The Pilgrims, Asungots, and Angels

Last week, my co-workers and I, together with our bosses had a Year-End Operations Review. It was my first time to join it. It was okay. The first day was nice. The second day was a bore. I know, I know, the second day was suppose to be the meat of the whole event but what can I say, I just don't like sitting in a room with people reading reporting.

So the first day was a bit fun. Among the games he (a consultant from PAHRODF) introduced, I found the ones with pilgrims, asungot (nuisance), and angels enjoyable the most. It struck me in a way that this is what our lives are in summary. And I began to think how these simple things can be viewed as some symbolism that could help us somehow understand what's happening in us. 

Commencing the activity, we were divided into three groups; we also took turns in being the pilgrims, the asungot, and the angels. The goal of the pilgrims was to travel in a certain path blindfolded while the asungots will try to stray them away from their destination and the angels guiding them to the right path. As I was able to be an asungot in the first round, I realized how easy it is to be such. I do not know why but I guess, I do not necessarily feel responsible for the pilgrims. Guess the evil in my just shows (laughs). XD

On the second round, my boss was able to strategize what we need to do to reach our destination unscathed. We were able to but I think our front man did a little bit of tweaking with his blindfold - my officemate told me so. It was sad cause I was really wanted to reach the finish line with all the journey's glory. Oh well, it happens. During the course of the travel, I was really feeling everything. I felt like I was traveling for my life. Yeah, that's a whole lot of drama.

The third round, we were able to play the role of the angels. Thank God, I'm not as evil as I thought my role would be for the rest of the activity. We didn't really do much since most of the participants knew where to go. They saw the first group struggle, the second one (that's us) somehow cheated was a little bit too eager to win, and then there's them. The path was not really that uh, challenging and they were able to anticipate were to go so I guess it's easy for the third group to reach the place of glory.

By the end of the activity, we were all laughing hard. It was fun especially when the first one almost went outside the hall. Okay, maybe because I opened the door but we were the asungots. I mean, what do you expect? But it was done in a harmless way. I'm not going to lead them in the swimming area or something...bad, ya'know. :P

Ending the activity, our consultant - shout out to Mr. Alwin D. Macalalad - asked us of some realizations (Translation: the part where most of the people ask us in real lives where we screwed up and why). We all have our realizations. Each of us are in some sort of journey or a pilgrimage. Others call it life. While some would relate that pilgrimage as their careers. Yet, there's also others who view this journey as a passing one.

In all kinds of journey, there will be situations which will act as the nuisance in our lives. But apart from that, there will also be people or situations that will help us to reach our destination. It's up to us to trust those who and what we'll trust. BUT we must also remember that trusting blindly is not the way things should be. Apart from that, my boss mentioned that we easily finished the challenge because we were able to create a strategy, learned the downside of how the first group handled the activity and manage to formulate a way to reach the end safely. True enough, even in our lives, we do not need to experience all the mistakes in the world just so we can say that we learned something from them. As I always say, experiences of others are there for us to see what are the downsides of all situations. Lessons learned will act as our guiding factor in all the decisions we will going to make. Like history, we can have a grasp of what went wrong to the Ninth Troop who marched to Caledonia which lead to their massacre. Although that would account to different truths, you get my point. :P

In every journey, as pilgrims, we are always faced with an angel and a nuisance. It will be difficult to identify who really tells the truth and who doesn't in times like these - which will lead me to my other realization: Our destination will just be that without the "how" of the journey. As cliche as it may sound, it's the journey. The ups and downs, the times when we almost gave up, or the time when we got lost along the way, the people we met, the foes who tried to put us down - or simply the haters, the free-riders, and a whole lot of characters we would never thought we'd meet.

Okay, that's a WHOLE LOT of reflection going on. My brain cells are a little bit dried up. :)