The feeling of anger arises from desiring to assert authority on others when feeling undermined.
I thought I would start this blog by explaining a little bit about myself. For those who don’t know me, my name is Philip. Although, I go by many names. I was born in Melbourne, Australia, 31 years ago to Sri Lankan parents that migrated here to escape the civil war going on in their homeland. Since I was a kid, I knew that I wanted to do something to help people. And I’m sure this relates to many of you because this is something that is innate in all of us. I would think of those less fortunate, people living in poverty, people who get sick for no reason at all, and wondered why this was so? I wanted to do something one day where I would be in service to people and change their lives forever. And so at the age of 6, I told my whole family I wanted to be a doctor.
As human beings, we always find ways to place expectations on ourselves. In my life, I managed to place so much of that expectation based on what I believed others expected of me.
In life, we are always faced with two driving forces that determine our every action. “Love” or “Fear”. Do you love yourself enough to back yourself in any situation? Or do your actions reflect the fear of failure?
It took me one year after graduating from university to figure out where I was headed. Most universities rejected my applications, something I had now become accustomed to. But I would keep applying anyway. I traveled to India and spent time in impoverished areas, applying for medical school with the local kids. My family, being religious, organised for me to stay with Catholic Salesian priests in South India. I stayed for a few months in a boarding school run by priests that would travel to poorer villages and look for kids that couldn’t afford education on their own. And just for fun, I would tag along.
So where does this story go from here? Well like the crazy person I am, I sold my car, packed my bags, and went to Europe to try my luck. I really didn’t know what to expect. Hungary was a country I knew little about. I was excited but also nervous. Part of that reason came from my cousin who will be named as ‘G’.
When I began medical school in Hungary, I needed money to survive. Tuition fees had to be met, as well as funding for my cost of living. In the year that I spent working, punching through medical insurance claims and cleaning up dissection work at the anatomy lab, I saved up enough to get me started on my new journey. It wasn’t enough though. As an only child in my family, my parents always did the best they could to help me fulfill my ambition. They spent all their time, energy, and effort providing for me so that I would be able to fulfill my own ambitions. And even though I never really made a convincing case for them to believe that I would succeed, they still backed me and did whatever they could to make that happen. Such selflessness and love. So here is an insight into their story. A journey of patience, perseverance, and sacrifice.
As I sit here and type away this story, I find myself sifting through all the moments I experienced throughout my life. Through all the momentary flashes in my life that has resulted in where I am today. That to me is the truth. The truth about who we are today is a reflection and culmination of every single moment we experienced in life since the day we were born. So why were we born into this life in the first place? What has led us to the current set of circumstances that we now find ourselves in? The answer to these questions became clearer to me when I started becoming aware of my past, and that of my family.
In life we often find ourselves going through extremes of circumstances. A rollercoaster of emotions. The euphoria and excitement of getting something that you always felt that you wanted. Or the devastation when something is taken away from us. Through my own experiences in life, I can start to see a pattern that emerges. We continue life in a certain way, and then that lifestyle becomes confronted with a challenging decision. At times, these challenges that we face can be quite devastating. But I like to look at things in perspective. As in anything that we do, we are always given options or free will to make a choice. When we muster up the courage to make that choice, it results in a new lifestyle that was previously unimagined. The old things we used to do that was part of our lifestyle, gets swept away almost in an instant. And through faith in ourselves, we establish a new norm to which our lifestyle continues.
On the 1st of May, 1985, at 6:24 pm, my parents introduced to the world a baby boy. He was named Philip Martin Indrajit Alexander. That would be me. I was named after my mum’s brother Philip, and my dad’s brother Martin, who both tragically passed away in Sri Lanka not long before. The name Indrajit was a suggestion that was made by my dad’s aunty who was a Carmelite nun in Sri Lanka. In translation, it means “Lord of Heaven”. My father told me she made this suggestion because she saw myself and my parents as an example of the holy trinity that is mentioned in Christianity. And my last name, Alexander, was a surname my father simply chose to register when he first arrived in Australia. As I grew into a young boy, I attended a kindergarten school named, “Ave Maria”. Following kindergarten, my parents sent me to a primary school that was in front of the rundown house we were living in. This school was named, “Our Lady of Nativity.”
After I was born, life became a lot simpler for my parents. They were now eligible for a PR and citizenship in Australia. As a catholic family, my parents baptised me at the local Parish church, Our Lady of Nativity. They made many friends at this Parish and chose a lovely Lebanese couple to be my Godparents. My mother spent most of her days taking care of myself, whilst on the odd occasion, babysitting for other mums. Once I grew up, she later found work as a secretary for the Australian Defence Force. My father continued to labour shift work in the railways as both my parents sought to save up for their very own home.
After closing the failed venture of his shop, my father got offered work as a security officer. My father was studying an accountancy course, but due to the responsibilities at the time, he gave it up to look for a source of steady income for the family. And so he worked through the nights, and even at times two jobs to make a living, whilst my mum would receive an early pension due to her work accident years before. This continued for many years. Month after month, and bill after bill. As a kid, I didn’t really take notice much of the sacrifices made and the persistence required for my parents to rise up to another day.