Life is a series of choices. While I may not have had a choice in being born, everything else after my birth has been a matter of choice. Even when I do nothing, that is still a choice. There may have been choices I have been forced into. Still it was my choice to be coerced. There were choices I made without any serious thought. Still they were choices as I could have done otherwise. Some choices are trivial. Some are life changing. Some choices I tend to make spontaneously. Others I tend to make due to my past conditioning. Still others I mull over for a while and take time in deciding.
One of the most important choices I have had to make is whether to live life for myself or for others. There were times of weakness and selfishness when I looked out for Number One. I may have been conditioned by my past, the environment I have been in and the people around me; but my basic option has always been love and service for others. I have tried to live that basic option with a preferential bias for the poor. I have not always succeeded.
I am thankful for my choice to spend my life in teaching. I am inspired and humbled by the many lives I have touched in the classroom, both in the classroom of a school and the classroom of life. I have learned that education is a right of all human beings and not a privilege of a few. I must have done something good. I am thankful that I have pursued careers involved in health and healthcare. I am more appreciative of life and awed by the inherent healing power of the human body. In the processes of health, I see the awesomeness of God to have designed such an organism as a human person. I have learned that health is a right of all human beings and not a privilege of only those who can pay. I must have contributed to save some lives and make them better. I am thankful of my social involvement in service and care for others. I have been involved in some worthy causes that will survive long after I am gone. I have learned that no man is an island that we need one another. I must have helped in bringing about some meaningful social changes.
For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.
When Jesus had washed the disciples’ feet, he said to them:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master
nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.
If you understand this, blessed are you if you do it.”
John 13:16-17