Category: Life

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A New Year Thought on LIFE

Thanks to Nicely for sending this SMS to me.

This says all I want to do for 2009 onwards.

May you be blessed by these words as well:

What’s the meaning of LIFE?…

“Keeping cool”, said the ice.

“Driving Hard”, said the hammer.

“Being up-to-date”, said the calendar.

“Being sharp”, said the knife.

“Making light around you”, said the fire.

“Sticking to it”, said the glue.

“Being bright”, said the lamp.

“Being on time”, said the clock.

“Saving a drop”, said the faucet.

And best of all…

“Learning from it”, said the mistake.

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Are you a MANY-malist? Or a MINImalist?

The New Year is always the time to get rid of the old.

Just before the New Year, I looked around the room and saw eyesores here and there…unread books in stacks on the floor, newsclippings in envelopes that have not been sorted, Christmas gifts waiting to be put away, and basically things in places where they are not supposed to be.

My longest dream has been to go MINIMALIST. But with 4 kids who are also MANY-malists like myself, it is a real challenge to keep only the basic necessities and do away with the extras. My girls and I are also sentimental and tend to keep things because “it was given by <name>” or “it reminds me of <occasion>” or “we could use this someday“.

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(from http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/design_inspiration/factsheets/pop_ups/94_3.shtml)

This year though I will try to do something about it. At the very least, even if I am not able to attain the complete minimalistic look, I can reduce clutter to a great extent.

These last few days, despite being allergic to dust and sneezing all over the place, I have managed to clean my room, rearrange the bookshelves to accommodate my unread books on the floor, and just threw out clippings I have not touched in years. THERE!!!!!

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One of my bookshelves with my unread books
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My yoga books and stack of Yoga Journal mags

If you are like me and trying to go minimalist, here are some links on the web to start us out on our quest:

1. How to decorate your room in minimalist style

2. The Minimalist Approach, Clear That Clutter

3. How to Create a Minimalist Home

4.  A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Home

GOOD LUCK TO US!!!!!

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“Wasting” time meaningfully

We are all perennially caught up in the rat race. And in this fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world we live in I find that many people are preoccupied with making the most of that which, when gone, can never be captured again — TIME.

Ever since I got back to the corporate world, things changed in my life. As a homemaker and budding yogini, I learned to slow down, breathe deeply, become aware of my surroundings, meditate deeply. Going back to a corporate environment meant adjustments. Time well spent in the office spelled productivity. What mattered was what you could produce in the least amount of time. Wake up early. Move quickly. Think on your feet. Eat your meals faster. Walk more briskly. Take the quickest route in any situation. Move it, move it, move it!!!

Sometimes I wonder what people caught up in the corporate whirlwind think about pausing, taking stock of life passing by, and learning to “waste” time meaningfully?  Aren’t those two ideas opposing ones?

Can wasted time ever be meaningful?

YES, YES, YES — because it really depends on your view of WASTE.

I can think of thousands of time wasters. But from my perspective, anything that adds value to others, most specially to loved ones or to people around my spheres of influence is NOT a waste. Time away from my own task, though considered wasted, is channeled to making someone else feel better, feel more loved, feel supported and understood. Actually, anything that also adds value TO MY OWN LIFE is definitely not a waste of time.

A parent who stops work to play with his child just lost productive hours but added meaning to his child’s;

A long phone chat with a friend in need is a time waster but has comforted someone;

A long chess game with your kid could make you think of “better” things to do but that precious time can be one of the greatest bonding moments.

Two Saturdays ago, I was at work. I was planning on staying till 5pm to get some work done on a quiet day. Around 3pm, Chona called me. She was free to meet up at Shang. I was initially torn. There went my plans to be work productive. But the next moment, I decided that if a friend I missed wanted to see me, that was more important for us both.  Though I did get some work done, it was not as much as I would have wanted. But there were no regrets because I got to spend a wonderful afternoon with an even more wonderful friend and that time cemented our friendship even more.

In a few weeks, I will adjust once again to a slower life as a project comes to an end. There will be time for yoga, time for myself, time to waste with friends and family, time for introspection, time for my bucket list. I think I am looking forward to “wasting” my time. Because by wasting it, I know my life will become even more meaningful.

Looking forward to wasting time with all of you!!!! 🙂

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Cinemalaya Indie Film Festival’s ‘100’: How to Live — and Die — with Meaning

What would you do with what remains of your life if you knew you were to die soon?

I cannot remember the last time I purposely went to a cinema to watch a Filipino movie. But after reading Cathy’s review of this film, something prodded me very strongly to go see it. And I did tonight — with my yogini friend Chona. It is one of the most moving films I have ever seen and what makes it even more special is the fact that it is a Filipino film.

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‘100’, I just learned tonight, won 5 major awards in the recently concluded Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival: Best Actress Award to Mylene Dizon (Joyce), Best Supporting Actress to Eugene Domingo (Ruby, Joyce’s best friend), Best Director to Chris Martinez, Best Screenplay, as well as Audience Choice Award.

