What
would constitute as balance and fairness in our life and in our many activities
and concerns these days?
This
is the question many people are asking. And the answer seems to be elusive. But
it's important that we just have to learn to find these ideals. Otherwise, with
the faster pace of life, every breath we take can be traumatic, every step we
make can be harmful.
We
cannot deny that our life today possesses a peculiar quality in that we are now
faced with so many things, whether they are projects, plans, problems, issues,
etc. They don't come few. They come a thousand and one!
The
other day, I saw a friend with a gadget sticking out of his ear. I thought it
was a hearing aid. He said it was a wireless Bluetooth ear phone, to help him
in his multi-tasking, even while he is driving. Frankly, I was horrified!
If
we are negligent of our duty to find balance and fairness, we can easily be swallowed
by confusion, and prone to react in a mindless way, relying mainly on instincts,
with hardly any sense of direction and the consequences of our actions.
If
we are negligent of this duty, we can delude ourselves into thinking that we are
doing many things, and yet in the end, we fail to achieve what is truly important
for us.
Family life often suffers first because of this neglect. Worse is when
one suffers loss of health, both physical and mental. Worst is when one loses
God and his faith.
I've
met a couple who forgot about their wedding anniversary just because both were
occupied with their many concerns. Cases of forgetfulness and being distracted,
many of them very amusing, are multiplying. A sign of the times?
It's
true that everyone has a certain tilt and orientation in life, a certain field
of specialization in our work and activities. Still we know, no matter how generic
we may feel about it, that we need to have a sense of an over-all goal for us.
This
is where we have to do balancing of competing interests and to consider the concrete
requirements of fairness, so that we avoid going to extremes of being too specialized
or being too general.
In
the media, for example, one has to regularly examine himself if he is too negative
in his observations and comments, ignoring the many positive developments that
will always be there.
More
and more of the media audience are complaining that a particular newspaper or
TV channel is just good at denouncing, since it hardly makes any effort to affirm
something good or to resolve a question satisfactorily. It's prone to be obsessive
and ironic.
Or
that it is too biased since it airs only one side of the issue, or is too quick
to make judgments without due investigation and research. It seems interested
only in generating and stoking controversies, trying to keep everyone tense.
Or
that it is too frivolous and sensationalistic in its entertainment section, leaning
heavily on gossips and other useless but highly sellable items. Or that it is
too commercialized, since most of its pages are just cluttered with ads.
Balance
and fairness can be a result of a continuing effort to reflect and examine oneself,
to consult and hold dialogues with interested parties. These things should be
encouraged always. The worst that can happen is when we think we can just work
on our own.
In
the end what really makes for balance and fairness is when everybody has a living
relationship with God. This will obviously provoke howls of protest especially
from those who think little of God, if at all. But this is the only way.
At
least, the concept of God, if one cannot yet accept the reality, makes one aware
of a higher authority and an objective source of rules that clarify what is to
be balanced and fair in media, as in our life and activities in general.
We
definitely have to break the mentality that states that our own selves are just
the source of what is good and bad in life, what is to be balanced and fair.
**********
Fr. Roy Cimagala
is the Chaplain of Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE) in Talamban,
Cebu City. You can email him at:Email: roycimagala@boholchronicle.com | 
