Personal Mission Statement

Life is like a kaleidoscope where the beads and pebbles are us people and every turn in this tube of mirrors corresponds to a change in the total visual outcome. One element affects how the whole thing is perceived, similar in every angle no matter how you look at it. We are all connected that the result of whatever we do to ourselves can be reflected in our society through time. As members of this interrelated community, I am responsible for whatever happens to it.


I never liked the idea of defining who I am at this point in my life because it encloses me into a dehumanizing box that limits me from doing more than what I can actually do. If I say that I am an Atenean, I chain myself into this connotation that I am academically competitive, and I am a God-fearing person whose higher purpose is to better the world by serving others. Stating that I am a student now may limit me from being an artist, a writer or an entrepreneur in my own way. But is it possible for someone with undiscovered identity to efficiently contribute to the progress of his community or nation? Together with our birth is the social responsibility that we are tasked to fulfill. Life is a journey for us to discover a niche where we can exercise this responsibility. Once we are able to realize where our passion lies through the proper utilization of our personal resources and enough time, only then can we define ourselves.


I am very passionate in living life to the fullest. I want to gain the innovative minds of the Chinese and the ancient discipline of the Japanese. I want to experience life along the Nile River and hunt for food in the Amazon Basin. Can I choose Plato to be my philosophy teacher, Isaac Newton for science and Pythagoras for math? And if I could ask more, I want to harness the wisdom that brought greatness to the Romans and grandeur to the Greeks. My willingness to learn new things and to stretch my capacity brought me to a lot of places that I thought I would never achieve when I was younger. There are more intelligent people in my batch, but I was one of the people who was privileged enough to study in holistically the best school in the Philippines. It made me realize that as long as there’s passion and hard work in what you are doing, anything is possible.

I want to be the brightest bead or pebble in the kaleidoscope of life, or at least in my society, so as to serve light to others. I have been inspired by great people and cultures in the past. I know my niche. My social responsibility is to motivate people may it be in field of business, literature or any fields in between. I want to encourage them, teach them about metacognition – that there is something beyond what they’re doing. And probably that is how we can get more out of life, to see what really matters in the end. Businessmen spend more than half of their life in the corporate world without realizing a purpose beyond themselves and their company. I want to be the guy who will bring them to a better light.

*written during sophomore year in college