When I ate barbeque as a child, my parents told me that I did not “clean the bone” properly by eating all the meat and cartilage. They’d sometimes take my bones and clean it even further.

Before the pandemic, I attended events at least twice a month to meet people and learn more about my professional field of information technology.

The first thing I noticed when attending conferences, such as a Business Group at Work and a Tech Conference with Amazon Web Services, was that many people didn’t fully take advantage of the opportunities presented. As if they took the opportunities for granted. All my co-workers in the team did not attend such conferences. The people whom I met didn’t attend as many of the presentations they could have, complaining about their commutes.

Seeing that many of the people in my industry got to their positions by some combination of hanging around for 10+ years, not questioning why a process has not been improved, or putting in just enough effort to get by made me realize that getting further ahead will be easier than I thought.

The secret sauce my parents taught me that separates me from the competition is to scrape the meat off the bone of opportunities that life gives us.

The weekend I Actually Turned Pro, I met many men in the conference as part of the coaching program I was enrolled in. My first observation was that many of them were not currently enrolled in the coaching program. Some enrolled in coaching for 6 months but gave up when they did not see major results, thinking coaching was too expensive. Some attended the weekend simply for a morale boost. The weekend, along with the small results in the first 6 months of coaching, were enough of a spark to continue. It was after two years of coaching, repeatedly scraping the meat off the bone of life’s opportunities, that major life-changing results came as my mindset shifted.

A mindset of scarcity turned into a mindset of abundance.

A mindset of making excuses turned into a mindset of personal responsibility.

A mindset of feeling unworthy of success to a mindset of demanding success, willing to do what it takes to get there.

A mindset that had put pretty women on pedestals to a mindset that believes most women are goofy and I can easily get them to like me by using their goofiness against them.

When attending presentations and watching courses, I take notes on a piece of paper. A few days later, I type those notes on a Word document. A few weeks later, I read the notes and apply those lessons in my life. A couple of months (and years later), I re-read the notes to get an even deeper understanding of the lessons with new life experiences under my belt. To take it a step further, I sometimes e-mailed the presenters and instructors, thanking them for their time and asking questions. It was surprising how many people were willing to help with this approach.

Scraping the meat off the bone implies perseverance, knowing that we can always do better.

This past Sunday’s gospel tells the story of the Prodigal Son. The father has two sons. The younger son took his father’s inheritance and spent it on debauchery at a far-away country. When famine struck that country, the younger son worked at a swine farm where he still starved. Upon realizing the error of his ways, he went back to his father’s land with a humble and remorseful heart. The father was overjoyed at his son’s return that he ordered a feast in celebration. However, the older son was angry that his younger brother retuned, as if the older brother wanted his younger brother to fail. The father, undeterred at his older son’s anger, tells him that “his younger brother was lost but now has been found.”

Like the Prodigal Son, our society has lost patience in a world of convenience that prides itself in having things fast: fast food (Uber eats is still dope), fast relationships (omgamirite?!), fast money (Family Feud shoutout!).

However, the process of working through problems and humbling ourselves like the Prodigal Son, scraping the meat off the bone in what we can learn in the present moment is the dream itself. The people whom we become in the process, not the goal achieved.

Like the Prodigal Son’s older brother, we can be self-righteous in judging others and envious to the point of wishing others to fail and drown in their own misery.

However, we are reminded that there are always opportunities to scrape the meat off the bone to be better versions of ourselves. To be more understanding and empathetic of people’s shortcomings and struggles. And finding ways to encourage them, understanding that their success is also our success.

There are times when I am stressed that seeing people happy on social media makes me upset. Upset that I took the responsibility of taking care and supporting my mother when they don’t have such responsibilities because they have fathers and siblings. Upset they have more time to spend with their significant others when I only see my fiancée once every 2 to 3 months, which makes planning even more difficult.

With all challenges, there’s always an opportunity to scrape the meat off the bone to learn new lessons.

To not allow the envy drown out the inner peace of living without regrets for taking care of my mother, and to remind myself that our achievements and resources in this world are meant to be shared with others, not to be kept to ourselves nor be used to take advantage of others.

To not allow the envy discount how far my fiancée and I have come as we’ve made the most of our time spent together (that she had enough material to publish a book for me 😁), and to remind myself that relationships force us to show mercy to others the same way God has shown us mercy, if we truly love one another.

This past week has been stressful for my fiancée and I as we began planning our wedding, not knowing exactly where to start and how much of our wants we can have given our budget. Where will we have our ceremony and reception? Why are some churches discriminating against non-parishioners? Is a videographer for the engagement shoot worth it? Is Gideon Hermosa really that good at arranging flowers 🤣?

Rather than just tell each other “I love you” before going to bed, my fiancée and I now say a prayer, thanking God for our journey and for the opportunities: to be more patient, to be more humble, and to have faith amazing things will happen when we do the work and pray.

And with prayer, we have a greater peace of mind before going to bed and understanding that we scraped another piece of meat off the bone in life’s opportunities.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the challenges in our lives. These challenges are opportunities to scrape more meat off the bone, teaching us valuable lessons to be better people in Your eyes. I’m sorry for the times I got frustrated and envious when I was lost and stressed. We pray for Your Grace, to help us be more patient, more humble, and more compassionate with one another, as we help find others who have been lost discover Your goodness and mercy. By respecting the process and learning as much as we can, we are living the dream of what you’ve planned for us: to serve others.

In this we pray, Amen.

A page from the book my fiancée made for me. It’s a testament on how much meat we scraped off the limited time we shared together 🙌