Joyce finds out she does not have long to live. She faces her impending death with bravado and determination to make it the most meaningful days of her life. She organizes her death with such order and calm as though organizing an event. With her loved ones beside her, including best friend Ruby, she fulfills her “bucket list” (the 100 things she most wanted to do before she died) one at a time. There are also points in the film where she gets to have closure in her life with some people (no spoilers here!).

The film effectively portrays Joyce’s many relationships. Foremost here was her special friendship with long-time best friend from school, Ruby. Their solid friendship through thick and thin, their adventures together as they go through Joyce’s bucket list, made me appreciate true friends even more. Then there is her relationship with her mom (played by Tessie Tomas). Joyce did not know how to break the news to her newly widowed Mom, eventually does, and they go through their personal grief and finally, acceptance, of Joyce’s fate. Also, there are the loves of Joyce’s life with whom she had to have closure.

I found myself in tears at many points of this movie for many personal reasons. For one, I have gone through life events that have made me truly wish for a meaningful “rest of my life”. Two, I started a bucket list of my own several years back and have had friends help me fulfill some of them (though some were not even aware they were doing so). Three, the plot and acting (Mylene’s and Eugene’s most specially) were downright real and very convincing. They truly deserved their acting awards!

Chona and I, over dinner, chatted about how the film impressed certain realizations on us. We both planned to blog about it, that’s for sure. I promised myself I would go over and review my bucket list and continue working on actually DOING what remained and add to it as well. She promised to start hers. We resolved to be a little “naughtier” and “freer” and “less serious” about life next year. We shared a little more of our lives in the past (and actually found several more connections between us in terms of life events) and how we could make life ahead better, purposeful, memorable, lovable.

Try to catch “100”, which is on an extended run in some theaters. It will make you think more deeply about your life, appreciate WHAT and WHO matter most in the end, and hopefully get you started on your own bucket list to make your life that much more meaningful.

Here is a sample trailer I got off YouTube:

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Jupiter + Venus + Moon = Smiley Face!

In astronomy-speak, it is called a planetary conjunction — when the planets seem closest to each other. The National Geographic News article ” Planets, Crescent Moon to “Frown” on Skywatchers Dec. 1″ said what we would see is a frown but lucky, lucky us here in Metro Manila tonight because what we saw in the skies was this (I only had a digicam so I leaned on a window ledge to steady my hands while taking these using the slowest exposure my cam had):

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Tonight we saw the 3 brightest celestial bodies — Jupiter being the largest planet, Venus being the closest planet to Earth and our own moon! Some historians even think that a similar conjunction could have been the “Star of Bethlehem” source.

Whatever it was, so many bloggers took pictures tonight, blogged or Plurked about it and shared a special moment together. What an amazing happy night tonight was! 

Special thanks to a special friend who gave me a heads up to look up into the sky.

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My 2008 Thanksgiving Day

No, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving Day the way it is done in the West.

But on the eve of Thanksgiving a few days ago, I had some things I had to be thankful for and gratitude always needs to be expressed.

In 2007, I found out that I had a kidney stone 1cm in diameter. It was lodged at the entrance of my ureter, too large to be flushed, too lodged to be pushed back into the kidney. During an operating room procedure where they inserted a camera into me, the doctors also found my ureter was crooked so putting a stent in was also impossible. The only solution was to blast the stone near the ureter — a 75% chance of success compared to over 90% if blasting was done to the stone in the kidney.

A post-operative ultrasound showed that the stone was blasted to smithereens but fragments were left in the kidney. Flushing had to be done so they do not start more stone formations. I was drinking up to 2 liters of water in the office daily.

This week, I visited my urologist again with some concerns. A follow-up ultrasound last January 2008 showed a tiny calcified cyst . My blood test also showed that the iron stored in my body was twice the normal range. My late dad had an uncommon blood disorder called thalassemia and I had myself tested for it with results coming out this week. Thalassemia shows up like anemia but thalassemic people cannot eliminate iron from the body. Iron overload, if not corrected, leads to heart and liver damage.  

To top it all, my yoga has been erratic so there went a great detox mechanism.

But after a repeat ultrasound ordered by my urologist, I received great news:

1. For some unknown reason, the calcified cyst could no longer be found;

2. Our family doctor who is an internist assured me that the high ferritin levels were of no concern now although I need to give him my screening results for thalassemia; and,

3. My urologist also cleared me of kidney stones (at least for now) and told me I just need an ultrasound every 6 months as preventive measure.

HOORAY!!!

This episode reminds me again to look after my health first — this in the midst of the holiday stress and yearend work and systems implementation work that keep me so busy that yoga is now self-yoga. In the end, good health matters more than anything. And yes, I need to get back to my regular yoga routine — SOON!