i remember the time when my brother's phone read my future:
"you will undergo a major change in your life, and you're not ready for it... but it will make you a better person in the end..."
at the time i was facing a new job, my first semester in my masters, a new relationship, and a life in a new apartment...
last november, i lost the relationship.
last sunday, i finally moved out.
damn phone... i hope i wouldn't lose the other 2...
Monday, February 27, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
living life like a cd player
ever wondered how living life can be so similar to a cassette/cd player? it gives you the essential directions on how to live life. there’s really nothing new about it, as i previously pointed out in one of my entries – “realization” is just a term we use to describe ourselves as being reminded of the things we already know. this is just a reiteration of what most of us probably already know, but tend to forget oftentimes.
--0--
“play”. there’s no music unless you press “play”. living life is like playing a cd. each one plays a different kind of tune. some like it sad. some like it happy. some like it fast. some like slow. some like loud. some like it mellow. but they all have one thing in common –they won’t start unless you press “play” (unless perhaps the cd player has an autoplay feature, but that’s besides the point). to some extent life isn’t continuous. it stops when you choose to stop for whatever reason. it stops when you spend it thinking of things that really don’t matter. it’s not life when you just sit around doing nothing. it’s not life when you wait for someone to live it for you. life is not life unless you actually live it. choosing what kind of life to live, however, is another story.
--0--
“pause”. you can always hit the “pause” button. there will be times when you need to take a break from all the hassles brought by a fast-paced get-go. it’s not all about work, deadlines, reports, meetings, transactions, and overtime. take time to rest. stop for a while and smell the flowers, as some weird person said. after all, you do all these things to have a means to live your life. I remember one horoscope message over at friendster saying that “work is an integral part of your life, with emphasis on the words ‘integral part’”. It couldn’t be more correct. so go take a look outside your office window and see the cityscape, go out for a walk in the park, grab a cup of coffee and have a little chat with an old friend about the small and simple stuff, draw if you can, sing your lungs out, dance ‘til your legs hurt, watch a movie or a concert performance, go sound tripping over at your local music store, or just take a nap. it’ll make all the difference in the things you do.
--0--
“rewind”. sometimes, we hit “rewind” (or “previous”) to go back to the songs we like, or to understand what the lyrics are saying. looking back at past events would make us realize a lot of things – may it be good or bad. its always nice to sit beside the window, looking outside on a rainy day with a cup of hot chocolate and good soothing music in the background while you remember the good old days – arguing over how many sides does an old 2-peso coin has, walking around campus at noon, getting even with terror teachers, taking lunch on recess time, playing basketball after school, stargazing on summer night outs, college days filled with tambay moments and sleepless nights due to paper deadlines, out of town trips, overnight gimmicks, simple get-togethers, and drinking sprees. and then you’ll have a sense of appreciation of the life you have, and the people who’ve touched you and whom you’ve touched one way or another (no pun intended. hehe). there’s also some good in remembering the aches and pains brought by a rough childhood, by failed relationships, by damaged friendships, by circumstances that didn’t go as expected, by missed opportunities, and by the people God has sent to test you. if the goal is to see what lessons can be learned from them, remembering such events will give you a sense of who you were, who you are and a chance to redefine yourself.
--0--
“fast forward”. hit “fast forward” (or “next”) if you must. living life at present doesn’t necessarily mean thinking only of today. this is often a misconception to some. living at present doesn’t and shouldn’t make us forget planning our future. living at present only reminds us not to think too much about the future. putting a song in fast forward wouldn’t sound very pleasant, would it? not to mention possible damage to the cd. look ahead, but not too far ahead. how far ahead? only you can answer that. you can plan on taking a masters degree at age 23, finishing it at age 25, going abroad to either work or study at few months after, having a car of your own at age 27, live with your wife in your own house and lot at age 30, and start a business so you won’t have t go back to whatever foreign country you chose to forsake yourself for a couple of years. you can do that, but you can do it while you hang out with friends, maybe score a few strikes at bowling, sweat your shirts off from badminton, take on a silly bet in a billiards game, go get sunburns during summer, grab a few bites to eat with family, watch a movie, or do something you’ve never done before in your entire life. If you tend to forget living your life at present, it could be a sign of being too far off. go hit the “pause” button.
--0--
“stop”. if you don’t like what you’re hearing, “stop”. that’s what free will is for – for us to choose what is right and good. if you have paused and assessed the past events in your life, and eventually came to the conclusion that you’re headed towards self-destruction, you can always stop. helpless? i don’t think so. got no choice? that’s bullshit. things can and will end when you want it to. all you need is faith in yourself that you’re doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it may seem. call it cynical and selfish to some extent, but you can’t help anyone else if you can’t help yourself, and you can’t help yourself if you don’t want to. sure, there things beyond our control, things we can do nothing about, but they consist only about 10% of everything in our lives. for the rest, especially the mistakes we’ve made, or making, have the courage to admit your mistakes, and do something about it. errors are made, but they can be corrected. one way is to, well, stop.
