Most people fall into the “comfort” trap — when a sameness or regularity lulls you into a sense of balance.

It’s easy to feel you are “okay” because your routine elicits a feeling of safety — you are good, fine, all right, as long as there are no disruptions.

Of course, a “comfort zone” is not always the best place to be.

In fact, experts will tell you that getting out of that “safe space” is the only way to grow.

And grow we must, or we die. Slow, tiny little deaths that amount to everything when all is said and done.

I keep thinking about those little deaths. Whenever we are disappointed in some way, or humiliated, denigrated, made to feel less — we lose a bit of the spark we had. We sort of die, and that changes us.

More so for a collective. The impact is stronger, long it may have come to pass. And in the context of “nation,” think of where we are today, and why is there more of the call to unite? What happened to us?

Where is the Filipino who loved God, country and family? Did he slowly disappear after all the leaders who never made good their promises, the corruption controversies that made us lose trust, or the straight ones who gave up, or those who turned out to be crooked, too?

These days, that feeling of disappointment seems harder to shake. Whatever truth is out there — about cases or controversies that had us shaking in anger and disbelief — it does not matter as much as how we believe things could change.

Because, face it, we never really believed things could change, did we?

Let’s see…can you remember how far back it was that you could not decipher how gazillions of pesos could be siphoned off in the guise of “service to the people?”

How about those times you were fuming about being disabused of the thought that your voice, let alone your vote, mattered? This, after learning that high-profile cases could end up — many, many years later — in favor of those very same persons you thought were instrumental in keeping your country as poor and disrespected as can be? How does that feel?

We reelected non-performing politicians, put into office people who seemed like we knew them because of their surnames, and gave people with uncertain track records a shot at office just because we thought they were amusing.

Do you now see how we sort of “gave up” on us, too?

We come around again to another election period. Election bids in the form of Certificates of Candidacy or nominations have been received by the Commission on Elections for the 2025 midterm elections.

Our noses have itched at the usual potential “nuisance” candidates, but perhaps we should look more at those whom we elected in the past and are running for office anew (did they work as hard as they promised they would “to serve” the people?).

And let us not discount those whose relative popularity already gives them an edge — the slew of celebrities, including those from social media.

Anyone can run, after all, as long as they are true Filipinos and qualify for the 18,820 elective seats in the local and national polls.

There will be plenty of eye candy in Quezon City — the City of Stars — as actors Arjo Atayde, Enzo Pineda, Alfred Vargas and Marco Gumabao join the election fray. Speaking of beautiful people, we have the couple Richard and Lucy running again in their hometown, and the family of Vilma Santos, including my fave host Luis Manzano, in their hometown.

But, of course, the talk of the town are the content creators who have filed CoCs — the likes of skincare businesswoman Rosmar Tan with “21.1-million TikTok followers, 1.07-million YouTube subscribers and 4.7-million Facebook followers;” and Deo Balbuena or “Diwata,” the pares king with “661,000 followers on TikTok and 79,300 subscribers on YouTube” as of this writing. How many of their gazillion followers are actual voters? And will they still feel the pressure ‘to help’ when they have achieved their goal? Will they warm their seat or leave it cold because they will always be out there, with “the people?”

What is “winnable” these days?

We owe it to ourselves to shake up the status quo and find actual qualified candidates who can save us from catatonia.