CHARACTER, KINDNESS, AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE
by Mr Don Alexander C. Lim (XS ’99)
Fr. Joseph Haw of the Society of Jesus, School President, Mrs. Ma. Theresa Ladrido, High School Principal, Mr. Paolo Suapengco, Assistant Principal for Junior High School, Ms. Maricel Ngo, Assistant Principal for Senior High School, Mrs. Andrea dela Cerna, Assistant Principal for Formation, Parents, Special Guests, and to everyone receiving Honors this morning, Congratulations!
Your greatest achievement is not the honors you will receive today, but how your character was further molded through your painstaking effort, sacrifices, and maybe for some of you, even the suffering you went through. Trust me – Character is never made better with anything that comes easy. It is never without hardship, difficulty, challenges, pain, and suffering. I’m sorry to say but it is really the only way. Unfortunately, you also cannot simply teach character. To incessantly build upon one’s character every day with how you choose to live your life, with every decision, is of paramount importance, much more than academics.
I have only 3 very personal things I wanted to share with you today. They are about how pain and suffering helped mold my own character, of extraordinary kindness, and of making a difference.
I was born with a progressive spinal cord disease and continue to live today with 24/7 intense pain literally every second, with even the strongest prescription painkillers now having absolutely zero effect. I take anywhere between 5-10 melatonins to help me sleep, and even then, I would average only 3 hours of sleep each day. The doctors in the US correctly predicted that my spinal cord will simply keep on worsening, and likewise with the astronomical pain which has taken a life of its own. Because of this limitation and more so the uncertainty – I knew very early on I had to live my life as if each second were the last.
I also have one of the lowest IQs and have had to rely on just my intuition and good judgment all my life. I can’t even remember my car’s plate number even after more than 5 years. I struggle to figure out even the most basic things such as Google Sheets and Canvas, so I kindly ask my students to just e-mail me their assignments. I used to literally cry each time with subjects in school that needed a lot of memorizations. Despite this limitation – I wanted to live my life by the Xavierian ideal of Magis.
When one of my older brothers graduated college from Ateneo – only 1 course got a standing ovation when it was their turn to be called on stage to receive their diplomas. That course was BMH and at that time had the lowest survival rate where only an average of 6 make it to graduation. And so, it was the first choice I put on my Ateneo entrance application. Fear immediately set in during the first few days of college. I have never been in a room with so many geniuses with very high IQs who did not even need to take down notes in class, not even for Calculus. I asked my seatmate, “Pare, bakit di ka nagnonotes”, to which he told me with humility, “pare, I have never taken down notes my entire life”. In my 2nd year, after getting an F in a major departmental exam, I was told by one of the Department Chairs, Dr. Ibarra to already shift out of the course as I had no chance to make it beyond 2nd year – in short, I was going to get kicked out. From that moment on, I studied as if my life depended on it. To cut the very long story short – From having one of the lowest QPIs during my first 2 years in college and after being told I needed to shift out, I graduated at the top of our class in BMH and was chosen as the departmental awardee for Management. I realized there are plenty of intelligent people in the world, but intelligence alone won’t get you very far, it’s the person who is driven and hungry, who never gives up no matter what and gets the job done to the very end, even with a fraction of the intelligence, who will always be better.
Going through experiences of increasingly higher degree of difficulties each time has a way of suddenly making what would have been very difficult all of a sudden become very easy. I did not choose BMH for the academic learning, not for the credentials, not the prestige, and definitely not for the standing ovation. I chose BMH solely for the Formation. True enough – I quickly forgot all the academic learning, while the credentials never helped my career. It made my character better and stronger however and greatly prepared me for all the challenges and difficulties to come.
During my time as a student in Xavier, I was the least well to do in my barkada. We were not poor, but I could never afford the restaurants my barkada would frequent. 100% of the time, I would go to the nearest Jollibee and bring my food to the restaurants my barkada were eating at – it was either a Yum Burger, Jolly Spaghetti, Chickenjoy, or a Jolly Hotdog. 30 years after, they would tell me “Don, gusto ka naman naming ilibre noon, but ayaw mo magpalibre, ngayon you’re with the founder of Jollibee”. I remember however that each time our basketball varsity team won a game in the Tiong Lian tournament, we would head straight to dinner c/o of the alumni – it would either be Kimpura or Sun Moon Garden. During those times, I ate the restaurant’s actual food. When we lost the game however, we went straight back to Xavier, no dinner. At a very young age, I wanted to impose self-discipline of not wanting nor accepting anything I did not work for or earn – that for me was part of building character.
Second is on experiencing kindness – Amid all the extraordinary pain and challenges – I was blessed with an abundance of people throughout each stage of my life for whom I will forever be grateful, including here in Xavier – all of them made me experience genuine Cura Personalis, beyond being mere words or a concept. From Mr. Mutuc, who was Grade School ODS – I would look for him almost every day because I embarrassingly did not know how to tie my shoelaces even when I was already in Grade 2 – he would literally kneel down to patiently tie my shoes with utmost kindness each time even if I went to him so frequently. To all my class advisers who 100% trusted, supported, fought for and made me feel they were genuinely so proud of me as their class president – Mr. Alvarez, Ms. Salaya, and Mrs. Bermejo just to name a few. To Dr. Joseph Ng and Mr. Peter Huang who were the Student Council moderators at that time, they gave me all the opportunities to be the head of as many Student Council Projects as possible – you have no idea how much those helped me. Each of them during my time in Xavier gave me confidence when I had none. They showed me patience and compassion and gave me the time and opportunities I needed to grow. They were all inexplicably special, and no words can ever do justice to how you changed the course of my life. Just like my parents – they never taught and raised me through force and fear, but simply and only through positive unconditional kindness. Please never forget your own Mr. Mutucs during your time in Xavier.
