Breathe

In Japan, people work themselves to death so often that they have a term for it: KAROSHI. It can be literally translated from Japanese as "death from overwork." It's a terrible thing, and maybe not just Japanese suffer from this, but other people as well. It's ironic that even with technology helping us to make our lives easier, people nowadays are more stressed than before. Workaholics want to accomplish many things that they sometime forget to breathe. We all need to BREATHE. If you have so many tasks to do, breathe. It will help you bring into focus, and help you realize that work is just work. Breathing can transform your life. It will help you realize and enjoy each moment of this life. Let us not die because of our work. Let us have some time to breathe so we can spend our life with our loved ones too.

I Love My Job

One thing I learned in life is that no matter how your job seems to suck, you have to love it. You should wake up every morning and psych yourself by saying, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job." Say it like an incantation, and try to convince yourself. 

Who says that working would be easy? Sooner or later, you will come to realize that working is not just all about the money. If you're an elementary school teacher like me, prepare to NEVER get materially rich. But, remember this: Ten years from now, when you see your students all grown up and successful, you will come to realize that being a teacher is not so bad after all. Finally, the realization would sink in and then you would be able to say now, with conviction, that you really DO LOVE your job. 

There are perks to being an elementary school teacher. There are perks to your current job. . . maybe you just have to wait for quite a while to find out, so, don't you just quit yet.

To Dust We Returneth

All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are days when we remember our departed loved ones. It is a time to remember what they have done for us and also a time to reflect on our own inevitable end. People go to cemeteries as early as Halloween to visit the graves of ancestors who have died and to pray for their souls.

The tombstones should remind us that soon, we would also be six feet under, because, from dust we came, to dust we will return. I hope that All Saints' Day will remind us that we only have one life to live, and that we should live every moment, in love and in righteousness.

The Wonders of Malunggay

Malunggay is not my favorite vegetable but I came to like it because it has become a necessity to me. I need malunggay not because of myself but for the benefit of my baby. You see, he hates being bottle fed so the only way to get him to drink milk is through breastfeeding. I don't produce a lot of milk, but with the help of Malunggay, having milk is not a problem anymore.

My mother is a very practical woman. She dries malunggay leaves, crush them and put the powdered form inside a gel capsule. It's practically the same as the commercialized malunggay capsules bought at drugstores so why do I have to buy it when I can have it for free?

The good thing about Moringa is that it is readily available. There are a lot of malunggay products out there. We have malunggay tea, malunggay chips, malunggay candies, malunggay noodles and a whole lot more. As long as there are products such as these, breastfeeding moms need not to worry again. Malunggay may be a poor man's vegetable, but with it's amazing health benefits, it certainly is the best.

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Waiting In Vain

"People wait and wait and wait for the perfect moment, for when it seems right, for when it's quiet, for when the kids are grown, for when they have enough money, clout, time, sleep, energy. Why do we do this? Maybe it's fear. Laziness. Overwhelm. Perhaps. But I think it's because we think we'll get another moment."

It's true. All of us wait and wait and wait, because we think we will get another chance . But what we don't realize is that what if we don't get that chance? What if the opportunity that passed was the last one? Then perhaps we would keep on waiting . . . waiting in vain.

The Rest Is Gravy

I am a mother of two children. I love both of my sons in different ways, various degrees, yet I'd like to say, equally.

I used to be a mother of several children, not in actuality, but professionally. You see, I am also an English teacher and being a teacher for ten years has taught me a great deal about parenting but it took me a long time to learn.

My first son, Ken, has suffered because of my lack of parenting skills. At the age of five, he still speaks like a two year old. That's because I wasn't able to train him how to talk. I let the TV become his baby sitter, and now, he is suffering ridicule from his classmates. I had become too busy with my career, being a mother to children that I don't even know. I had forgotten about my own child's development and what he is now is actually my fault.

Now, I have Roswell, my second child. I promised myself that he wouldn't have to become like his brother. So I decided to temporarily quit my job and give my time to my two children. I think it's not yet too late to remedy Ken's inabilities. He's five years old, and I know that he will still learn. I don't want to become a bad parent anymore. I quit my job because I want to give them the most precious gift I have available . . .

I read from an article that the best gift that your child can have is the gift of time with you. Reading, singing, playing, dancing, catching fireflies --- it's all good. The rest is gravy. . . and based from experience, I totally agree.

