Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Pasensya is the Hardest Word

Yesterday, I had a chat with my thesis buddy Angel Lencio. After receiving her proposal draft, she decided to shift from the concept of pasensya in organizations to the concept of pagpapasensya.

You see, I can't put an English translation of the word because the word pasensya is more than just patience. It is even more than controlling the temper. Pasensya is like that. It's unexplainable. Hence, Angel's task is to define the undefinable and explain the unexplainable. Way to go, Angel!

And so, yesterday, her pop-up chat window lighted up and asked:


"OMG, where do I start?" Heck, have I been reading conyo blogs a little too much? 

Anyway, that is how I define pagpapasensya. It's when another person has done you wrong, sometimes maybe too much that it actually hurt you, but you just shrug it off like nothing because that person is important to you. Pagpapasensya is valuing your relationship more than the hurt that he/she has inflicted. Maybe it's also because of the notion of trust that you believe that the other person would not do anything like that to you intentionally. 

When people say, "pagpasensyahan mo na" it means looking past the mistakes/errors/faults/whatever of the other person whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Could it actually be considered pagpapasensya? Maybe. But if the involuntary pagpapasensya is backed up by an "I'll get back to you someday" plan, it's not. Pagpapasensya becomes pakitang-tao. Or maybe revenge in the making.

Pagpapasensya, in a way, is sacrifice. It means forgetting about yourself for the sake of the other person who was actually wrong in the first place. Elton John was wrong when he said that "Sorry seems to be the hardest word". It's not, Pasensya is. Pasensya is more than just "sorry". Acceptance of the grieved person is required for it to exist. That's pagpapasensya for me. What's awesome is that pagpapasensya can be used and abused over and over! (sarcasm)

Whether pagpapasensya is tolerating evil or simply love in its purest form depends on how you look at it. But if you say it is the first one, chances are, yours is already used up.

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