Kapag huli ka na naman sa Running

A while ago, in Running class, Sir Lem made us run from the Comm Dept to the Loyola House of Studies and back, with a special detour around the San Jose Seminary. That was three rounds of running nonstop (~30 minutes), because that was exactly what Sir Lem told us: Run and don't stop. If we wanted to rest, we weren't allowed to walk but just to jog slowly.

I had been doing well in this exercise in the past few sessions, I being the 10th in a class of 30 one time. Well, it had been okay if I judge according to my standards and if I look at my big tummy, which makes me heavy after all. This afternoon, though, I was fourth to the last -- no, at least fighting not to be third to the last, but I prevailed. The thing was, as I saw my classmates walking, taking big strides walking, I continued to run -- no, jog -- albeit in a slower pace. I just didn't want to give up.

Of course if there was an awarding exercise a while ago, I wouldn't have been invited at all. I remember, at the end of each year in the High School, they have this Recognition Day to acknowledge all the Atenean achievers of the school year. They had this award for sports and mostly the varsity players got it. My running? Judging from their standards, I know they would have thrown tomatoes at me. Pamantayan nila iyon.

My standards tell me a different thing. I remember that day in first year high school when I first heard the word "magis" (Magis is a favorite buzzword of the Jesuits, Latin for "the more"). "To be the best that you can be" -- they said that is magis. I never heard anyone define magis as getting the best grades, having this position, or earning this much money. Magis is about one's person. There is this saying, "Excellence is not an act, it is a habit." The same thing can be said about magis. To say "do the magis" is incorrect. It isn't one perfect essay, project, or whatever output. In Running class a while ago, I might not have been the first but I know I ventured beyond my limits. That for me is magis. We make mistakes, we fail, but that's part of it, of growing as a person. Like a piece of metal in the hands of a blacksmith, we have to go through the fire to be the finest, shiniest swords of all. And it is something we should always go through, that growth, though difficult, in the spirit of magis.

Magis is not an act to be done, it is a life to be lived. It is something we transform our lives with, slowly (sometimes to the point of the impossible), finely, and painstakingly, towards our meeting with the Perfect One. It's not enough to do the best. Let excellence be our lives and let us be the magis.