Where you find healing, forgiveness, and love…

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There’s so much anger, negative vibes and despair that’s being “shared”, “liked”, and “favorited” lately. It isn’t a healthy environment when social media becomes a fertile ground for political battles.

Tired of all the negative crap on social media, I decided to recently write about topics that can provide my friends and readers some Relative Joy.

I know that what I write isn’t as popular reading material in this day and age of “fake news”. But I’ve chosen to practice inner peace by writing to inspire. And hope that it gets passed on more than the pessimism around us.

My life is not a bed of roses. For those who personally know me, I have had my moments of disappointments, failures, frustrations, despair, and anger in life. Believe me when I say that it’s difficult to get inspiration during the worst days of your life.

Tired of fighting these angry moments, I felt that writing with the power to inspire and change the momentum of our lives was my highway to improving oneself.

I am engaging in a personal paradigm shift. Fighting the battles I need to fight. And learning the art of being kind, not only to my fellow men but to myself.

Drawing from a place of self construction than self destruction meant that I needed to admit to myself that in order to face my fears I had to appreciate truth and kindness in whatever situation, through healing and forgiveness.

Someone once said that the only way one can move on from all the hurt is to heal. To heal is to learn to forgive. To forgive those that have wronged you, including yourself. In the process of healing and forgiving, we learn to love ourselves and others as well.

Think of the highways of our lives as similar to driving.

You’ll just keep crashing if you don’t take your eyes off the rear view mirror.

The road to redemption can only achieved in that place where we find healing, forgiveness and love.

Silver linings

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We’re all a bunch of idealists. Growing up, we’re filled with these dreams and aspirations for a perfect life.

But that’s not what life throws at us.

I’ve learned that what happens, happens. At first, I was disappointed that in spite of so much effort and goodness (or doing the right thing) some endeavours ended up unappreciated. In retrospect, whatever decisions were made was a good thing. It provided less responsibility and consequently less accountability and stress. It was the silver lining.

We all have these anxious moments. They are touch and go situations with unpredictable outcomes. It’s miserable if things happen not the way we expect or plan. And it’s an inappropriate reaction to not give a f*ck about the events in our lives. But things happen.

I will not venture on why things happen. But they do. And that’s the reality of life. We move on. The hurt will be there, but the world continues to revolve around the sun and the moon will still shine more brightly in the darkest nights.

Coming to terms with reality of life and death, with victories and defeat, with struggles and ease are not easy.

But life has its silver linings.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. aptly puts it

Only in darkness can you see the stars.

For my friends who have been with me during my darkest days, thank you for making me see the stars.

How much are you worth?

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During one quiet moment, a friend’s father asked me “how much are your principles worth?”.

My initial reaction was shock.

Until he elaborated.

Everyone has a price. Even the most principled man has a price. Even heroes or saints have a price. Some of us may have not yet met that situation that made us decide on the price of our principle. We all have.

Let’s put a situation:

Say you needed 3 Million pesos badly because your father needed treatment for a disease. He has been in the ICU for the last 30 days. The savings of the family has dried up. Your family had to sell the house you live in. The loans are building up.

Your current job entails you access to vital confidential information that when revealed can bring down the business. The competitor of the company you work for knows your dilemma. Offers you 3M in exchange for that information. The life of your father or the information to the competition?

The scenario can vary from a hungry beggar who’s willing to break a law to feed his hungry and sick children or a drug addict who is willing to sell his or her body in exchange for a fix. Or the politician whose level of greed is shallow and is willing to exchange justice in order to keep up or maintain his family’s lifestyle.

If you’ve not met this challenge in your life, sometime you will. It can come either in the form of a crisis or temptation. But it will come.

For those who already have “sold” some of their “principled values”, only our conscience will dictate how we resolve them and if and when we can sleep better at nights.

We do what we need to do after thorough deliberation with our conscience.

Remember

there’s something wrong with your character if opportunity controls your loyalty.

What defines us at the end of our journey in life is not how well we lived but how we lived a life of kindness and gratefulness.

What if you knew when?

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Would it matter if you knew when you would die?

Like yeah, it sounds morbid. But think about it. Would you have a different perspective on how you lived if you knew the How, Why, When, Where of your death?

