What makes this truth painful is that some people only understand it after life has already collected its payment. I am one of those people.
I learned this lesson the hard way.
There was a time when I believed exhaustion was a badge of honor. I thought skipping meals meant discipline. I believed sleep could wait. Work always came first. While others rested, I continued. While food waited on the table, I answered another problem, chased another deadline, pushed through another night.
My Nanay would tell me, “Eat first.”
She would tell me to rest.
She would remind me that work could wait for a while.
But I refused.
I thought I was being responsible. I thought sacrifice was proof of commitment. Looking back now, I realize I slowly trained myself to ignore my own humanity. Hunger became an inconvenience. Fatigue became normal. Rest felt almost like guilt.
For many years, I lived on coffee, cigarettes, pressure, deadlines, and ambition. I ate quickly or sometimes not at all. I worked through nights believing that the body would always obey the mind. When projects demanded more, I simply demanded more from myself.
And for a long time, my body followed.
Until one day it no longer could.
Now diabetes stands before me like a collector asking for payment after decades of neglect. The toll has arrived. The very pleasures I once postponed are now limited by the condition I helped create through years of imbalance. Bread I once loved must now be measured. Desserts I dreamed of enjoying freely now come with caution. The body remembers every abuse even when the mind chooses to ignore it.
What hurts the most is realizing that the people who loved us often saw the danger long before we did.
Nanay was not merely telling me to eat. She was trying to preserve me.
But when a man becomes consumed by work, he convinces himself that slowing down is weakness. He does not realize that continuously neglecting himself is also a form of destruction—only slower and more socially accepted.
This is why I speak now.
Not to discourage hard work, because hard work built my life. Hard work fed my family. Hard work gave me purpose. But people must understand this: if work causes you to completely lose the ability to enjoy the very life you are building, then something has already gone wrong.
Success should not arrive together with sickness.
A man should not spend his youth sacrificing everything, only to arrive at old age financially successful but physically unable to enjoy what he spent his entire life earning.
There must be wisdom in the pursuit.
Eat while the food is still hot.
Rest before the body forces you to.
Listen to the people who love you while their voices are still near.
Because sometimes the warnings we ignore in our younger years return later as consequences inside our own bodies.
Originally published on Benjie's Bench - Measuring Life's lessons in Millimeters