Goal

When I was a bit younger, my goals were to have a stable job, a house, money in the bank...the usual stuff.

But now, I kinda realized what I want.  I want to be happy.

My goal now is TO BE HAPPY.

I´m not going to limit it by saying I need an X amount of money in my savings account or by having a house or a car.

I´m just from now on going to start to do what makes me happy.

I will just live everyday as my last day here on earth.

I will try not to worry to much.

Life is too short and I plan to live my life the happiest as any life can be.

It feels like my soul has lived for centuries.

My journey has opened my eyes.

But I feel as though I am still not in the time that I am supposed to be.

I still need to wait to see a more enlightened world.

Reminder to self:

Your job is not your life.

You have a job so that you can earn, to sustain the quality of life that you want.

Don´t make your life revolve around your job.

Jobs come and go.  Don´t worry too much about it.

Focus yourself more on having fun living your life.  :D

I found this on facebook.

I posted it here primarily so that I would be able to go back to it once in a while to re-read it so that I won´t forget the lesson, and secondly to share it, so that it would be able to inspire others as well.

"A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll

ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed..

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.. The sand is everything else---the small stuff.

'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn.

Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.' The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend."

I spent the first hour of my birthday (based on philippine time)  on board an airplane.   I believe that this is a sign that my 32nd year on earth will be filled with lots of travel.  Love love love travelling :)

I believe that dreaming is a way for our minds to process subconsciously those issues that are too much for our conscious mind to handle, acting as a safety mechanism preventing us from snapping and becoming crazy.

The gauge that I use to see what current issues I need to sort out in my life is what are the contents of my dreams and nightmares.

Thank God for lucid dreams.

I have always had the ability to know when I am dreaming during my dream and remembering them a few hours afters of waking up.

Because of this, I am able to decipher what my subconscious mind is trying to impart gently on my conscious mind, thus making the harshness of those concepts softer, making it easier for my conscious mind to process.

I know I sound crazy when I talk about these stuff, but I guess me knowing that these sound crazy proves the point that I am far for being crazy.

I´m just happy that I am lucky enough to have a mind that wanders way way way outside the box.

Wise words

I was raised in a culture that values hard work and perseverance.  That is why I always try to work hard to the point where I sometimes forget about my personal well being.

I kinda stumbled upon this twitter post the other day and it´s an eye opener for me.

Working hard is good, but I realized that I should always remember that at the end of the day, it is only a job and I should value my personal well being first.

Jobs come and go and are easily replaced, but your health is something that once it´s gone, is hard to bring back.

PRIORITIES :)

Music is a very big part of my daily life.

Whenever I leave the house, I never forget my trusty Ipod touch to provide what I jokingly call "the soundtrack of my life."

I don´t know but there´s something about music that makes me get lost into it while walking.  There´s something zen about it.  I just find myself transported in my inner world of thoughts which make me ponder about what are the current topics that pull weight in my life.

It helps me sort out the issues that I have to deal with.

It helps me think.

here are the current songs that I kinda listen to:

I´ve been constantly re-watching this video the past few weeks and it still makes me laugh out loud everytime.  This is just a feel good video.

LOL

I have always gravitated towards all things quirky.

Ideas that are out of the ordinary but make perfect sense.

And this falls in that category

I found these at http://www.inewidea.com/2010/03/01/22865.html

I just looooove this.

Planning on doing this one of these days :)

Words to live by

These captions are posted on the desktop of my mac so that I would see them everyday.

These are constant reminders of what I want to say to myself whenever I face challenges in my life.

Whenever I read these words, I find the strength to face what cards life deals, both good and bad.

Just wanted to share them out :)

Hello blog you´ve been a stranger.....

Last year numbed whatever whimsy I had in my system.

Being too busy adapting to a new environment and being focused on the more practical aspects of life, mainly work, work and more work made my imagination dull.

I´ve been a drone.

I stopped writing.

I stopped photography and graphic art.

I stopped customizing toys.

I stopped buying chuck taylors and painting them.

I miss doing creative stuff.

I miss letting loose the crazy monster in my head that ponders about how holes can have logical existence by being defined as the absence of something which basically has no actually existence, positing the question: "If it can be grasped by the mind i.e. making it exist logically, then do holes really exist given the fact that it is the absence of something?"

So now, I dedicate this whole blog to anything and everything crazy about how I think.

This shall be hence an ode to crazy.

And this video kinda shows a visual of what I feel :)

I think I really need to be crazy to remain sane.

Dichotomy and Unity

While in the bathroom, where I usually think about profound things hehe, I realized something about myself.

I think the reason why I love reading about eastern philosophy so much (disregard the fact that I'm asian) is that eastern philosphy emphasizes more on how a person should live i.e. a balanced life as opposed to western philosophy, which focuses on abstract ideas that mostly point to the dichotomy of man i.e. the material and the spiritual.

In western philosphy, you could just read about how matter is evil while the spirit is good or vice versa and then read about the thoughts of western philosphers along the years which basically is recycled from the works of their predecessors with minor tweaking.

Don't get me wrong, I also like reading about these stuff because they present a lot of opportunities for mental gymnastics that always keep me on my toes, but I love eastern philosphy because It teaches me how to live now, here in the real world and not live among the clouds.

In most eastern schools of thought, there is no dichotomy with  matter and spirit.  Most of their ideas point to a balance between the physical and the spiritual.

In order to achieve true happiness, you must have balance in all the aspects of your life. 

