People always affect people even in subtle ways

As we prepared for our flight home, there seemed to be many things that need to be addressed. And in the time of COVID-19, it means that we need to process documents and do swab tests to travel inter-island.

But it doesn’t end there. We also needed to exchange goodbyes to people we’ll be leaving (for a while). After a very long day and rather emotional smiles (because we don’t know when we’ll see each other again), here are the things that I learned:

1. You may feel that everything you do is done in isolation, but most (if not all) of your decisions ripple and affect people in subtle (or enormous) ways.
   
2. Who you have become is a collective of forces you’ve interacted with. Having this in mind, you must be careful who and what you let influence you.
   
3. Even in the time where physical distancing seem to destroy intimacy between relationships, the genuine ones always find a way to flourish and grow. If you’ve got friendships that endure in these times, consider yourself blessed.
   
4. If you think you don’t matter, maybe you haven’t met yet the people who think otherwise.