By Alex P. Vidal
“Money cannot buy peace of mind. It cannot heal ruptured relationships, or build meaning into a life that has none.”—Richard M. Devos
THERE are public officials who don’t deserve to be in their elected or even appointed positions.
They happen to hold their positions in government not because of their intelligence, competence, gift or talent as public servants, but because of guns, goons, and gold.
There are cities, provinces, districts in the country that are deprived of quality public officials and public service because of the presence of warlords, drug lords, gambling lords, lunatics, mad men who have acquired private armies and ill-gotten wealth.
Either these warlords, drug lords, gambling lords, lunatics, and mad men are the ones holding key elected government positions like congressmen, mayors, and governors, or they finance the election of the public officials and, thus, they get what they want since these public officials who got elected because of the money of these bad elements have been reduced into chihuahuas. In other words, useless public officials.
But we know a lot of public officials who are not only mad men and lunatics but also warlords, gambling lords, drug lords. A double jeopardy on the part of the taxpayers.
One of them, a mad man, will soon get his comeuppance for thinking he is the emperor in his province and district.
His election in the House of Representatives and subsequent reelection were the biggest disgrace in public service.
The mad man won because of terrorism (he terrorized his more-deserving political rivals; one of them got killed for being “more popular” in pre-election surveys).
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The mad man was reelected even after his son was involved in a gun-toting incident involving a subdivision security guard who was merely doing his job.
The bad publicity the mad man father and abusive son (and their entire family for that matter) got didn’t matter. People in their province and district were so scared of them, especially his political rivals, thus he was reelected despite his notoriety.
The mad man doesn’t deserve to be in congress, much less in any higher position. He easily gets drunk with being in power. He is not a role model for the young.
Aside from his idiotic mannerism and violent tantrums, the mad man maintains a social media he uses to parade his vexatious stunts that are all kenkoy and trash. It’s grossly unfair for the House of Representatives to have this kind of malevolent member.
The mad man thinks with his money and power he is the lord of the rings. He terrorizes and murders people, including his political rivals.
Now that President Bongbong Marcos Jr. has ordered to totally clip his wings, the mad man’s goose is cooked.
Even Lucifer can’t rescue him now.
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When he was a young man, Dr. Joshua Liebman, author of a great inspirational bestseller, Peace of Mind, made a list of things he would like to have.
The list was long and included such things as health, love, talent, power, wealth, and fame.
He showed the list around, asking others for their opinion. A wise, old friend of the young man’s family looked the list over and said, Joshua this is an excellent list.
It is set down in a reasonable order. But it appears, my young man, that you have omitted the most important element of all.
You have forgotten one ingredient, lacking which, each possession becomes a hideous torment, and your list as a whole an intolerable burden.
And what is that missing ingredient? Joshua asked. The wise, old friend replied by taking a pencil and crossed out Joshua’s entire list. Then he wrote down three words: Peace of Mind.
That young man, Joshua Liebman, later became the author of the inspiring book which has sold millions of copies.
Peace of Mind answers a vital need. It correlates discoveries in the science of psychology with the eternal verities which have been handed down by generations of prophets and great religious leaders. Dr. Liebman explores the many facets of human emotions and reveals how, in the inward quest for peace of mind, the penetrating visions of psychology are an indispensable ally.
In his “word to the reader”, Dr. Liebman wrote: “Many men far wiser than I are at work today planning social and economic change. For their creative labors, every thinking person must be grateful. We must join with them in the struggle to obtain a common victory for economic, industrial, and political democracy through the world. At the same time it should be recognized that the healthier society must be built by healthier human beings!
“The average person is at moments consumed with feelings of guilt about his relations to those closest to him; he wants to love people but feels withdrawn, rigid, and somehow frozen. At other moments he grows afraid without knowing exactly why he is afraid; he is particularly confused and unhappy when he faces the loss of a loved one or confronts the thought of his own death.
“Many religious books only conspire to make him feel more guilty and more sinful while many psychological books, although trying to reassure him, merely add to his inner confusion by making him feel somehow that he is a ‘case history’ in abnormal psychology. People keep their troubles and worries often too much to themselves because they do not know where to turn for wise guidance.
“Personal experience plus rich and varied contacts in my ministry led me to believe that a book written by a religionist explaining just what modern psychology has discovered about human beings, why we sometimes hate ourselves and hate others, why we grow afraid, why we lose faith in life and a God, might be of real help to perplexed moderns. This science also tells us what we can do to change ourselves and our mental attitudes in relation to our own personalities and in inter-relations with other human beings.”
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)
