by Leader Pedro Leonard Castañeda
Normally, being assigned to write a reflection paper is a source of joy for me. Writing has always been one of my biggest forms of release, and over time, I have learned to be proficient in elucidating my thoughts in a relatively coherent manner. However, this one, which should have been the easiest, since it is all about myself, has become one of the hardest to start.
They say that a person is made up of the sum of all his experiences, both good and bad, including how he acts and reacts at certain junctures in his life. Having lived for four decades, there are several times that stand out in my life's journey, some as low points and some as high points. Some say it is not the experiences that make a man, but how a man acts at that moment in time. At the same time, however, the experience itself, combined with realizations or self-justifications that inevitably follow one's reflection of past actions, can and does shape how one thinks and acts when presented with similar circumstances.
Sometimes, it isn't a moment, but a person. Or perhaps it is a series of moments with significant persons.
Much of what I am right now is somehow related to my father, and indeed, he serves as a point of reference in many significant moments I've had in the past, but first, a little background:
I was born out of wedlock. My father was a married man, 15 years older than my mom, and an executive in a multinational oil company. Six months after I was born, I was whisked off to my maternal grandmother's family in Mindanao, where I stayed until I finished grade school. My grandparents kept me in the dark about my real family situation, only telling me that my father was often assigned overseas. I had old letters and pictures, and he sent regular financial support for me. It was only in my fifth or sixth grade when I learned that I was an illegitimate child.
I transferred to Manila in high school, having been the only child in my province to pass the two entrance exams of Philippine Science High School, and soon after arriving, I asked my mother if she could arrange for me to meet my dad. She consented, and we met over dinner in Hyatt Hotel in Roxas boulevard. I felt with mixed emotions: resentment at being practically abandoned and disowned, and excitement about meeting my dad. After dinner and small talk, my mother picked me up. I remember my dad asking to talk about my future, only to be cut off by a brief, "there's nothing to talk about, Pete" from my mom.
Had anyone asked me, there would have been a lot to talk about, but nobody bothered to ask the opinion of a 12-year old boy. I guess that's when I started feeling resentful towards my mother, a feeling that I still have until this day. Looking back at it as I write this, I am mindful of the fact that she put her pride first over my own welfare. We had very little means: she had a part-time job and was living in a rented room. I would say that this was a "defining moment for me," because the lesson that stuck was that of pragmatism: always consider the practical component of your decision.
Sometimes, it is better to swallow your pride in order for you to gain benefit. Maybe I learned the lesson in the wrong way, because in many instances, it has allowed me to see value in compromising principle for material gain. Processing it now, maybe what I should have learned is to stand on your principles - but also make sure that you deliver what you promised.
Before entering college, I made sure that I would meet my father again, and this time, asked him to support me financially, to which he consented. He had just taken an early retirement from his previous company, so he said while there wasn't much, he would still help me.
Because of his family, our relationship was pretty awkward. To get my allowance, I would call his home to arrange for us to meet, and never use my real name. Over the phone, I was "Alan," a younger friend who played chess with him. His wife knew about me, and knew it was me, but we kept that charade for the sake of my half-sisters. There was even a time in Makati when we met a family friend of theirs, and he introduced me as his nephew. I hated him for that, but because I needed his money, I just kept much of this to myself. Truth be told, I liked those few hours when I was with him: riding his car, listening to his stories about his trips abroad were interesting and exciting to me, and made me forget the drab apartment where I eventually had to go home to. I still remember that one time when he drove me all the way to UP, and some of my friends saw me get off the car. I just smiled and told them it was my dad who took me there.
This whole stretch of time was a complicated slew of experiences to me: I wasn't dumb, but my issues in life affected my studies, and my insecurities about not having a "real" family led me to seek for it through friends and a fraternity. I generally underperformed, telling myself how "deprived" I was of what I should have been entitled to.