--0--
“play”. there’s no music unless you press “play”. living life is like playing a cd. each one plays a different kind of tune. some like it sad. some like it happy. some like it fast. some like slow. some like loud. some like it mellow. but they all have one thing in common –they won’t start unless you press “play” (unless perhaps the cd player has an autoplay feature, but that’s besides the point). to some extent life isn’t continuous. it stops when you choose to stop for whatever reason. it stops when you spend it thinking of things that really don’t matter. it’s not life when you just sit around doing nothing. it’s not life when you wait for someone to live it for you. life is not life unless you actually live it. choosing what kind of life to live, however, is another story.
--0--
“pause”. you can always hit the “pause” button. there will be times when you need to take a break from all the hassles brought by a fast-paced get-go. it’s not all about work, deadlines, reports, meetings, transactions, and overtime. take time to rest. stop for a while and smell the flowers, as some weird person said. after all, you do all these things to have a means to live your life. I remember one horoscope message over at friendster saying that “work is an integral part of your life, with emphasis on the words ‘integral part’”. It couldn’t be more correct. so go take a look outside your office window and see the cityscape, go out for a walk in the park, grab a cup of coffee and have a little chat with an old friend about the small and simple stuff, draw if you can, sing your lungs out, dance ‘til your legs hurt, watch a movie or a concert performance, go sound tripping over at your local music store, or just take a nap. it’ll make all the difference in the things you do.
--0--
“rewind”. sometimes, we hit “rewind” (or “previous”) to go back to the songs we like, or to understand what the lyrics are saying. looking back at past events would make us realize a lot of things – may it be good or bad. its always nice to sit beside the window, looking outside on a rainy day with a cup of hot chocolate and good soothing music in the background while you remember the good old days – arguing over how many sides does an old 2-peso coin has, walking around campus at noon, getting even with terror teachers, taking lunch on recess time, playing basketball after school, stargazing on summer night outs, college days filled with tambay moments and sleepless nights due to paper deadlines, out of town trips, overnight gimmicks, simple get-togethers, and drinking sprees. and then you’ll have a sense of appreciation of the life you have, and the people who’ve touched you and whom you’ve touched one way or another (no pun intended. hehe). there’s also some good in remembering the aches and pains brought by a rough childhood, by failed relationships, by damaged friendships, by circumstances that didn’t go as expected, by missed opportunities, and by the people God has sent to test you. if the goal is to see what lessons can be learned from them, remembering such events will give you a sense of who you were, who you are and a chance to redefine yourself.
--0--
“fast forward”. hit “fast forward” (or “next”) if you must. living life at present doesn’t necessarily mean thinking only of today. this is often a misconception to some. living at present doesn’t and shouldn’t make us forget planning our future. living at present only reminds us not to think too much about the future. putting a song in fast forward wouldn’t sound very pleasant, would it? not to mention possible damage to the cd. look ahead, but not too far ahead. how far ahead? only you can answer that. you can plan on taking a masters degree at age 23, finishing it at age 25, going abroad to either work or study at few months after, having a car of your own at age 27, live with your wife in your own house and lot at age 30, and start a business so you won’t have t go back to whatever foreign country you chose to forsake yourself for a couple of years. you can do that, but you can do it while you hang out with friends, maybe score a few strikes at bowling, sweat your shirts off from badminton, take on a silly bet in a billiards game, go get sunburns during summer, grab a few bites to eat with family, watch a movie, or do something you’ve never done before in your entire life. If you tend to forget living your life at present, it could be a sign of being too far off. go hit the “pause” button.
--0--
“stop”. if you don’t like what you’re hearing, “stop”. that’s what free will is for – for us to choose what is right and good. if you have paused and assessed the past events in your life, and eventually came to the conclusion that you’re headed towards self-destruction, you can always stop. helpless? i don’t think so. got no choice? that’s bullshit. things can and will end when you want it to. all you need is faith in yourself that you’re doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it may seem. call it cynical and selfish to some extent, but you can’t help anyone else if you can’t help yourself, and you can’t help yourself if you don’t want to. sure, there things beyond our control, things we can do nothing about, but they consist only about 10% of everything in our lives. for the rest, especially the mistakes we’ve made, or making, have the courage to admit your mistakes, and do something about it. errors are made, but they can be corrected. one way is to, well, stop.
--0--
quite vague and lousy for an analogy. shallow? perhaps. but it’s merely a reminder, to me at least, to keep living life, pause every once in a while to reflect, rewind to look back, fast forward to look ahead, and stop when things are going the wrong way.
p.s. forgive me if I sounded like a preacher. ;p
quite vague and lousy for an analogy. shallow? perhaps. but it’s merely a reminder, to me at least, to keep living life, pause every once in a while to reflect, rewind to look back, fast forward to look ahead, and stop when things are going the wrong way.
p.s. forgive me if I sounded like a preacher. ;p
wishful thinking
Last week’s highlights
Wednesday: Was able to play badminton for the second week in a row, this time with raoul and jacque. I wouldn’t have agreed to join them since they scheduled the game at 8pm-10pm, but jacque had a car and I could hitch a ride until meycuayan, so its all good. i managed to play for 2 hours with only a hotdog for a meal. Also got to meet jacque’s sister and accenture friends. It was fun, plus my body wasn’t aching all over the next day.
