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| Quick Inspirations |
| ~~ I'm not sure about a life after this... God knows I've never been a spiritual man ~~ Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river... That runs to the promised land ~~ In the middle of the night, I go walklng in my sleep... Through the desert of truth ~~ To the river so deep, we all end in the ocean... We all start in the streams ~~ We're all carried along, by the RIVER OF DREAMS... In the middle of the night |
| September 12, 2001 - email me at [email protected] |
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| Take time to read some of my favorite quotes and articles. It's worth reading to inspire you and learn values from it. |
| Give this some thought.... Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols, meanwhile at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently, he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo. Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind-opening and enriching classes but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still students took his classes for the learning and deep insights they take home with them everyday (if only they could do something about the grades...) Anyway, come grade-giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems. The highest being an A lowest a D, with F for flunk), Fr. Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn't teach at all... Calasanz got his A+. THE ARTICLE PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE by Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for that it makes possible within our lives. When I was younger, this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at the older couples and saw, at best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering days and could not i magine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate. And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence. They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritaion at the others habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other? The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages. Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side. This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together. The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept up into entangling intimacy of their sexuality. This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each others company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new. Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationship based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together. After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually, the two of you will not respect each other. Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cups of poetry and practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance does not become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood. There are many other keys, but you must find them by yourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates. So choose carefully and well.. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word. There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us, they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe. Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come. If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger. It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could belive in was the power of this passion and the fear that when it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter. But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presences, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separated, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a closure and constrictions, as I had onced feared. This is not to say that there is no tension and there are no traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamouos to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains. But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex. So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom. |
| Quick Inspirations |
| It is not easy to live sometimes and face the world with a smile when you're crying inside. It takes a lot of courage to reach down inside yourself, hold on to that strength that's still there, And know that tomorrow is a new day-with new possibilities. But if you can just hold on long enough to see this through, You'll come out a new person-stronger, with more understanding and with a new pride in yourself From knowing you made it. - Kathy Obara |
| The Mountain Story "A son and his father were walking on the mountains. Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams: "AAAhhhhhhhhhh!!!" To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain: "AAAhhhhhhhhhh!!!" Curious, he yells" "Who are you?" He receives the answer" "Who are you?" And then at the response, he screams : "Coward!" He receives the answer: "Coward!" He looks to his father and asks: "What's going on?" The father smiles and saya: "My son, pay attention." Again the man screams: "You are a champion!" The voice answers: "You are a champion!" The boy is surprised, but does not understand. Then the father explains: "People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE. It gives you back everything you say or do. Our life is simply a reflection of our actions. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence. This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life; Life will give you back everything you have given to it. "YOUR LIFE IS NOT A COINCIDENCE. IT'S A REFLECTION OF YOU!" - Unknown Author |
| When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. - Helen Keller |
| GETTING REAL by Michelle Pino 2bU! Correspondent YOUNG people are constantly seraching for happiness yet often end up frustrated. So here are nuggets of wisdom from Eastern thinkers like Confucius, Lao-Tzu and Buddha to guide young minds on their quest for individual attainment and eternal love. 1. I am who? Try telling yourself over and over again "I am just it. I am just it" until you get the feeling that you are natural, simple and plain but never unimportant. Lao-Tzu in his Taoist teachings emphasizes simple-mindedness. It's not about getting to know yourself without the particulars of your status, name of position. Get to know yourself better by keeping a reflective attitude in life. 2. I am for who? According to Confucius, an individual is not for himself or herself alone. An individual lives in a relationship with others. You can recognize your individuality by recognizing what others are for you and what you are for them. Give and take in your society, not to seek human perfection but for you to be being called human. 3. Do I see the light? Budhhism has thought its followers that all things in our world, even the whole universe, are ultimately empty. It is not for us to think of our lives, all that we do and all that we have as insignificant. They will all serve as our means, our means of acquiring enlightenment. Each and everyone of us believes that there's something beyond what we are, no matter how diverse these beliefs are. What's important is that we seek such enlightenment. 