There was one more incident in college that profoundly influenced me. Our fraternity was in a fight with another group, and I was in a dormitory with 4 other fraternity brothers when our opponents came for us. There were at least 25 of them, in 5-6 vehicles. 3 of my companions were outside the dorm, while 2 of us were inside. I panicked and hid myself in a locker while my 3 brothers engaged our opponents. They could have slipped off in the dark, but they decided to stand their ground. I eventually confessed to our team leader and was disciplined by the fraternity, which dropped me from the rolls. For a few months, I was a "barbarian," shunned by my own. This changed when we got into another fight and one of my batchmates was killed while they were having lunch. When I visited the wake, my fraternity reinstated me in front of his coffin. These two incidents "taught" me that I should never back down even in the face of insurmountable odds. True enough, the other fights I got in taught me that I could use rage (I was a very angry person back then) to silence my fears and make me deaf to the beating of my heart. The lesson here for me, at that time, was to never back down from a fight. Better a death with valor than life with cowardice.
Funny how, looking back, this lesson is the exact opposite to the lesson of pragmatism that I learned earlier. Time, however, has taught me the value of prudence and circumspection, and how diplomacy is not necessarily a manifestation of cowardice.
Later on, when I had started working, I told my dad that I no longer required an allowance, but I would like to meet him every now and then. That's when we started becoming friends. Unfortunately, it would not last, because soon after that, he stopped communicating altogether. I thought he was vacationing abroad with my half-siblings, but after about 6 months of silence, I gathered the nerve to call his house. His wife answered and told me that he died last June (it was November). They published an obituary and tried to find me, but they didn't know where I was. Of course, that's half-true. While she didn't consent to meet me, she at least told me where he was buried. I went there with my girlfriend but there was no closure: only anger and bitterness. I was angry and bitter towards him for leaving me just when I was starting to feel love for him, and angry with God for taking him from me too soon.
Later on, I went back to college (I was expelled by UP after I was caught carrying a deadly weapon in a fight) and in 2003, while in Iligan, where I took up and finished a degree in Sociology, I met a childhood friend, and renewed our friendship. She became my girlfriend, and, in January 2004, she became my wife.
In April 2004, we moved to Manila and stayed there for a while, looking for employment, to no avail. My wife was eventually forced to go back to her job in Iligan. I stayed in Manila, still looking for a job, virtually penniless save for some cash from my mom and from some well-meaning fraternity brothers. I also attended a Bible study (out of sheer curiosity) begun by some of my alumni fraternity brothers and I was quite surprised at the changes I saw in their lives.
At this time, I was also jobless and far from my wife. I was miserable and penniless, and in despair, I cried out to God. This was the beginning of my "homecoming". I started to pray again and read my Bible. I slowly, and a bit inconsistently, started going to church again, which was a surprise to many of my college friends, since I was an angry agnostic before.
I eventually got a job offer in Cebu and have been here since 2004, rising slowly through the ranks to eventually head one of our branches. Marriage, and a restored relationship with God, have slowly healed some of the anger and bitterness in my heart, and leading a family, and having children, have taught me other lessons, reversing the two harsh "lessons" I have imbibed in the past. This was my third lesson, and one the most enduring ones: courage includes being willing to accept when you're wrong, and that we stand strongest when we are on our knees.
Having people under my care, both in my family and my workplace, has also taught me to slowly develop compassion for others, and realize that my experiences are far from unique. Other people have gone through similar or worse experiences, and some have been destroyed by them but others have triumphed, and ended up better persons. I have sought to learn from others, both from people I know and from the books I read. To this end, even my decision to take further studies are part of my desire to be deliberate in learning how to develop myself. Even my choice of graduate school shows how far the shadow of my father reaches in my soul: he was also a product of AGSB (batch '79).
1. WHAT ARE MY NEW LEARNINGS?
There are other defining moments, other lessons, that have made much impact in my life, but to delve into them is would take up another 50 or so pages, so I will end here. What I am now has been undeniably influenced by my past triumphs and failures, but I have since then learned a fourth lesson: that our past does not ultimately define who we are. We are able to deliberately learn in the present and aim to be better in the future. We can learn from our mistakes, and we can learn to forgive others who have wronged us, as well as forgive ourselves for opportunities lost and irrevocable mistakes committed.
