People I Love

first published on September 11, 2004 in Sun.Star Weekend Cebu under lost and found column#10

I have never been a people person. At parties, I would find a deserted corner and read. Everyone took me for a nerd. At family gatherings, I used to hide in my journal, writing about loneliness, as everybody caught up on each other’s lives. After some years most people knew enough to leave me to myself.

In truth, I just didn’t know HOW to talk to people. I could passionately discuss religion, philosophy, science—even love—but share about my own life, my own feelings? All the words would fly out of my brain. The only person I knew how to talk to was myself. I did it so well that at any given time, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and how I wanted to live it. Principles, priorities, values, goals—my inner map was always clear.

Work was the top priority, of course, because it would get me to where I wanted to be; responsibility was the prime virtue. Meeting deadlines and getting results were what mattered, gave me fulfillment. Everything was about achieving MY goals, enriching MY life with new knowledge and experience. No, I was not a people person at all; I was a “me” person.

Actually, I was a rational human being. Anthropologists define “rational” as behavior that benefits one’s self. We, and the rest of the animal kingdom, do things if we get something out of it. No wonder love—true love—is considered irrational. How else would you define actions that seek only to benefit another, never mind the self? What person in his right mind would “give until it hurts” just to make his beloved happy? A man who would “lay down his life for a friend” must be utterly mad.

Suffice it to say, relationships never made it to #1 on my list. WHO needed me always took a backseat to WHAT needed to be done. Teachers and bosses lorded it over family and friends when it came to the use of my time and energy. Not that they weren’t important to me, or that I didn’t love them; it was just logical for my self-fulfillment. Irony of ironies, I felt responsible to the world, but never to the people who cared about me.

But this is the sort of thing we don’t see until it looks us straight in the eye—in a mirror. One day, I met someone exactly like me who did what I’d been doing to the people I loved: take me for granted. It’s what wives complain of about their husbands, husbands about their wives, parents about their children. We remember our loved ones only when we need them, at OUR convenience. For food, maybe, or a shoulder to cry on, or a pat on the back for a job well done. We get so used to their attention and concern that we forget what great selflessness it takes to keep loving big egoists like us. When we neglect them they bleed—I won’t forget now.

My lovelife, my career or my future isn’t their angst; they have problems, too, bigger than mine, and they need me to be there for them just as I need them. What do I do with all the money, knowledge or praise I get for my achievements—even the most noble and altruistic work—if I don’t have the hearts of the few people who truly matter to me? Now I see that people are more urgent than projects, more real than bright ideas, ideals, or ideologies.

As someone wise said, nobody lies on his deathbed wishing he had spent more time at work. In the end, it’s not how much we’ve accomplished of our life mission but how much we’ve loved that counts. And strangely enough, love isn’t even about how we make life better for our loved ones, but how we offer them what is precious to us—our time and effort. These are the only things of ours that we truly GIVE, because once given, we can never get them back.

I will never be a people person, I think, striking up conversation and making friends with anyone anywhere, anytime. I will continue to sit in a corner at parties. But I will not read, or hide behind my journal. I will sit there with time on my hands so I can look at the people I love, and with my whole heart ask them, “How are YOU?”