If you knew that your only child was going to get sick at the age of 8, diagnosed with leukemia and die 15 months later in spite of chemotherapy, would you have spent the 8 years of his/her life with you in a more different way?

Tragedy is not the only anxiety we worry about each day. Whether we succeed in a business endeavour or marry the one we love or achieve our dreams, if we knew when, where, and how, I’m certain we all would live our lives differently.

But destiny is not a predictable path. The many unknowns of our future mandate that we live with what is thrown our way.

Our life does not always turn out the way we planned, but sometimes because what we planned wasn’t suppose to be our life.

No one is privileged to chart their paths the way they want to. There are no what ifs to go back to in life.

It’s a fair reminder that we will never know when we will die. Do good. Be kind. And stay happy.

It’s a good life and only we can make it a great one.

Walking away from the storms of our lives

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Have you ever had those moments when you had to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea? Or when it rains, it really pours?

I’m sure we’ve all had a couple and believe me when I say that the most difficult crossroad is the decision of walking away from that storm with your sanity intact.

These storms serve as reminders on humility, justice, morality, or simply the belief in the goodness of humanity. God places them to serve as lighthouses of our journeys in life.

No matter how you look at it, even storms have a purpose. Not all storms are meant to destroy. They also demolish the demons in our lives and clear the path so that we can start fresh, or anew.

And while all beginnings are hard, the way forward after the storm is to walk head up. There is no use battling the storm. We all end up bruised, hurt, or dead.

Some battles are just not ours to fight.

Walk away.

The daily grind

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When I was growing up I always wondered why my father had to wake up so early in the day. He’d be up at 430am to get ready to go to work. By the time I was going to school, I’d usually hitch a ride with my dad. He’d drop me off and most of the days, he’d also pick me up after classes on the way home.

It was his daily grind.

And he’d always say, “I owe I owe so off to work I go.”

We don’t realize what most parents go through to place food on the table, send their kids to school, put a roof over their head, worry about the clothes on their backs while chasing their dreams.

Back then when the internet and the technological revolution was still intangible, the daily grind was a much slower process. It was like watching life evolve in slow motion.

Friends were actual people who played with and shared your most intimate and despicable moments with. They made you cry, laugh, and love at different phases in your life.

And then there was work. Not being subservient to the Internet had its pros and cons. (And that’s another topic altogether). The upside was that the skills I developed as a clinician was truly one that I would treasure. My generation, was the last of the dinosaurs.

Fast forward to today, I’d say that I’ve almost come full circle. Slowing down has crossed my mind gazillion times. The adrenaline rush of work and anxiety is a rollercoaster ride that’s taking a toll on my daily grind. And the years have made me gradually feel the aftermath.

And I remember my dad. He passed away at an early age of 59. I miss him a lot. Especially those moments spent with him. Because he was too busy providing, he eventually suffered two strokes and passed away. Too soon.

As we venture into another year, it’s time to reflect on whether I will let the daily grind affect the moments in my life that I will miss.

Remember, there is never a rewind button in our lives. If we let the daily grind miss out on what is essential, we would have life pass us by.

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. – Dr Seuss

The stories of their lives…#ICanSeeYourVoice

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Saturdays and Sundays on Channel 2 (ABS-CBN).

I’m not sure if a lot of you watch this show. It’s entertaining. It’s amusing. It’s a feel good mystery game show.

The mechanics are:

A guest artist singer who has to guess from 6 contestants who is a singer or who is “sing-tunado” (out of tune). All contestants have a pseudonym.

During the first round, the 6 “singers” provided a photo and short “biographical” sketch to convince the guest singer to pick him or her in the final duet with the singing star. The guest picks who he/she thinks is not a singer. One is eliminated.

In the second round, the remaining 5 lip sync. Guest this time picks 2 who he/she thinks is not a singer. Two are eliminated.

The third round shows more photos and longer biographical sketches of the 3 remaining contestants. Guest eliminates one who he/she thinks is not a singer.

Final round has two left and guest singer has to pick who between the two would he/she believes is the singer. The one not picked “sings” a final song and is eliminated.

The guest singer then does a “duet” with whom he/she picked as the winner. Is the winner a singer or not? You’ll know during the duet.