What is important is that we continue to move forward. As the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. put it:
We are all leaders from where we are right now, because leadership is influence, as John Maxwell puts it. We can influence a thousand, a hundred, a handful, or even ourselves. And because we are all leaders, we can, by choice and action, as well as by inaction, be good, great or bad leaders.
In our first exercise, we debated on whether leaders are born, made or brought about by circumstance and situation. Reflecting on this, I have come to believe in all three:
· First, they are born, because no one comes into this world apart from being born. There is that seed that awaits nurture or corruption.
· And then they are made, as mentors, experiences, and learning mold and shape them to become great leaders.
· Finally, the moment of truth, the situation comes, and they take that step forward, and rise to influence the rest.
"Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, as well as determination not to accept failure." - Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
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2. WHAT IS THE RELATION TO WHAT I ALREADY KNOW?
I wish there were more positive stories in this long narrative, the way some stories of consistent achievers would be written, but what has happened has happened. What remains unwritten, the future, is a blank slate where one can draw a masterpiece or graffiti. That, I believe, is where all we have learned so far about leadership can come into play: we can take the lessons to heart and grow to be better than what we were. Not only that, but we can, by sharing and teaching others. also enable them to learn from both our mistakes and our successes, and inspire them to reach loftier heights than what we ourselves have achieved. We do not have to be shackled to the shadows of past failures: the prison of the past is but an illusion. Push the cell door and you will see that it is unlocked.
Many times I would imagine how it would be to travel through time. What lessons would the older me teach the younger me? What things would I do or undo? This stuff has been a staple sub-genre in fantasy and fiction because we have all made mistakes in our past, or have become victims of other people's mistakes. Some, in a less imaginative way, wallow in self-pity over decisions that cannot be undone. I admit that I too have my own share of wallowing. What if I was diligent in school? What if my first plan, to become a CPA-lawyer, had become real? What if I was not expelled?
So many what-ifs, and so many regrets. Some of these things we can, in a way, reverse or undo, or at least mitigate. But for others, we simply have to live with the consequences of our irrevocable past choices. There are second chances for some. There are none for others. When we can start to make peace with them and with ourselves, we can finally move forward: running, walking or crawling, as Martin Luther King exhorts us.
I have also learned a new definition of failure: failure is quitting. Failure is giving up. Keep on moving forward, and success is inevitable. Stop, and you will stagnate.
3. WHAT HAVE I DONE, AM DOING, AND WILL BE DOING FOR THIS TOPIC?
I have chosen to live. That is the first step. I have chosen not to be tied down by my past mistakes, and have chosen to exert all my efforts to give my children a better starting point, a better chance, and yes, a better father, than what I ever had.
One of these efforts include the sacrifice of time, attention and money that goes into my MBA. It is a significant sacrifice, since it does not come cheaply, and we have no company scholarship. Nonetheless, having finished several subjects and nearing the finish line, I can say that from what I have learned alone, it is already worth it. And this learning is not simply academic knowledge, but learning from the experiences of classmates and colleagues, and the sharing not only of best practices but of lives.
Being a voracious reader, I know that learning will not end after getting that diploma. Rather, it is simply the start of another journey in learning, self-awareness, self-development, and ultimately, of service to God and to my fellowmen. I may not end my journey with all the clutter that this world calls as marks of achievement, but I know that having chosen to live my life purposefully, it would not have been in vain.
As time continues its relentless march, taking you and I with it, I know there will be more mistakes to make and learn from, as well as triumphs to enjoy, but I have also come to realize that all our successes are ultimately meaningless apart from meaning that endures forever. Material success is elusive and fleeting: Alexander's empire is in ashes. Rome is no more. Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich is but a displeasing memory.
And what meaning and purpose endures forever? It is the one that can only come from God, and from knowing His Son Jesus Christ. He is the model of true servant leadership: of a King who washes the feet of the unworthy, and who gives Himself up in death so that others may live.
It is only when we do things for His glory, and depend on Him for strength and ability, that what we do becomes meaningful and significant. I end with this admonition:
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16.
Soli Deo Gloria!
