Filipinos Need To Learn to Think Long Term!

Relax... it's not the end of the world... 

Knowing that the One Direction concert will be on March 27, 2015 I just felt like this topic could have been been written earlier.  Instead, I thought I'd write about it that some people just don't think long term.  I have seen other issues worth getting mad about like the pork barrel scam, Abu Sayyaf terrorism (and they have pledged allegiance to ISIS already) and the recent SAF killings.  These are really much bigger problems worth crying and worrying about.

Backtracking, I can't forget the One Direction ticket incident.  While it's not entirely wrong to buy the ticket, however the incident proved a lot of stuff wrong about Filipino society.  Some people may have bought the VIP ticket without thinking of other expenses rejoicing it completed them and they can already die.  When the VIP tickets got consumed, some ensued into a mini-chaos.  Then the tickets ran out which made me think... oh my what are they thinking?!  Jealousy also was a reason why the fight happened considering that those who weren't able to buy the ticket got mad at those who were able to.  However this was just a little example of not thinking long term and being shallow with their thinking.

Why aren't people thinking long term?  I could say the reason has to be with the horribly misguided notion of happiness.  It's a problem to think when all you want to do is to have fun all the time never mind you have a task to complete.  Sometimes you need to make sacrifices in order to attain greater happiness later.  If you have obligations, one must set aside one's leisure hobbies.  Sometimes you need to sacrifice those once in a lifetime moments because you have more important things to do.  Making sacrifices to get a job done right will usually give you better results than the happy all the time mentality.

The happy all the time mentality also leads to mediocrity and spendthriftness.  It's as long as I'm happy it's all that matters.  This obsession with happiness is really nothing more than the pursuit of pleasure.  Most of the time, people are celebrating over what should not be celebrated over.  By trying to avoid pain and problems, nothing good comes out.  You can choose to avoid all the pain but when the time to pay one's dues come, one may find one's self in deeper sorrow.  On the other hand, those who made their sacrifices will have something worth to celebrate later.

It also made me think of the number of times I chose not to be spendthrift.  After I got over my spendthrift habits as a teenager (my parents never gave me more than my minimum allowance), I soon realized the joy of sacrifice.  When I decided to save up my weekly earnings and not spend it all, spending it only on what I need, I realized there was something to look forward to.  Like I was able to buy myself some PS3 games, eat at a delicious and pricy buffet and so such stuff with more satisfaction.  It's because I didn't have to use somebody else's money, instead it was my savings that made things more worthwhile.  Meanwhile others might be celebrating with cheap food or worse, pagpag because they refused to make sacrifices in between.