While the mechanics look simple, the show is actually an entertaining and heart moving one. The six contestants come from all walks of life. Some of them have actually beautiful voices while the others are just kibitzers. Whether they can or can’t sing is not the story of the show. After each contestant is eliminated, their life story is told. Their reason for joining the show is unfolds.

I follow the show not because of the entertainment it provides. It’s not like the slapstick noontime shows like Eat Bulaga that degrade the contestants. This is a wholesome show that elevates the values and reveals the struggles and lives of every ordinary Filipino.

There are even times when it’s host Luis Manzano provides not only comfort but assistance to the contestant after hearing their life stories.

If there’s a show that one should follow, this is one of them. You get to smile, laugh, and appreciate your lives a bit more after the show.

After all, these contestants share with us life’s relative joy.

3 weddings and 7 funerals

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That’s the number of celebrations of life…and death of friends in 2017.

The beginning of 2018 marked the passing of the mom of a colleague. A depressing and somber mood to greet new beginnings.

I recall the story of the conversation between life and death.

Life asked death, why do people love me but hate you?

Death responded, because you are a beautiful lie and I’m a painful truth.

The cycle of life, and sadly, death, begins as soon as one is born. The older one lives in society, the more celebrations of life and death one encounters. Time has a way of showing us who and what matters in life. It also reminds us of joy of beginnings and the pains in letting go.

We all want happy moments. It is human nature to expect that. To most of us, celebrations are made up of these happy days – birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions, marriages, Christmases. Moments where “gift giving” is an obligatory event. Most of us avoid discussing death as a celebration.

I’d like to think that death, as dreary and morbid as he may seem is an obligatory event that’s worth celebrating. It provides us the opportunity to remember all the good and bad journeys of the person. It provides closure to life, no matter how short or how long it is shared with others. No matter how difficult or comfortable life was, death will always be the final book that the person wrote in his lifetime.

Albert Camus once said “there is a life and there is a death, and there are beauty and melancholy between.”

Chasing choices

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A universal paradox is “you’re free to choose but you’re not free from the consequences of your choice.”

Between work and family, there are days when it’s really difficult to do a balancing act with our lives. You know how you have those days where your boss suddenly out of nowhere calls for a meeting pronto, but it’s the same time as your daughter’s ballet recital or son’s basketball game – and you have the tug-of-war decision to either put food on the table or keep a promise to your children.

We’re living in different times that make choices in life a challenging one.

Whether it’s the food you eat (organic or fast food) or the friends we make or the company we keep or the places we explore…the choices are vast and ours to make.

The abundance of choices provides us the profound freedom to explore and to do what we want. And this freedom, while at times abused, provides us the happiness to revel in the choices and consequences of such choice.

Someone once said that there are three C’s in our lives that matter. Choice, chance and change.

“You must make the choice, to take the chance, if you want anything in life to change.”

Everyday is a new day that provides us an opportunity to reflect on the choices, the chances and yes, the changes we want in our lives.

And don’t feel bad about making decisions that may not be popular or even upset others. Remember: you’re not responsible for their happiness. Only your own.

Make the choice today.

In search for inner peace

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Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.

Some days are pure joy. And then there are those that just stressful. But life’s like that. No one ever said that life is a bed of roses!

The Dalai Lama tells us not to let the behavior of others destroy our inner peace. Of course, it’s easier said than done. When you think that you’re just having a great day, someone or some incident comes along to break up the party.

But life’s like that! I’ve always said that the anatomy of disappointments are expectations. While it is good that we think positive and expect the best out of our efforts, there are just some circumstances that don’t make all things turn out the way we desire.

I’ve had some humbling moments. Moments when all along my wishes and dreams were a straight path, the outcomes don’t turn out the way I wanted.

But what we want planned doesn’t end up the way we want. Seriously, we end up where we are because at some crossroad in our life when we needed to make a choice we ended up making a decision and arriving at where we are. How we handle where we end up is how we face our inner fears or inner peace.

Inner peace is a difficult process to achieve. But not impossible. Every event can be taken as a glass half full or half empty. Finding a silver lining even in our worst days is the goal to achieving inner peace.

Remember – things happen for a purpose. That’s why I believe that even joy is relative.

What we give to the universe is what the universe gives back to us.

Be the reason someone believes in the good of people and inner peace will be good karma to all who believe.