Just Do It!

I don't believe in New Year resolutions because every year, when people try to make them, in the end they always break them. I have made a lot of New Year resolutions myself. I usually sit down and write all the things I want to accomplish in a piece of paper. I end up accomplishing about 5 to 15 percent of what I wrote down, and I have never got to a 100 percent, nor a number close to half. So this year, I decided not to make any New Year's resolution but instead I decided to put to heart Nike's famous commercial tag: Just Do It.

It is senseless to make promises that we can't keep. What is more sensible is to make a list of things we want to accomplish daily so we could set specific goals for ourselves and be realistic. Personally, it is easier to worry about the things we could do today than worry about the things we want to do in the future. A wise philosopher has once said, "the future will worry about itself." We have to live for today because tomorrow might never come. So, resolutions are in part, senseless. It gives us unneccessary burden. We can dream, yes. We can also have an ambition. I know that it is important to have goals. But these things should not enslave us and be the guiding force in our lives. Dreams, ambitions and goals are nothing compared to what is really in store for us. I learned that God has special plans in our lives. Let He be the guiding force to rule over our actions every single day, and without us knowing it, our future will be well secured in Him. We just have to believe in his Words alone and accept him alone as our personal Savior. There would be no need for worldly resolutions that would only satisfy our ego. These resolutions are not as important as what God wills for his faithful believers.

I don't mean to say that we should all be laid back and have no plans at all. I don't mean to say that we should laze all about and be bums all our lives. We can't wait for things to happen. God can't make it happen for us if we don't get up and move. We have to make things happen for us, but with God in the lead. With him, we can never go wrong.

Resolutions are just future goals waiting to happen. The future is such a long time. We can start doing things today, in a perfect Godly way, and the future will worry about itself. We can dream. We can make promises to ourselves. We can have attainable goals. We can just do it, or better yet, we can just do it God's way.

100% Natural

My husband is a gym instructor and a bodybuilder. But unlike other bodybuilders who likes to have muscles the easy way, my hubby took a long time to acquire his and it required great discipline on his part. I am a witness of his hard work and abstinence. For almost two months, he has learned how to deny himself of yummy human food and he ate "rabbit" food instead. Sweet potatoes, bananas, oats and whey are part of his diet, and rigorous training became part of his routine. He jogs everyday at 4:30 in the morning. He does 500 sit-ups to develop his abs. He lifts weights larger than his own body mass, and he does extensive cardio work-out to burn calories. All those hard work paid off when he joined Mr. Los Banos 2008 last Saturday (December 13, 2008). At the end of the contest, he was resigned to the fact that he had already lost. His opponents were really big, and they were taking steroids so he was no match for them. But then, at the awarding ceremony, his number was called (#27), and what do you know, he won 5th place! I am mighty proud of him. This only shows that a 100% natural bodybuilder like him can beat steroid-induced ones. I hope that with his victory, he could inspire others to use natural methods in bodybuilding. No need for expensive supplements and steroids. You only need to have discipline. And the good news is, it is free.

Without Love, I am Bankrupt.

Taking time off from work has made me realize that life is all about relationships. Eversince I started working my ass off, I have become like an ass myself. I wasn’t able to nurture intimate relationships with my colleagues. I wasn’t able to maintain the close relationships I had with my friends. I had become a stranger to my family. - All because of work - work - work! I tried to work to keep myself from being bankrupt. I tried to make myself happy by buying new things. But all work ever did was create an emptiness that I found hard to control. The more I worked, the more money I had. But then, busyness is the death of any relationship. So now I am trying to patch things up with my close friends. Slowly, I am building the relationship where we left off. Now, I have more time talking with my family. I am not a boarder anymore, nor am I a stranger. It’s sad to think that I have wasted my time on things that don’t even matter. Apostle Paul once said, "No matter what I say, no matter what I believe, no matter what I do, without love, I am bankrupt." When I was working, I thought I would never be bankrupt. I was dead wrong! You know what, now that I have patched up my relationships, I am richer than ever. Life is about relationships. Now I have a life.

So Little Time

The most important thing that you can give a person is your time. Time can never be recovered, because once it passes, it is forever lost. Relationships is all about time. You cannot build a relationship if you don’t give your time to nurture it. Given that we have so little of it, we should make use of our time in the most sensible manner.