4. Where do I belong? Some people get stuck into wrong jobs or wrong marriages; as for young adults, in wrong courses or wrong set of friends because they do not know where they belong. Lao-Tzu teaches us that everything has its own place and function. Not every job is for all jobless graduates, nor does any skill apply to all kinds of work. It is a matter of consequence to know your capabilities and limitations. Recognize what's in you, and you won't have problems fitting in, working and relating accordingly 5. Am I good? Humans are basically and innately good, according to Confucius. It's just somewhere there inside of us. It is for us to cultivate personal virtues like love and honesty. Believe in it and seek goodness in you. 6. What do I desire? Ever wonder why life seems filled with sufferings and hardships? The teachings of Buddhism explain that it's because of our endless human desire for wordly matters. Our only escape from these sufferings andanguish is to desire the indescribable state of no desire known as Nirvana. Nirvana or Nirvana, it's worth a thought for us to try re-channeling our desire and wants. Why not desire something that would go beyond our physical world? 7. Am I too busy? Technologies of machines today, if not allabout speed, are all about consuming time. But ironically, more and more pre-occupied, running, always-in-a-hurry people occupy our cities even the countryside. Lao-Tzu, in contrast, teaches us to "Go, relax after the toil." Unlike monetary matters, time seems something impossible to save. So, instead of getting mixed up saving time, why not spend time wisely? Enjoy life, you deserve it. 8. Am I to think what's right? Confucius seeks every individual to prioritize moral thinking than of thinking about profits and gains. We should let our cultivated sense of values guide us to think of what is good for us, as well as for others. try giving up something that is incompatible with your set of values. It's worth the try to do what you think is morally good. 9. I know what? Taoist teachings ask us how we know what we know. It's good for us to learn from books and inside the four walls of educational institutions. It's fair enough to say that once in a while we need to go outside and let experience teach us more valuable things we need to know. Go out to nature, meet new people or visit places. 10. Nature in me? What made ancient Oriental thinking valuable to the Chinese is its orientation, connection and understanding of nature. But it's not for them alone to enrich themselves of such knowledge. In fact, original thoughts are universal ideas. We can make use of them for our own purpose and guidance. Humans are part of nature. And we have nature as a part of ourselves. |
| Footprints on the Heart: Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for a while, leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same |
| Lessons to Learn Today I will learn that true happiness is not always to achieve my goals, but to learn to appreciate with I have achieved. I will learn that I should control my attitude, and not let my attitude control me. I will learn that to be rich is not to have the most, but to need the least. I will learn that if it is futile to compare myself to others, because there is always someone better or worse than I am. I will learn that it takes years to build trust, and a few seconds to destroy it. I will learn that there are people who love me very much, but simply do not know how to show their feelings. I will learn to forgive by practising forgiveness. I will learn that I cannot make anyone love me, but learn to let myself be loved. I will learn that what is most valuable is not what I have in my life, but who I have in my life. I will learn that it only takes a few seonds to hurt people I love, and that it can take years to heal. I will learn that money can buy everything but happiness. I will learn that while at times I may be entitled to be upset, that does not give me the right to upset those around me. I will learn that true friends are scarce, and when I have found one I have found a true treasure. I will learn that it is not always important that I be forgiven by others, but that i forgive myself. I will learn that I am the master of what I keep to myself and the slaves of what I say. I will learn that happiness is a decision, and decide to be happy today with what I am and what I have have not die from envy and jealousy of what I lack. I will learn that those who are honest with themselves without considering consequences succeed in life. I will learn that I will reap what I plant; if I plant gossip I will harvest suspicion, if I plant love I will harvest happiness |
| The River of Dreams now playing... |
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| LOVE IS MAKING RISK When you think of your past love, you may view it as a failure. But when you find a new love, you view the past as a teacher. In the game of love, it doesn't really matter who won or who lost. What is important is you know when to hold on and when to let go! You know you really love someone when you want him or her to be happy, even if their happiness means that you're not part of it. Everything happens for the best. If the person you love doesn't love you back, don't be afraid to love someone else again, for you'll never know unless you give it a try. You'll never love a person you love unless you risk for love. Love strives in hurting. If you don't get hurt, you dont learn how to love. Love doesn't hurt all the time. Though the hurting is still there to test you, to help you grow. Don't find love, let love find you. That's why it's called falling in love because you don't force yourself to fall. You just fall. You cannot finish a book without closing its chapters. If you want to go on, then you have to leave the past as you turn the pages. Love is not destroyed by a single failure or won by a single caress. It is a lifetime venture in which we are always learning, discovering and growing. The greatest irony of love is letting go when you need to hold on and holding on when you need to let go. We lose someone we love only when we are destined to find someone else who can love us even more than we can love ourselves. On falling out of love, take some time to heal and then get back on the horse. But don't ever make the same mistake of riding the same one that threw you the first time. To love is to risk rejection, to live is to risk dying, to hope is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing! To reach for another is to risk involvement, to expose your feelings is to expose true self, to love is to risk not to be loved in return. How to define love: fall but do not stumble, be constant but not too persistent, share and never be unfair, understand and try not to demand, hurt but never keep the pain. Love is like a knife. It can stab the heart or it can carve wonderful images into the soul that always last for a lifetime. Love is supposed to be the most wonderful feeling. It should inspire you and give you joy and strength. But sometimes the things that give you joy can also hurt you in the end. Loving people means giving them the freedom who they choose to be and where they choose to be. For all the heartaches and the tears, for gloomy days and fruitless years, you should give thanks, for you know, that there were the things that helped you grow. Loving someone means giving him the freedom to find his way, whether it leads towards you or away from you. Love is painful risk to take but the risk must be taken no matter how scary or painful, for only then you'll experience the fullness of humanity and that is love. Only love can hurt your heart, fill you with desire and tear you apart. Only love can make you cry and only love knows why. If you're not ready to cry, if you're not ready to take the risk, if you're not ready to feel the pain, then you're not ready to fall in love. There was a time in our lives when we became afraid to fall in love 'coz every time we do, we get hurt, then I figured that's why it's called falling in love. |
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| Last Updated: September 22, 2005 |
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