Worn-Out Badge

(This blog is dedicated to my brother. Bro, now that you have stepped onto college life, I hope you will learn many things and continually grow up as a man.)

                Once in Manila, as we were going home from a camp, I saw this vendor’s stand with various badge pins. Being a collector of badges myself, one particular badge caught my attention. It is a size of a small circular compact mirror with a yellow background and black bold playful print of “Good-For-Nothing-Student”. My co-camper saw it too and we bargained on who will have the badge. I won and bought it.

                Come my last year in high school when I wore a sling bag strapped with different badges along with that “Good-For-Nothing-Student” badge, somehow the badge proved to be wrong. However, if I could turn back time, I should have not bought it.

                Sometimes, I just need to be careful of what I label myself. Even though the effects of the words did not show up during that time, I think it does now in college. It was an autopilot etched on my subconscious. As I labeled myself “Good-For-Nothing-Student”, it crept through my brain, through my veins, and through my entire system. I realized that my primary purpose when I bought that badge was to “put myself to that level and live showing the opposite”. But, I made an unnecessary enemy out of thin air.

                In high school, I admit I spent only 20% of my time studying, that was during our time to practice for a practicum, during the four periodical exams, and when I am in a class of a monster teacher when I need to focus or else I will be devoured…exaggerated. The other 80% were, well, anything under the sun.

                But college is different. A lot different. Being passive, lazy, “parbol”, not doing my assignments, not reviewing for quizzes and exams, not taking notes, not listening to teachers, just hanging out with friends and not thinking about what could happen to my future, and if I consistently and passionately do this process, surely I will be a certified “Good-For-Nothing-Student”, not a Certified Public Accountant.

                Whenever I don’t feel the pressure and the motivation to strive with my studies, I remember the lesson from the ant which says…

“You lazy fool, look at an ant.

Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two.

Nobody has to tell it what to do.

All summer it stores up food;

At harvest it stockpiles provisions.

So how long are you going to laze around doing nothing?

How long before you get out of bed?

A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there,

Sit back, take it easy--- do you know what comes next?

Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life,

Poverty your permanent houseguest!”

+Proverbs 6:6-11+

                Now I have a better idea of what badge to wear. It is something that says, “Study as if you have not prayed, and pray as if you have not studied.”