Running Away from Mediocrity

Time goes by as we remain spectators of the ever changing courses in our social phenomena. Things have been easier as more technologies and advancements have undeniably wrapped our consciousness. To help ourselves cope up with the pace of modernity, we see ourselves updating our fashion styles, our gadgets, our infrastructures and even our personal disposition. This is the time when one tends to look just for one’s own personal welfare while necessarily neglecting the common good. We have changed drastically enough to suffice for our personal selfish greed, for new things and consequently, we have taken the opium of modernity that might keep us in high spirits until the surges of calamities overthrow its effects. With this comes the cost that we will not be able to pay.
We have to admit that what I refer here is a crime of which all of us our culprits. As one child facing the entire United Nations assembly says, “We have no solution” to this recurring problem. We cannot just bring back everything in their normal courses. We have no solution to the depletion of the ozone layer. We have no solution to the extinction of animals. We have no solution to the current state of our forest and water reserves. Worst, not even the billion peso emergency fund of the Office of the President can be a solution to alleviate poverty and the continuous slavery of our workers just to earn wages that are not even enough to feed a family of four.
The problem persists even if several organizations have been there theorizing and acting for immediate solutions. The problem persists even if the government consistently claims that its “ten point agenda” is working. They say that all we need to do is to wait for the solutions to materialize and effect change even if nature and the masses cry that we necessarily need the solution now. They say that time will come that all things will be in their proper courses, that their theories of public betterment will work, that the occasional tree-planting activities will suffice. They say that these immediate solutions may be enough while businesses continue to recklessly utilize our natural reserves and even the labor force for their own end.
This is not just about us, making theories and acting a little bit without any commitment at all. This is not just like submitting a term paper that one honestly assumes to be a product of mediocrity and fear for the repercussions of non-conformity. The point is to use our theories to reach out and change the current state of affairs. The point is to inspire others to act.
When we analyze ourselves as students of this ever-beloved College of Human Sciences, we see students claiming to be working on behalf of the human population; those who deal with people’s problems in different perspectives so unequal with what the natural sciences assume. We study theories. We conduct researches to prove our point. We publish magazines containing articles of immediate interest. We claim to have a competent social workers’ course. We establish different organizations that are, sometimes, considering outreach projects just to say that they have complied with what is required by the school.

The point is not just to comply. The point is to effect change and put a stop to what is absolutely enslaving the human population.

Long have I wished for us to unite our forces, to be socially involved, to be of real service not just for our selves, courses, the college or the university. We need to think of something bigger than ourselves and the immediate world around us. We need to realize that around us is an entire human community crying and calling us to make things really better. It is not just about us bearing the magnificent name of the College, as Human Sciences. It is also about us, making a difference for our co-humans and our mother nature. It is about us, embodying the real principles of being ‘really’ socially involved.