Talk about surprises. I just learned that my friend back in my freshman year was pregnant. It has been two years since I shifted to another course, two years since I last saw her, two years since I heard anything about her. And now, this. She just turned 19 and she?s having a baby. And I?m jealous.

Jealous not because she is pregnant, but because something is happening in her life, something other than cramming for exams, reading notes and listening to lectures. My life, on the other hand, is so monotonous it would register as a straight line in a cardiac monitor. I have become so bored that I am envious of someone who is probably having the worst internal conflict she has ever experienced.

Looking back on all the homework I got done, the household chores I have finished (be it grudgingly or not), and all the subjects I have ?passed with flying colors,? I begin to wonder if they are what make me think my life is boring. How can I possibly deny to myself that doing right does not seem to matter to anyone anymore?

I can say ?unfair? all I want, but rebels do have all the fun. They break all the rules, and if they get caught, they say sorry (and at least pretend to be so) and promise never to do it again. Life goes on. It?s just too bad I didn?t figure it out sooner, or that nobody bothered to tell me.

However, I feel a bit of a hypocrite for thinking I have ?done right? all my life. I know that I made good in school not entirely because I chose to be. Some of it was luck, some of it was, well, something else... I did study for exams, hours, days or even weeks before, but it wasn?t as if I didn?t sneak to ask a seatmate the symbol for radium or the formulas for multiple event probability. I suddenly understood how the top student of my high school batch must have felt. You see, she never cheated during exams, not even when the whole class was doing it. In turn, everyone thought she was a sucker?even me, and she was one of my friends.

So what? It was just a bit of cheating. It?s not something that would get you kicked out of school, said a little voice in my head. (Oh, the burden of reason. The moment I convince myself about something, my mind finds a way around it.) You know it?s true, I allowed the voice to say. What you did wasn?t unruly enough; otherwise, you wouldn?t have felt like doing more rule-breaking right now.

Now, that?s true. I am still feeling the lack of danger and excitement offered by stepping out of line.

Really, has anybody ever gotten famous for always sticking to the rules? Heck, even Jesus Christ is considered a rebel. Famous persons, when sunk in oblivion, regain fame the moment they do something insubordinate. Stories of success, whether they be rags to riches, addiction to sobriety, or captivity to emancipation, all have a common character: the rebel. Crossing the line has a certain appeal that never fails to get people searching for an opportunity to do it, or maybe just watch other people do it. And it may not just be about wanting to do it, but actually needing to do it. As Oscar Wilde once said, ?Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man?s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.? One cannot change if one doesn?t rebel against oneself.

Hence, my boredom. I have been such a people-pleaser all my life, always seeking others? approval in everything I do, or don?t do. And now I end up a cliché, pleasing everyone but myself. I?m too scared to stop doing what someone else would want me to, and I?m too scared to start doing what I want to do. I can?t rebel against myself.

I guess it will always be this way: choosing to be or not to be?maybe until I find something worth being a rebel for. And if luck would be by my side, maybe I?ll get the chance to be a rebel without displeasing anybody.

But right now, I still have things to settle with that little voice. I still have to argue the difference between being rebellious and being plain sinful. I hope I will win this time.

(Norina D. Caballes, 19, is an Open University-Broadcast Communication student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.)