Where Ateneo Failed

After my last post, I was still thinking about what I wrote. A friend was also going through a quarter-life crisis-ish episode and my conversation wth her help me piece things together.

What I believe as the root cause of all this is the Ateneo. I mean, from Grade School we were pampered and spoonfed and put up on a pedestal. We were taught to pity the poor, help the needy, be a Man for Others. There was not a heads up that if we weren't careful, we' be the ones to be pitied and to be helped. No one in the many teachers I had told me that life is hard and in order to live I have to work hard. I'm learning this now, 10 years after High School. I know there really isn't a guidebook for life but it wouldn't hurt give a little advice. All the while I was under the impression that everything we read about or everything that we see in the outreach projects is always going to be different from what we will have or experience. I thought that we were shielded from these and that as always, after a couple of hours of tutoring Tulong Dunong children, we'd head on back to our comfortable houses with our dinners waiting for us.

Back then, if we ran short of money, we'd run to our parents and ask and we'd receive. We'd ask for money for make-believe projects or imaginary books and we won't even have to ask a second time. If my allowance went faster than expected, all I needed to do ws to wait until I got home and I can eat whatever I want. Now, I have to make sure my salary lasts until the next pay day. There's no one to run to if it doesn't. I have to find alternative means of income to make ends meet. Now I have to learn everything through experience just like everyone else.