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First of 2 parts Everything was still at the newly renovated penthouse office of Prix Healthcare Inc. The 25 workstations clustered in the center of the entire floor for everyone at the office was left empty. Several desk drawers and file cabinets sat half-open. Rows of lifeless black monitors jutted out from low glass panels meant as desk dividers to make the space look big. A handful of laptop displays went on screensaver mode showing the Prix logo. This time, the corporate video was not playing on the 98-inch curved 8k TV at the lobby. An uninterrupted beeping sound from a headset left unhooked from its cradle filled the room.

Picture for a moment a Philippines without SM, Metrobank, the Aboitiz Group, and DMCI. Creating such a picture will probably take a lot more time and effort, because it is simply unimaginable to think of a Philippines without these powerful brands. You might even be thinking how crazy I am to conceive such an absurd idea. This thought springs from the passing of the people behind these brands in recent years.

A few days back, while I was having lunch with my four-year old daughter, I asked her if she wants to study at the University of the Philippines, where her mother and I studied. Instead of answering my question, she told me that, when she grows up, she wants to work at her mom’s office. “Not in my office?”, I queried her, not because I wanted her to follow in my footsteps, but because I was curious about how she would reason out. She resoundingly shook her head, while telling me that I have too many “homework,” which I suppose she is not a fan of. “What about mom’s work?”, I continued to ask her. She replied that her mom doesn’t have homework, and “all she does are attend meetings (telephone conferences) and text her officemates.”

“Would you rather eat a chocolate-flavored poop or a poop-flavored chocolate?” That’s my nine-year old’s favorite “Would you rather” question. “Would you rather” is a game we often play to pass time. It is a game my wife and I introduced to our kids to generate conversations and laughter. It was interesting for us as adults to hear how our kids, at their very young age, make choices and reason out. Oftentimes, the choices are between bad and worse or between something good and better, depending on a person’s biases and perspective. A year ago, at the latest, my second daughter would simply copy the choice made by her older sister but, as the younger one gained more experience, she is starting to make her own choices and her reasoning begins to become more complex.

Another new year, another set of goals and resolutions reflected upon and listed. Some resolutions are new but, if you are like me, most of this year’s resolutions are recycled from previous years, because they were not achieved. For many of us, our resolutions and goals are tied to what we mostly do during our waking hours — work. In an earlier article I wrote, I intimated my disbelief that one should love one’s work; that it cannot be true, because it is not true for everyone; that there are certain activities that would be almost impossible to love, like cleaning a poso negro. A noble job, yes; something that can help one provide for the family, but I find it hard to accept that one can love doing such a task.

After all the firecrackers have been lit, after all the food have been eaten, and once all the noises have dissipated, we remember that we now have to turn the pages of our calendars or replace them with new ones. We face another new year filled with unknown challenges and surprises. There is also the realization that, while the year is definitely new, we, on the other hand, have gotten older and fallen prey to the unstoppable hands of time once again. Isn’t it ironic that one of the most accepted symbols of the new year is an infant in a top hat, sash, and diaper? The Baby New Year is an avatar of optimism as the clock ticks down to midnight on December 31. The infant symbolizes on top of everything associated with it humanity’s desire to forever hang on to youthfulness. The reality of it, however, is that every new year we grow older; we age.

On December 25, Christmas Day: Filipino families will gather in their homes to share sumptuous food and exchange gifts under the bright and colorful lights of Christmas lanterns.

I just finished reading the book The Wealth of Humans: Work, Power, and Status in the 21st Century by American journalist Ryan Avent. It took me 10 months to finish the book. My son who gave me the book as a Christmas gift in 2017 was shocked to find out around the third week of October that I have not finished reading the book yet. The excuse I gave him was that the book was quite heavy. Avent admitted in the epilogue that his book is rather gloomy at parts. The Wealth of Humans will probably go down my personal history as the book that took me longest to finish reading.