One Big Good Fight!

By:  Jerry Rimando

A couple of months back, my batch mates and I were preparing not just for graduation, but for entry to the “real world”. Many among my batch mates weren’t sure of what they were going to do after graduation, and in a more holistic approach, many were confused on what to do with their lives.

Lucky for me, I had an idea of what to do. With my discernments in my final undergraduate semester, I thought long and hard of what to follow once I graduated. Months following graduation, I took small steps to achieving the goals I wanted to achieve. Here I am with a satisfying job, while at the same time continuing the advocacies I started in college.

However, it’s difficult to pursue all these goals. More often than not, I would ask myself if all these things I’m doing is actually the right thing for me to do. Jealousy would invade my mind every so often, especially when I see someone having a relatively more financially-rewarded life. Are all my current endeavors actually worth the blood and sweat?

Everyone has what St. Paul coins as the “good fight”. It is that ultimate struggle with the self to succeed in doing what one’s heart genuinely cries out. This is the one fight that is truly owned by the person, where winning doesn’t mean someone in the process loses. This is that kind of challenge where we know we are doing what we need to do to achieve our purpose in life.

Fighting the “good fight” is never easy. If it was, then the world may have been a simpler place to live with, devoid of poverty and suffering. The fight was, is, and will never be easy. That is why so many of us give up when we think what we’re doing is a lost cause, when we don’t see instant success in our struggles.

That is the point of fighting the “good fight”: we’re not expected to see our success. If we do, then we’re lucky to have seen it. However, if we fight the “good fight” unselfishly, and fight alongside Christ, then the struggle is achievable. If we just go on with our struggles, in due time, we will realize the fight is worth it, and anything is possible.

That’s why whenever I ask myself if my endeavors are all worth it, I have a simple answer to myself. Yes.