24 Hours

I can’t believe how fast time flies, and like I always say —- Time should really get a speeding ticket, y’know. I think time goes faster when you’re older. Every year seems to go by faster than the previous one. And I wish there was a way to pack more hours into the day. Like a Day Booster pack perhaps, where you can choose the number of hours you need to add on, like a 6-hr or a 12-hr boost to your current 24 (where you accumulate points if you buy frequently and 10 points = 1 bonus hour)…I’m gushing. Won’t that be nice? That will be the day.

But God made the day with 24 hours. If you think about it, it is a perfect, beautiful and unquestionable design. It is us humans who screw it up with all our worldly matters.


John Burrough is right when he said, “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
But should we really panic? Should our desire to do things dictate the number of hours in a day we should get? Or should we let the 24-hr day dictate the amount of things we should CHOOSE to do?

My day is always packed with so many things to do: my daily responsibilities at work and at home, so many overflowing ideas needing execution (for my own sanity that is), some extra jobs here and there — sometimes I can’t even find where my head is, books I want to read, paperwork to accomplish, bills to pay, Facebook (duh!) yadadada yadadada…and then there are people to call like my parents back home (and I usually save that for last when I’m about to doze off which is sad because they only get half of me — half has already been beamed up to dreamland).

Today though, I decided to abandon everything in mid-air (including the TV show I try to watch regularly) and headed straight to calling my folks back home early. I enjoyed my conversation with my mom and dad like I always do. But what will forever be engrained in my memory as part of the most wonderful and beautiful conversations with my father is everytime we talked about the piano pieces that he is currently learning (he still strives to learn so many new ones at 73). Because he always tries to sing the tune to me — or hum it when it doesn’t have the words. He did it again today. And even whistled. Whistled!

I always try to join in as much as I can even if I’m off-key. Because I wanted to do my part in creating the special moment. Scheming, am I not! I don’t know if he was doing it on purpose to create a moment with me too. Knowing my dad? Maybe! Or maybe it was just a pure and spontaneous and unadulterated expression of love and bond even if we are thousands of miles apart. Because we are thousands of miles apart.

I’m grateful that I decided to dump my ”To Do” madness for the day. I’m glad I went straight to letting God’s beautiful design come into fruition, and just let the day be what it is, and what it should be made of. Precious. Priceless.


PS.
By the way, I slept soundly. And I thought I even heard some whistling in my dreams.

PPS. http://teacher-c.blog.friendster.com/2007/02/i-love-my-mom/

Living A Life That Matters

This is Rex Barker, CS (Choosing Substantiality over superficiality ) reminding you to "Choose to live a life that matters."


Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance. It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear. So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to do lists will expire.


The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away. It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end. It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought but what you built, not what you got but what you gave. What will matter is not your success but your significance. What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.


What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage, or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example. What will matter is not your competence but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone. What will matter is not your memories but the memories that live in those who loved you. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

This is Rex Barker, CS (Choosing Substantiality over superficiality ) reminding you to "Choose to live a life that matters."

A Reason, A Season, A Lifetime

My heart was still reveling in the joyous moment of finding Eve and Caroline on Facebook when another pleasant surprise came escorted by a soft digital beep on my phone which I’m now slowly getting used to. You see, I just recently downloaded the Yahoo messenger app on my iPhone for the sole purpose of being able to chat with my mom whose online presence continues to spread as her newly found internet skills develop. It has been about 4 years since I practically stopped chatting with people, abandoning a used to be over-used account that now lay dormant for years. I was hesitant at first but went ahead anyway. The messenger pulled up an old list of chatmates and usernames of old friends (oh, flood of memories…do little reminders from a certain point in your life do that to you too?) I wanted to see how that app worked and so I clicked on an old acquaintance whose name had the only yellow online dot at that time.

LONGSTORYSHORT,

I was at a Chinese store buying dimsum for our weekend trip downsouth to visit my stepdaughter and her mom, stepdad and lil sis (I always look forward to seeing the entire fam), when I got a response on my YM. MERVIN.

