Day 5 -"We can not, not communicate!"

Last Monday when I attended our school’s graduation our Principal Dr. W. C. opened his speech with that line and he explained that we can not resist communication in our daily lives. We communicate with the way we dress ourselves, the way we choose words, the way we swing our hands or move our eyebrows, squint our eyes, cross our legs and even going to work on time and regularly or being late! These are all forms of communication.

Eventhough we live in a century of information highway, where we feel that we have the right and access to immediate information, a lot of us hold our “communication” / our thoughts and expression of what is inside us, especially if we have hurt, have bad feelings or simply do not like another person. Instead of directly telling the person how we feel, we bottle our feelings up and wait, wait, and wait until we explode.

So, there it is: “We can not, not communicate!” (To translate it – “we can always communicate”)

- A. M. S. 

Day 4 - Buy Less, Consume Less

I’ll pull this up really quickly because I have been practicing this for a month. I think Aking will hate me for posting this and Aking you might have a different view to this one ngem this is my thought and feel free to disagree with me as strongly as you want. This is one of our weaknesses (specially as Moms and girls), I think particularly to Aking when we were in college. I know we love to buy things – it’s human nature. It’s consumerism. The economy won’t thrive without us, the buyers. We listen to the wonderful ads, we get carried away by the well-thought out punch lines of products and next thing we know, we are pulling out the plastic from our purse! But, one thing I realize as I have been cleaning out our basement (to get rid of junk) is that I actually do not need a lot of things to live. I mean look at the things that you regularly wear: clothes, accessories, shoes, make-up – and even the things you own at the house. What are these things? Are these your favorites? Now how about the “other” things that you do not really wear on a regular basis? What is happening to them? Nakatambak lang sila di ba? (They are just piled up, right?) Andun sa isang sulok (There in a corner). At ano pa ang ginagawa nila doon sa sulok? (And, what are they doing in that corner?) Is it taking space? If it is taking space, then it is clutter. Any form of clutter, can take away some of our energy and thoughts that you could be using to spend more valuable time on.

So, what I am trying to say is (gulp!): Before buying things, ask yourself this question first: will I be using this for at least 10 years?

If you say “YES” then go for it. If not, maybe you need to rethink about it and leave it on the shopping rack.

This goes as well for buying bigger things. One of the biggest mistakes we’ve (hubby and I) made is buying this place that we are in now with the idea that we will only stay here for 5 years. This year is our 5^th – and yes, at that time we were only really planning to stay here for the first five years and then, we’ll get a bigger house. But look, the house we bought is not big enough for us to stay for even 10 more years. If only we asked that question…

The same thing happened with my current car – I knew I should have waited for another year until I bought my dream car (at that time – Saab), but we decided that we have to get an AWD (all-wheel-drive) right then and there. Now, I’ve been driving this Subaru for three years but everytime I drive it (although it is pretty reliable and drives smoothly), I have the feeling that I should have gotten what I really wanted, instead of what we think will be fine for “a few years”.

And if we have that mindset, we might be driving more to the bank to save more money.

- A. M. S.

Day 3: Choose wisely.

Life is all a matter of choice and the choice you make is the reflection of who you are. But you have to make sure that the way you spend your time is in alignment/accordance to your life’s purpose. Questions such as, “will this be worth my time?” “will the time I spend in this matter contribute to what I want to become?” “what will I take from this, that will help me grow towards my goal in life? my purpose in life?”

We have to make sure that the things we spend some time really on is really our choice. Again, life is in our hands. And it is up to us!

 We have the choice to make. Make it personal. Own it and you will live feeling proud of it!

Love you all!

- A. M. S.

Day 2 - 100% Commitment

Honey (our youngest sister) said why not make it a year of writing some inspiring notes? I’d say 30 days muna (for now), because I want to put in my 100% commitment into this. Having a 100% commitment in everything you do, makes a whole different world. It is defnitely different from saying “I’m interested in doing this” versus doing it 100%. When you are 100% committed, you are doing it no matter what. No matter how busy you are, you are going to do it; it’s like getting into the habit of brushing your teeth – na (that), once you’ve commited to brushing your teeth before bedtime, you know that even if you are so tired, you would still have to get yourself up, drag yourself to the bathroom and do your teeth brushing. If not, you know that your day is not yet over without doing it.

It’s the same thing with pursuing your dreams and whatever your wants are. NO MATTER WHAT (happens, will happen or has happened) you’ve got to have to do it! You have got to do it! Because it will not feel right. You will not feel right.

I remember when we were in college and the fad was to have braces on, and I know there is no way we could afford to have them on, but because I wanted to look like “sosyal”  (preppy/ellite)I have to have it. So, ano’ng ginawa ko (what did I do)? I worked and worked part-time even if it meant going home at 11:00 PM or midnight – or taking the jeepney to Manang  (a term of endearmet to somebody who is older – but she was actually our orthodontist)Aileen’s office to pay the monthly installment and having the rubber on my braces removed and cleaned. Was that a commitmment? Sure was – especially to somebody who really did not have anything back then.

Ok – til tomorrow!

- A. M. S.

Day 1: Write your dreams

I thought I’d try to connect with you EVERYDAY through FB. I feel like, since I am on FB almost everyday that shooting you an email might help us get to know each other more as siblings. Matagal na rin (It has been a while) since we have not seen each other or even have tried to connect….so since, wala na akong (I do not have) a lot commitments to my schooling and my school year is almost over, I would like to COMMIT one month of sending you some inspiring thoughts that I also have learned and have been learning.
So, aytoy (here)..

Day 1: If you have dreams, write them down. Don’t let them get away from you by just thinking that you want this and that – but rather, capture them and jot them down.

I remember idi high school ak agday-diary ak (when I was in high school I was writing diaries). In fact, I used adiay papemelroti nga journal  (the Papemelroti journal – a long-standing Filipino stationery/paper company) which I would like to figure nu adda da pay idiay balay agitoy nga journal (if I still have those diaries at the house) and I know one of my dreams before ket (is) to graduate at the top of my college and deliver my speech ta mandiak nga nakapag-speech idi high school graduation ko (because I didn’t get a chance to deliver my speech during my high school graduation). And you know what happened!

I recently started a journal again and we’ll see how it goes. Ngem kunada (But people say) if you have dreams they have to be very specific, which you should include (what, when you would like to achieve it and how you would like to get it).

Ok…that’s it for now.

Write them down.

- A. M. S.