The year 2021 is just a week old, so allow me to share some thoughts on the past and the future, including my New Year’s resolution that always works.
So, I will start with my tried and tested New Year’s resolution, just like the past years when I always succeeded. For this year, I resolve not to make any resolution at all. Believe me, it works.
But kidding aside, 2020 was a disaster, practically for the whole world because of COVID-19. With a snap of the fingers, our whole lives suddenly changed, including the ways we traditionally spend the Christmas season.
No big family reunions, no carollers, no New Year’s countdown parties that end in giant fireworks displays all over the city. It was a big letdown, though in the end, we Filipinos still celebrated the holidays in our own little ways.
Though if there is one thing I can look back to last year and be happy about, it is the fact that I became a medium to make a big dream come true for blind paratriathletes Joshua and Jerome Nelmida.
Together with a lot of kind-hearted people, last December 24, Christmas eve, I posted a wish to find people who would be willing to part with P500 and help the twins buy a Sio Mai King franchise to help them prepare for their future.
You see, I like to help people who help themselves and I saw that these siblings have inspired people by what they have accomplished, despite their being blind at birth.
And helping them realize their wish for their own business was something I decided I should do. In just a few hours from the time I posted the wish, people simply responded and I even exceeded my P10,000 goal. Right after Christmas Day, the Nelmida family picked up the P15K in cash, plus another P1K from a Sio Mai King staff.
And now, 2020 is over and we have started a new year, which unfortunately the coronavirus does not recognize, just as it does not discriminate against gender, age, politics, religion, race, wealth, health and other social barriers.
I say this because the world will not change simply because a new year has been ushered in.
The new year will be a make or break year for a lot of businesses, and with businesses comes jobs, and with jobs, a more alive world.
More than anything else, I am a realistic person and I accept things as they are, not for what I want them to be, and the current life situation is certainly something I do not like, but I need to understand, accept and adjust.
But, too, with every new year comes new hope, and with it comes wishes, I am sure when it comes to making a wish, everyone all over the world has a common wish, that this pandemic finally ends and everything comes back to the old normal we have come to know.
And since wishing is the same as dreaming (it is free), I will express, too, the wish that the world of sports be the same once again, that I can start watching the PBA, the Philippine Superliga, the UAAP and the NCAA, live and on television, so that I can start covering my favorite sports events out of town like triathlons in Subic, and that I can do in person interviews again with sports personalities without limitations both for this space and our Sports World And Beyond vlog on YouTube.
More on the world of sports, I also wish that our Filipino athletes in the once postponed Tokyo Olympics, boxers Eumir Marcial and Irish Magno, gymnast
Carlos Yulo, and pole vaulter EJ Obiena, win a medal, gold preferably with the two boxers and Yulo I believe having more than an even chance of doing so.
Also, that they be joined by the likes of weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, golfer Yuka Saso, and skateboarder Margielyn Didal, who can all compete at that level.
Now, am I wishing for too much?
No, I am not and so please join me in prayer so that the good Lord may grant these wishes.