Thursday: I decided to attend the Thursday fair instead of Friday. Good thing I did. Jenny told me about the huge crowd last Friday. I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. It was the time when I attended the fair just to see the bands perform. I only go to fairs to look for old friends and acquaintances; this time, I found a deep appreciation of OPM bands. Live performances really are fun to watch, especially with a crowd as responsive as UP’s. I got myself a hena tattoo on my right shoulder that says “mysterious”. also got to eat shawarma. Simple joys.
went home around 2am, woke up at around 5am. Going to work with only 3 hours of sleep wasn’t so bad, as I was humming to sugarfree’s “tulog na” while having breakfast with jenny and haze over at mc donald’s.
Friday: chill invited my to attend a focus group discussion over at milky way café at greenbelt1. it was my first experience with an actual FGD. I only knew it in class. It was rather nice. Though the topic was kinda nerdy, it wasn’t as technical as I expected. I got to meet some interesting people and learned a few things. Had free dinner, some freebies, plus I got to see chill again. Haven’t seen her in a long time. They were inviting me to attend the Friday far, but I told them I had to go home to bulacan. It would be silly of me to go back to UP with all my stuff. I should’ve just left them in the apartment. Oh well, good thing I didn’t go. Saying lang kasi I didn’t get to see sandwich, and imago perform.
Saturday: went to UP early to meet jenny to get her stuff at my apartment. I got free brunch (thanks jenny!). FDA class lasted for about an hour and a half since most of my classmates didn’t come to class. Sir tolits was suppose to discuss last week’s exam, but opted to proceed with a lesson instead. We were dismissed at 2:30pm, and the best part of it is we don’t have classes next week!
I got to go home early and catch up on some sleep.
Sunday: the only times I got out of bed were when I attended mass with my family, when I had lunch and when watched brian viloria’s fight with jose antonio Aguirre (brain won by unanimous decision). I was glued to my bed almost the whole day. I missed sleeping ‘til my head hurts… missed watching those Sunday night sitcoms on channel 23, too. I was laughing even if some are just reruns.
Watched yspeak for a while. Topic was about love having boundaries. Maybe a separate article would be appropriate for this topic.
Overall, it was rather a good week. Less stress, more fun. I wish I have more weeks like this.
Wednesday: Was able to play badminton for the second week in a row, this time with raoul and jacque. I wouldn’t have agreed to join them since they scheduled the game at 8pm-10pm, but jacque had a car and I could hitch a ride until meycuayan, so its all good. i managed to play for 2 hours with only a hotdog for a meal. Also got to meet jacque’s sister and accenture friends. It was fun, plus my body wasn’t aching all over the next day.
Thursday: I decided to attend the Thursday fair instead of Friday. Good thing I did. Jenny told me about the huge crowd last Friday. I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. It was the time when I attended the fair just to see the bands perform. I only go to fairs to look for old friends and acquaintances; this time, I found a deep appreciation of OPM bands. Live performances really are fun to watch, especially with a crowd as responsive as UP’s. I got myself a hena tattoo on my right shoulder that says “mysterious”. also got to eat shawarma. Simple joys.
went home around 2am, woke up at around 5am. Going to work with only 3 hours of sleep wasn’t so bad, as I was humming to sugarfree’s “tulog na” while having breakfast with jenny and haze over at mc donald’s.
Friday: chill invited my to attend a focus group discussion over at milky way café at greenbelt1. it was my first experience with an actual FGD. I only knew it in class. It was rather nice. Though the topic was kinda nerdy, it wasn’t as technical as I expected. I got to meet some interesting people and learned a few things. Had free dinner, some freebies, plus I got to see chill again. Haven’t seen her in a long time. They were inviting me to attend the Friday far, but I told them I had to go home to bulacan. It would be silly of me to go back to UP with all my stuff. I should’ve just left them in the apartment. Oh well, good thing I didn’t go. Saying lang kasi I didn’t get to see sandwich, and imago perform.
Saturday: went to UP early to meet jenny to get her stuff at my apartment. I got free brunch (thanks jenny!). FDA class lasted for about an hour and a half since most of my classmates didn’t come to class. Sir tolits was suppose to discuss last week’s exam, but opted to proceed with a lesson instead. We were dismissed at 2:30pm, and the best part of it is we don’t have classes next week!
I got to go home early and catch up on some sleep.
Sunday: the only times I got out of bed were when I attended mass with my family, when I had lunch and when watched brian viloria’s fight with jose antonio Aguirre (brain won by unanimous decision). I was glued to my bed almost the whole day. I missed sleeping ‘til my head hurts… missed watching those Sunday night sitcoms on channel 23, too. I was laughing even if some are just reruns.
Watched yspeak for a while. Topic was about love having boundaries. Maybe a separate article would be appropriate for this topic.
Overall, it was rather a good week. Less stress, more fun. I wish I have more weeks like this.
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