The View from Above

 Written by: Ally Bernales

From up here, the world looks different. The mountains stand tall in the distance, a quiet reminder of something vast and untamed, while the city’s high-rises stretch toward the sky, symbols of ambition and success. Yet, just below, nestled between concrete and steel, the slums tell a different story—one of struggle, resilience, and survival.

It’s a strange contrast, how a single glance can capture both privilege and hardship. Up here, everything feels distant, like an observer’s dream, but down there, life is raw and immediate. It makes me wonder—how much of life is shaped by where we stand? How different would the world look if we saw it from another angle, another height, another beginning?

Maybe the mountains don’t seem as grand when you grow up in their shadow. Maybe the skyscrapers feel unreachable when you start from the ground. And maybe, just maybe, perspective is the one thing we must constantly adjust to truly understand life beyond what we see with our eyes.

Every day, from the 16th floor where our training room sits, I am blessed with a view that humbles me. Facing east, our building catches the first kiss of light at dawn. Even after long, exhausting nights, when we are finally dismissed at 6 AM, I find myself lingering by the window, watching the slow, magnificent rise of the sun over the Sierra Madre. There’s a certain stillness in those moments—a peace that doesn't demand anything from me, just invites me to breathe it in. It makes me happy in a quiet, steady way, as if life itself is reminding me that beginnings are always possible, no matter how long the night feels.

Whenever I look at the Sierra Madre, I can’t help but think about my own struggles. I imagine placing my problems next to the mountain, comparing their weight and size. And every single time, I realize—the mountain is so much bigger. So much stronger. The Sierra Madre, the great shield of Luzon, has stood its ground against the fiercest typhoons from the Pacific Ocean, absorbing the worst of nature’s storms so that countless lives could go on. It doesn't boast of its strength, it doesn't crumble under the pressure—it simply stands. Watching that mountain reminds me that if something can quietly protect and endure against so much, then maybe I can survive my own storms too.

From above, problems shrink into patterns, stories fold into streets, and dreams blur into city lights. It's so easy to forget that each tiny flicker down there belongs to someone—someone carrying hopes, dreams, heartbreaks, and battles that no skyline or statistic could ever fully capture. Distance gives clarity, but it can also create a dangerous kind of blindness. It tempts us to think we understand a life just because we've seen a glimpse of it from afar. But real understanding asks us to get closer, to sit with the messy, complex, beautiful truth of things.

I think about all the people climbing their own invisible mountains every day—mountains of fear, of grief, of poverty, of dreams deferred. I wonder about the ambitions that take root in broken places, the kind of hopes that soar even when the world tries to hold them down. Maybe true success isn’t measured by how high we rise, but by how deeply we remember where we started, and how gently we lift others as we climb.

Maybe, to truly see the world, we need both views: the breathtaking sweep from above and the close, tender look at what is right in front of us. Maybe the most important journey is not upward or outward, but inward—a constant unfolding of empathy, humility, and gratitude.

Because the view from above is beautiful, yes. But the view from within—that aching, stubborn, breathtakingly human view—is where meaning truly begins.

And maybe, just maybe, we are all a little like mountains too. Weathered by storms, softened by the sun, and standing not to tower over others, but to shelter, to protect, to remind the world that even the heaviest burdens can give birth to the most enduring kinds of beauty.

image from: https://shorturl.at/KDiKR