MERV… Aaah, life!

It brought a smile to my face. An old friend. You know, like one of those people who become significant for a VERY “short” period of time in your life — short, because you mutually don’t really have that much to hold on to in order for things to stay as is.  The kind of person who is suddenly there, and also suddenly not there but parting doesn’t really weigh you down and you don’t cling to it as if you want to live the moments over and over. Instead, you tuck it in a compartment in your heart labeled “Happy Memory” (or “Growth” whichever applies) and you don’t care if it remains sealed forever, and you don’t even remember it unless triggered by very scarce reminders. Yes, that’s the kind of person I’m talking about…the one who visits and leaves a mark — oftentimes a big change— in your life. But then you both find yourselves saying, “Bye, see you when I see you. Maybe, maybe not. Have a good life.” You’re grateful, and really really mean well.

Remember that cliche? People come into our lives for a Reason, or a Season, or a Lifetime. Merv helped me my find myself during a tumultuous time when I was a bored and unhappy prisoner of a 6-year dragging, stagnant and fruitless relationship — and didn’t even know it [REASON]. (One time, sitting across me on the table, he even picked up two pencils and showed me a very animated point — see I can’t even remember the details!) But eversince then, I knew I have recollected myself, realizing that my happiness must depend on no one, and then moving on with my life armed with the strength that I found and exactly needed. That didn’t lead to me finding the perfect answers right away. It was a mistake after another [SEASONS]. But at least I moved. His words? Or his presence?  I just needed that one person to pull me out of the rut and make me do the ever-proverbial leap of faith. Wherever it was going to take me.

And now almost a decade later, here we are. He barraged me with questions: How are you??? Where are you? What do you do now? My first answer, “Very happily married.” And he said the same thing. Happily married with two very cute babies. He proudly sent me a link to his family photos, and I also proudly sent him mine.

But tomorrow is another day. I don’t find the need to keep in touch. (The mission had been fulfilled — my iPhone YM app works! Yippy for me!) And I’m sure he won’t either. We’ll go on with our own lives again, that’s for sure. Happy and busy with our own good lives, destinies, and the two very special people we chose for our own LIFETIME. His spouse and mine!



http://teacher-c.blog.friendster.com/2005/11/happy-thoughts/

Eve and Caroline

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am. If there is one good thing that Facebook has done for me personally, I will say that it happened today. I was reunited with two special girls in my life. Two students who tried me out of my wits as a teacher some years ago, but gave me the best feelings at the end of each class day. Two girls who touched me in so many ways you can never imagine (“Teacher Clarisse, I love you more than you love me!”), escaped with me to the wonderland that was paradise for the child in me — dancing with fireflies when all we had were yellow paper dots tied to our fingers with strings and the classroom CD player. They laughed with me, cried with me, whispered little secrets in my ear. And hugged me like I was the most important person in the world — when truthfully, they were the most important people in the world, to me. So many years have passed…has it been 7 years? I’ve always wondered how they’ve been, with us spread out in our different corners of the world. Today, I got my answers. Oh how much they’ve grown! I reveled in new photos and now await more stories of their adventures following the ones we started in Kindergarten.

Eve, Caroline, this gratitude journal entry is for you!!!

My Parents

MY PARENTS.

I’m happy to receive an emailed scan of the Lifestyle page from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It’s a pleasant surprise to see my parents’ photos from a benefit. And an uncle, an auntie and some cousins there. I’m just happy to see them. Or am I grateful that they have some worthwhile activities to distract them from the unspeakable sadness brought about by us children being too far away? I hate it when an acerbic thought like that bursts my bubble, especially since my heart is always at two places at one time and my body can’t physically fulfill it. If it is only feasible, I’ll do so in a heartbeat. Everyday. So meanwhile, let me rest in the thought that I’m happy and thankful to see my folks in the papers. Although nothing beats being physically there FOR them as they grow older. (Uh-oh, here it comes again!!!)

Okay, I’ll stop right now and just bask in the moment….the “kewlness” of it. =)