiritual Goal

“Does God Really Exist?”

Pondering On The Seven Goals Of Life

Hard Work Plus Goal Equals Success

 

Hard Work Plus

Goal

Equals Success

The FORMULA

They say “HARD WORK EQUALS SUCCESS.”  That if you are hardworking, you will be successful.  I don’t believe!

I know of one egg vendor who truly was an exceptionally hard-working person.  After ten years, he’s still an egg vendor.

We once had a laundry woman who used to come to us once a week to do our laundry.  She gets paid by the day.  Now, give her a tall heap of laundry to wash.  By afternoon, you will see all clothes hanging up to dry—all smelling fresh and clean.  This woman was one hell of a hard-working and efficient person.  After some ten years, though, she is still a laundry woman, and is even under stern warning from her landlord to pay her past due rent lest she be evicted.  It looks like her life did even take a turn for the worse!

You, too, might be hard-working, but still you may not succeed!

Why don’t I believe that hard work can lead to success?  Because the formula—“HARD WORK EQUALS SUCCESS”—is wrong!

The equation should be: “HARD WORK PLUS GOAL equals SUCCESS.”

You see me running and you call out, “Rudy, you’re running so fast!  Where are you going?”  And I answer, “I don’t know!”

Hard work has no meaning if it is not geared towards a specific goal. 

It’s like a ship that capsizes in the middle of the sea.  You are one of those on board.  And so you swim and swim and swim.  Little do you know, the more you swim, the more you head for the middle of the sea.  This is because in the middle of the sea, all you can see are sky and water.  After a while though, as you strain your eyes, you see something like an island on the horizon.  Now your swimming has meaning!

If you don’t have GOALS IN LIFE, you move about like a BUTTERFLY.

Butterflies fly so erratically you wonder where do they really want to go.  They flutter up and down, left and right, to and fro—only to alight sometimes just near or even at the exact spot where they have taken off.  I figured why didn’t they just fly straight to where they wanted to go?  Why yet the fluttering up and down, left and right, to and fro—seemingly not knowing where to go?

People without goals are the same.  You can see them everywhere—seemingly not knowing where to go.  They always say YES; they never say NO. 

“Come, let’s take a walk.”—“Yes.” 

“Come, let’s see a movie.”—“Yes.”

“Come, let’s eat out.”—“Yes.”

“Come, let’s have a drink.”—“Yes.” 

“Come, let’s do drugs.”—“Yes.”

They are so easy to be seduced.  Why?  They don’t know where to go—any place will do.  They’re like playing basketball, dribbling and dribbling but—without a ring.

I was that person—a BUTTERFLY!

In my younger days, I did move about in life like a butterfly.  No goals in life.  My first job was with a foreign bank.  Excellent pay!  Where did all my money go?  To women!  I was a regular customer at first-class motels and massage parlors.  I smoked and drank.  At age 35 I was still single.  Marriage?  No way!  Being a bachelor was so fun, why marry?  I didn’t think of saving any money either.  Why should I—I didn’t have goals, right?  This went on until one day I banged my head on the wall, so to speak, and came around.  How did it happen? 

When I was already starting my training and consultancy business at age 35, I began to notice that the seminar-participants were addressing me as ‘Mang Rudy’ and with an ‘opo.’  [‘Mang’ and ‘Opo’ in our vernacular are terms of respect used when speaking or answering some elderly persons or persons of rank.] 

I thought I must be already looking old for them to address me as such. I looked in the mirror, “Oh, goodness me!  I’m old, indeed. I have already lots of gray hair on my head.  And yet until now I still don’t know where I am going.  No direction!”

I sat down and did some soul-searching.  “What really is my goal in life? . . .  What do I really want in life? . . . Where do I really want to go?” 

When I stood up, I already knew what I wanted in life.  I already had goals!  Then I said to myself, “What a waste!  I should have known about these when I was still new with the bank.  Had I, I would have had a house and lot by now.  And a very big house and lot at that!”

And so, on that very same year that I came to, I settled down.  The following year, I had a child.  The following year again, another child.  [Unfortunately, the second pregnancy was an ectopic one, necessitating the fetus to be removed.]  I was rushing like hell! 

Hence, when at times the boys in the seminar would invite me, “Sir, can we have a few drinks after the seminar?”—my always ready answer was, “Sorry, but can we do it some other time?”  Why do I often decline?  I was thinking while I was drinking, I would be hit with a thought that—“There’s nothing I will get from this drinking. There are far more important things to do than this.”

It’s a good thing I came to when I was still 35.  What if I was already 65 or 70?

If you are that person who is yet so young, don’t ever think of doing what I have done.  You will regret it.  Don’t waste the very limited time God has given us.  Know where you’re going.  Have goals! 

And there are ‘SEVEN GOALS OF LIFE!’ 

The First Goal Of Life:

 

The First Goal of Life: 

The Family Goal

The Family Goal

1.  Stop FOOLING around!

I know of someone who used to sleep with one woman after another until one day he impregnated one. The father of the girl said, “Marry my daughter!”  Actually, the young man had a longtime girlfriend whom he was planning to marry.  But there he was.  Hardly had the marriage started when it was already a failure!

‘Perhaps’ there really ought to be a divorce after all, for there are so many marriages that started out on the wrong foot that it seems the only way to correct it is through a divorce.  I wonder if marriage be reserved for mature people only.

I suggest you consider well the person you will marry.  For I believe, it is better not to have married at all than to have gotten married to a wrong person.

