Palawenya Tattler

Reset. Action word. Adjust…correct…set.

We don’t really need January to go into reset mode, but I suppose we feel that it’s the ultimate favor to let it roll over the holidays where correction that hurts other people will be held off for after.

Why reset?

Reset, in simple terms, is the act of adjusting again after an initial failure. It doesn’t have to be something big or outrageous…just something that has to be set right. With that, I would say we should do it more often.

Let’s look at our phones for emphasis. We don’t usually think of resetting it until it starts to lag, we experience software glitches, or we wanna erase everything in it. There’s even a soft reset and a hard reset. We do the soft reset for minor issues and a hard reset when we have to sacrifice everything else to get to where it will be functioning as it should again. The same applies to life; we reserve the hard resets for when you have to absolutely cut off some people in your life so you can have the peace we all deserve, while soft resets should be something we do regularly to keep our universe in its ideal state.

Compromise: When Not To

In a world where we have gotten so used to blending into the gray area so as not to look extreme by taking a side, we as a society have normalized compromise.

Compromise, when done solely for the common good, is ideal, but compromising our core values to blend into a world that creates cute monsters and alluring vampires is a whole different ballgame.

Cute Monsters. These are the manipulators around you. They butter you up and have a ready smile or a lending hand for you while you serve a purpose. Once you act or respond in a manner that is not beneficial to them, the monster rears its ugly head. Compromising so that the ugly head stays in the back is never a good thing.

Alluring vampires. Some people can be really charismatic and powerfully fascinating that we sometimes end up as willing “consensualists”, those who let vampires feed on them. When we let the promise of something make us do things we know are not acceptable, we’ve allowed the vampires to walk among us. Worse still is when we become thralls/familiars who actually serve them in their efforts. The DPWH flood control scandal in the Philippines presents the perfect example. But we’re not going to dissect that past its obvious relevance to our subtopic – when not to compromise.

I leave you with that thought as we go into the final day of the first weekend of 2026. It’s the perfect time, if you haven’t yet, to intentionally pause and evaluate where you’re at as opposed to where you wanna be.

If you’ve gotten busy – like I have – and unintentionally took on more than you should, now is also a good time to see how you can make a graceful exit without leaving people depending on you high and dry.

But it has to be NOW…before the busy-ness of the day-to-day kicks in again with the official start of the work week for the rest of the world.

I would really appreciate it if you could share your thoughts and insights.

Have a wonderful start to the year 2026!!!