the choice continued......

Can money replace love?

Can pleasure take the place of affections?

Meaningless?

Why should a well-known public figure commit suicide given all

His/her fame and fortune?  Can his/her  wealth and wisdom compensate for

ruptures in his/her relationships?

Why should a spouse of a famous politician commit adultery with

the family driver/cook?  Is it lust or vain fixation for the

pleasures of the flesh?  Or is it the pain of being neglected

and ignored by the husband/wife they used to adore?

Why should a son cut his wrist or a daughter drink poison

despite all the luxuries and pleasures they are showered with?

In this age of top line technology and convenience gadgets, why

are humans talking to computers rather than with each other?

Why are we retrenching people and replacing them with robots and

machines?

Why have we lost the simple joys of nurturing relationships with

bank tellers because we have replaced them with ATMs?

Why, with all our cells, e-mails, Internets, websites or the

endemic texting, are we no longer communicating?

Why are family members no longer talking to each other?

The ultimate hell?

To succeed in career and fail in the family is, to me, the

ultimate hell.

John Grisham, that famous author of legal fictions wrote

"The Testament," which tells of a highly successful

industrialist who made billions of dollars but lost his family.

In the first 10 pages of the novel, he jumped to his death from

his multi-story building in front of his self-centered children.

By his will, he disinherited all of them and bequeathed his entire

estate to an illegitimate daughter who refused to accept it.

That is the ultimate irony; those who lusted for money lost it.

Those who were given all the money refused it.

In all his dozen masterpieces, Grisham tells us about the

importance of family. "A Time to Kill" tells of a father who

went to jail for killing his daughter's rapists.

Indeed, we who are simple folks should learn from the mistakes

of others. We should straighten our lives and put our

priorities in order.

I don't know about you.

 “There is no success in

a career that can make up for a failure in the family”.

original by Atty. Josephus Jimenez