2.  In choosing or looking for a LIFETIME PARTNER, consider well COMPATIBILITY more than sexual attraction or financial stability.

When you and your partner are compatible, marriage is HEAVEN.  Why?  Goals do get much easier to achieve and problems do weigh much lighter when you have a willing and supportive partner with you in life.  For this, it’s a thousand times better to having gotten married than to having stayed single!

On the other hand, when you and your partner are incompatible, marriage is HELL.  Why?  Goals do get harder to achieve and problems do get heavier to carry when either or both of you are even adding up to the already existing problems.  If this is the case, it’s a thousand times better to having stayed single than to having gotten married. 

3.  SIMPLIFY. 

Right now, you might be already married or in a relationship, so why yet look for another one?  You’re just complicating life.

Suppose I am a woman, married, and with children.  And I am having an affair with another man who is also married and with children.  Not to my liking, I got impregnated by this lover of mine—not by my husband.  And my lover is my boss.  Complicated?

I have noted, it is so easy to get into an unlawful relationship, but oftentimes so hard to get out of it—that is, if you can still get out of it.  In not quite a few relationships I have seen, it seems the only way to get out is—death!

And usually in most forbidden affairs, the relationships are founded solely on LUST—not on love.  The problem with lust is—it is ephemeral.  Six months is already too long.  And the moment lust fades, a search goes on again for another one and another one and another one. In the end, the true sufferers in most illicit relationships entered into by married people are—the children.

4.  Plan the NUMBER OF CHILDREN you will bring forth into the world.

The world today is turning more and more upside down.  For instance, those who are rich and can very well afford to raise a most secure and happy family are they who scrimp on having children—only one or two the most; with some, even having none.  I suggest when you’re rich, bear as many as you can, for who will get to enjoy all those wealth you’ve got? 

On the other hand, those who are so poor that they could hardly even feed themselves are they who bear so many, only to be fed with none.

I believe responsible parenthood begins well before the children get to be called to come into our world.  And those people who carelessly bring forth children with no means or intention of raising them up like real human beings are for me—criminals! 

Suppose it’s your birthday today and you invited me to your party.  Coming to your party, the food I came upon is all but ‘spoiled leftovers’ that you yourself don’t have the stomach for it. 

Same with children born to destitute families.  These children were so at peace in heaven and then were asked to come into the world, only to be fed with ‘garbage that even pigs would think twice to eat.’ 

We invite children from heaven because we have something good here on earth to share with—not miseries and curses.

Does this mean, only THE RICH and THE FINANCIALLY ABLE have the RIGHT TO BEAR CHILDREN?

Poor or rich, to bear children is a God-given right.

However, it is also the right of the children

to be raised like children of providence,

not children of want.

Indeed, we don’t live on food alone but also on good values that come from God; and, in the same breath, we also do not live on God’s good values alone but also on the food that provides sustenance to our lives. 

There are poor people who cannot provide good nourishment for their children but can very well shape their children like true children of God, in the same manner that there are moneyed people who can very well nourish their children but beyond that, they seemed to be raising children of beasts, not children of God. 

In other words, the right to bear children is not only decided upon by one’s ‘ability to feed, clothe and shelter the children’—but also by one’s ‘ability to raise them up with dignity, honor, and respect as children of God.’ 

I tell you, in every nation where there is widespread poverty caused by unbridled and massive corruption—there is NO GOVERNMENT!

What they have are thieves—pretending to be called leaders of their nations. 

By the same token, in every family where children were born and raised without dignity,

honor, and respect—there are NO PARENTS! 

What the children have are thoughtless and heartless beings—pretending to be called parents,

only because they happen to be the begetters of those hapless souls.

Greed and corruption in the world that have driven many of us to live in destitution don’t give us an excuse to bear children and pass on to our children the curses of our misfortune. 

Indeed, not all people were lucky enough to be blessed with children.  You and I have known a good number of couples who, no matter how much they tried, just could not bear a child.  However, if by stroke of luck they happened to be blessed with one, providing the child with a life of dignity, honor, and respect will be their best way to express their gratitude to God. 

All said, poor or rich, once we have decided to have children, we must stand by our decision and raise our children into beings that will be truly glorifying to God.

5.  Be a good AUTHOR of your children.

When I was a little boy, my haircut was ‘Chinito style’ [shaved all over except for a little patch of short hair atop the forehead].  I envied my friends having full hair.  I would tell my mother, “Mom, can I also have full hair as my friends?”  My mother would say, “Your haircut becomes you.  You look neat with that kind of haircut.” 

I always wore short pants then.  I envied my friends wearing long pants.  I would tell my mother, “Mom, can I wear long pants, too?”  My mother would say, “You’re still too young to be wearing long pants.”  Again, “Mom, can I go out with my friends to see a movie?”  My mother would say, “No.  It’s already late.” 

It seems there’s nothing I did that my mother had not approved of. But no regrets! My mother did raise all of us up very well.

Unfortunately, there are parents who did not!  They will bring forth children only to make them beg in the streets, without any means nor intention to ever send them to school.  At times, they will even teach them to steal.  “Son, I’m hungry.  Go and find food.”  And there goes the child, well-trained at snatching people’s bags.

Sometimes, I do entertain the idea of myself coming back again into this world after I die—into a new body.  A reincarnation, so to speak.  And whenever my mind touches on it, I pray.  My fervent prayer is like this: “O God, if ever you will send me back to earth, I don’t mind if I’ll be the ugliest person in the world, or be as poor as a rat. They are not important to me.  Just

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.01.2019
ISBN: 978-3-7438-9469-3

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