I just love this because instead of focusing on the idea of dichotomy, they emphasize on unity.

The focus is on how to be a well rounded indivudual instead of a person who thinks himself to be composed of two opposing forces, matter and spirit and despising one or the other thinking that in order to be trully happy, one must be free from the percieved "bad" side.

At this point in my life, based on what I've learned and experienced along the years, I'm kinda leaning more on the idea that in order to be happy, we must have an inner unity, having balance in all aspects of our lives, embracing the fact that we are indeed composed of matter and spirit and in order to be whole NOW, we must embrace both aspects and try develop a balance between the two, intertwined in a graceful dance of unity.


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Reflection

I  journey to a place where few rarely visit, the vastness of the subconscious, that dark place where we can find the light to see a glimpse of  our true selves through our desires.

We are what we want.

But do we really know what we need?

Through our "wants"  we see ourselves, and once we see ourselves, we will have a clear view of what we really need.



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Relax

I love this Song.

It's brings me to a place where it feels everything will be all right.





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Meditate

Ang pag-usad ni minsa'y di katiyakan ng pag-unlad. Bagkus ito'y senyales lamang ng pag-kilos tungo sa direksyong maaring patungo saan mang direksyong tahakin na ang baseha'y dikta ng puso't isipan. Ang pag-unlad ay kabiyak ng pag-lago na ang basehan ay ang pagnanais maabot ang rurok na maaring maabot ng isang potensyal......minsan ito'y maari ring marating sa pananatiling payapa, tahimik, at sa di pag-kilos.



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Interesting

This is just a random photo dump of pics that I found from the internet that tickled my fancy.

1.)  Found this from a website that unfortunately I cannot remember anymore.  I don't know who took this photo but there's credits on the lower right portion of the pic.  I just find this adorable :)

2.)  These I saw at http://cameralink.com/photographers/denise-grunstein.  I just love the whole feel of the photos.  They give off that twisted storybook aesthetic that I love. 

3.)  And finally, some cute little monsters!  I LOVE the masks!  Cute!

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Actually.....

Sometimes you just have to develop a very thick hide if you want to remain sane.  You cannot let every negative thing that you see or negative comment that you hear affect you. 

You must learn when to open yourself up and when to close the gates down. 

It's always up to you to filter the times when you can be vulnerable and when to raise your wall up to shield yourself from those which you deem might hurt you.

In the end, it always falls on you what you choose to take in and what you let slide.



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Green Grass

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side, or so it may seem.  Sometimes in our lives, we reach a point, specially during problematic times that we think that our lives suck and that we want to exchange places with another person who seems to have gotten the longer end the stick.

I can't count how many times I've said:  I wish I were that person or that person is very lucky and I wouldn't mind trading lives with him/her.  I know that it's not healthy to compare yourself with others because it would only be a cause of frustration and that the only guage that should be used to rate success is the personal feeling of fulfillment.  Ideally, this should be the case, but unfortunately as flawed human beings, who live within the context of a society, we cannot help but view ourselves juxtaposed with others and find several points of comparisson.  It is inevitable.  As social beings, our views of oursleves will always be in relation with how we view others. 

So how do I go about it when I find myself comparing my life with others and sometimes wanting to trade places with them?

This is my realizition:
I may sometimes want to exchange places with another person because it may seem that they have better lives , but on the other hand, there's also other persons out there who want to trade places with me because they think that my life is better than theirs.

It's just a matter of perspective.

I realized that the grass is not necessarily always greener on the otherside.

I may view the grass on the other side as greener but, there's also another person who thinks that the grass on my side is greener.

I may sometimes feel that my life sucks, but another person out there sees it differently and thinks that I'm very blessed.

I just have to borrow that other person's perspective and see the good things in my life.

This is how I learned to appreciate my life no matter what, and see that the grass on my side is green and it's enough.



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We are all Meat

If I would decide to be a vegetarian, It wouldn’t be because I believed that eating animals is wrong.  I don’t think that eating animals is a form of cruelty because if this is the case, then God wouldn’t have created carnivorous creatures.  He wouldn’t have given some animals instincts to eat other animals.  Eating animals is just a part of the natural order of things, the food chain.  Just watch any other nature show and see how lions hunt and you will see how nature really works. It’s all about survival and the balance of nature i.e. the natural order of things.  I am however against the inhumane treatment of animals.  Foie gras tastes good, but I decided to stop eating it because I don’t believe in the ways that they utilize i.e. force feeding ducks to make their livers fat.  I am also against using fur for clothes because we have the technology to create other forms of fabrics from other sources like plants  and synthetic fibres.  Maybe in the past when our ancestors have no other means for warmth, is killing animals for fur acceptable, but now, fur should belong back to animals and not to humans.  I am also against testing cosmetics on animals.  They shouldn’t pay for man’s quest for artificial beauty. I am however still weighing my opinion regarding testing medical products on animals. If it would be the way to cure cancer, aids and other currently incurable diseases and there are really no other means to reach that goal other than testing it on animals, I might consider it if it would save millions of lives.  I respect vegans for choosing not to eat and use animal products because of their compassion, but I don’t think that I would be a monster if I choose to eat animals.  I would just be like the lion, trying to sustain my body’s needs for nutrition.  If they are really animal lovers, would they call lions evil for eating other animals? It’s just the natural order of things, or if you would want to go Disney  on it, It’s THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.  After all, when we die, we would also be food for worms and bacteria……WE ARE ALL MEAT.


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