Letter from a Friend

By Reuben R. Canoy

I was chewing on a pencil yesterday when a timid looking boy padded into my little cubbyhole and said, “Would you pass this letter on to other newcomers like me?” I told him I’d have to look at if first. The things I often get from strangers and friends are not fit for human consumption. Almost as if he were holding the original copy of our constitution, my unknown visitor banded me the letter. It came, he said before leaving, from his uncle up in manila. And with a sad expression on his face, he added: “He wants me to be good.”

I am impressed, his uncle wrote, very much by the note of resolution and earnestness registered in your letter.

Sooner or later you will realize that, after all, if we have to go anywhere in this world, we’ve got to rely on our own selves. Some time in life we might be in a position — and well — where we have to lean on some people who to us are solid rocks of support. But in the main, the men who have gone somewhere have been those who have lived independently and learned to trust on their own resources.

You would find your first one or two months stay in Silliman truly filled with sporadic nostalgic yearnings for home and the folks and old friends. That is only natural. Bear it. Pretty soon you’ll get used to the new friends you shall have met — and you’d really be glad you’re in Silliman.

You said all along you wanted a chance to pilot your own course in life. This is your God-sent chance. You can use Silliman for a good beginning — it may mean the determining factor in the life ahead that begins to unfold before you; you may also, in the same manner, make of Silliman a terrible Place to be in and so make a mess out of all the time you’re there.

You see, a good many things in this world too depend on attitudes — on the mental state of a person. You ought to know that there were a good number — in fact, the greater number — of people who went to Silliman with great hopes and expectations, and once there, decided that if they stayed longer than one semester in that place they’d die of sheer boredom. I can mention a few who were in Silliman last year and came back none the better for their experiences.

But if you go to Silliman with the conviction that you can make of your stay one of earnest building and moulding for the future, if you go to Silliman with the proper attitude and the proper perspective — if you go there decided to create new friendships, blaze new horizons, live the good life — you’ll find your stay extremely enjoyable and profitable, and in the future you’ll remember Silliman as a loved chapter in the book of life.

So, you see, it’s all up to you.

To get the most of your stay there, I’d suggest that you participate in activities there: attend convocations, chapel periods, Sunday services, even visit friends — if you will — go to CYF, if you can, join the choir, write for The Sillimanian, go to the radio station, join excursion. Remember: your time is limited; your days are numbered in Silliman. Seek every opportunity to create friends and so store rich and varied memories. They’ll count a lot in the future. You do not have to chide yourself for pat sins of omission and commissions — perhaps you have not lived satisfactorily in the big city. Who was it who said — a Catholic writer — that if we are not true to purposes for which life is created, we do not live; we are mere shadows of what we should be and we have no life.

I noticed the vague and undefined expression of some yearning on your part for a higher level of existence than you had hitherto known. You know you’ve been quite spoiled most of your life. It is, of course, not all your fault. You’ve been so used to having your way in many things most of the time not reasonably; you have not felt the want with which a great many other youths have been deprived of opportunities for achievement and self-realization.

You must bear in mind, however, that ever one of us has to one time or another made mistakes — grave mistakes — in life. The important thing to remember is we must strive to minimize theses mistakes. There must be some ideals to which we can dedicate our lives.

So Silliman, in a way, would mean a break for you — a break to make good; to redeem yourself if you feel you’ve bungled all along. A new chapter shall be written in your life: will you make this chapter the best yet? — the highest in ideals — the most worthwhile lived?