For those of you who will go to Ateneo for College – I hope you get the privilege of being able to enlist under Fr. Dacanay of the Society of Jesus for your required Theology of Marriage and Sexuality class. He is known for being very strict, but he was one of the greatest teachers I ever had. During one of my lowest points, I would fall asleep in his class. Yet instead of calling me out in front of everyone, he unexpectedly showed genuine concern and instead asked me after class if I was okay. To cut the long story short – I ended up having a very good relationship with him, and to this day, he has been the rare few who would constantly ask me about my worsening spinal cord with genuine concern, he was also there when we couldn’t have kids and now ask about how they are constantly. He ended up as my ninong and baptized as well as is ninong to my children. I try my best to regularly visit him before my evening class in Ateneo just to see how he is doing and to share stories. At one point however, I stopped since it perpetually breaks my heart to see him now that he has lost his sense of sight, and yet he is STILL teaching. First semester in Ateneo incidentally begins tomorrow, and I’m excited to see him again very soon. He was one of the ways of how I experienced Cura Personalis in Ateneo and he himself likewise personifies Magis to still be teaching despite his circumstances.
The greatest challenge of my life was not being able to have a child with no scientific explanation. It however ended up as the greatest kindness I ever experienced. My son Cappi was born after 7 years and is now in grade 5 right here in Xavier. It was the happiest day of my life. We then lost 3 children despite having very strong heartbeats in succession, once again with no scientific explanation. We spent millions of our life savings and did treatments even against the doctor’s advice for our 5th child. To cut the long story short, our 5th child Caitlyn miraculously survived. It was once again the happiest day of my life. As Khalil Gibran says in the book “The Prophet” – “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain”.
Cappi and Caitlyn are my living proofs of God’s extraordinary kindness. Cappi and Caitlyn make my 24/7 out of this world physically painful life worth living – in fact, they already are worth more than my lifetime of pain. With their unbelievable purest hearts – they themselves even at a very young age show me extraordinary kindness that is expected from a parent to a child, not the other way around.
The last is of making a difference. It has inexplicably been my life’s honor to have been by Tony Tan Caktiong’s side whose unearthly kindness, absolute trust, and confidence I continue to humbly feel I don’t deserve, and who I objectively believe is the best entrepreneur to have come out of the Philippines. And even if the experience of turning Jollibee Foods Corporation into the first truly global successful Filipino company, from which our Nation can be proud of and greatly benefit from has been nothing short of monumental – I tell my children that when people ask what your daddy does, tell them your daddy is a teacher.
Being a teacher was purely intended to be my form of service and giving back when I was invited to teach right after graduation. I did not realize it ended up being much more – in fact massively more. I increasingly appreciated how it placed me in as perfect a position as ever to directly impact the lives of students about to graduate college and head into the real world.
Since I travel out of the country very frequently for work – To be able to teach, I take the midnight and early morning flights straight to the airport from my evening classes in Ateneo and fly back to be able to make it to my next class. And of course, driving to and from Ateneo in Katipunan and BGC which takes 3 hours has become a test of sanity with my spinal cord, that I in fact already decided many times to give up teaching the past few years.
When I continue to receive countless unsolicited messages from students after each semester however such as and I quote, “Sir, I learned more in your class than all of my classes in Ateneo combined”, “Having you sir as my professor in even just one class changed my whole life”, “I just want you to know sir I even set alarms for class registration to make sure I was able to secure a slot in your class because everyone wanted you as their 1st choice, it turned out to be the best decision of my life” – How can I ever stop teaching without the massive guilt knowing I can make a difference in people’s lives. Ironically, some of the students who I gave the lowest grades to, would come back for many semesters, some even for years after and request to still sit in my classes. With my life’s circumstances, my service to continue teaching is no joke – but it is by far the most meaningful.
When I was a student in Xavier like you, I wanted to be 3 things when I grew up – A Jesuit, A CIA Agent, or a Teacher. If I did not have any financial needs, I would be a full-time teacher.
To end, with every opportunity the privilege of a Jesuit education you have been blessed with, you have no reason to ever not be able to achieve your dreams. Embrace and welcome the most difficult challenges. No excuses whatsoever, just get it done, even the seemingly impossible against all odds. Never forget your Mr. Mutucs and Fr. Dacanays and I ask that you also go out and also make a difference in the service of others. Finally, I’d like to tell all of you what I tell my students during the last class of the semester – I wish that all of you become more successful than I ever was and that it only takes 1 person to believe in you even if everyone else, even the whole world doesn’t. I believe in you.
Thank you all. Luceat Lux!
