The Game called LOVE [thoughts about letting go part 2... and moving on =)]

Sometimes in our relentless efforts to find the person we love, we fail to recognize and appreciate the people who love us. We miss out on so many beautiful things simply because we allow ourselves to be enslaved by our own selfish concerns. Go for the man of deeds not for the man of words, for you will find rewarding happiness not with the man you love but with the man who loves you more. The best lovers are capable of loving each other from a distance---far enough to allow each other to grow, but never too far to make you feel that you have to let go of each other. This doesn't mean you have to stop loving. It only means that you allow that person to find his own happiness. Letting go is not just setting the person free, but it is also setting yourself free from all the fear that are kept in your heart.

Do not let the bitterness rare away your strength and weaken your faith, and never allow the pain to dishearten you. Rather, it should make you stronger. We can all survive with just all of the beautiful memories of the past but real peace and happiness comes only with an open acceptance of what reality is nowadays.

There comes a time in our lives when we chance upon someone so nice and we just find ourselves attracted to that person. This feeling soon becomes a part of our everyday lives and eventually consumes our thoughts and actions. The sad part of it is when we begin to realize that the feelings he might have for you is just too far from how you loved him.

We start our effort to get noticed and be closer to that person but in the end our efforts are still unrewarded and we end up being sorry for ourselves. You don't have to be bitter for love. What you need is to accept the verdict of reality without being bitter and sorry for yourself. Believe me... you would be better off giving that dedication and love to someone more deserving.

However, if a person really loved you once, even after a hundred years, there will still be some of the love left no matter how much that person denies it.

Don't let your heart run your life. Be sensible and let your mind speak for itself. Listen not only to your feelings but to reasons as well. Always remember that if you lose someone, a better one is coming tomorrow, and if you lose love, that doesn't mean that you failed in love. Cry if you have to, but make sure that the tears will wash away the hurt and the bitterness that the past has left you.

Let go of yesterday and love will find its way back to you. And when it does, pray that it may be the love that will stay and last a lifetime. When you lose someone and you think you were the one who loved most between the two of you, he lost more. For someday you can love someone that way that you loved him but HE WILL NEVER BE LOVED AGAIN THE WAY THAT YOU DID. =)

xoxo

Living a Life in the City

Being independent from other people brings so much fulfillment to me. I live in a city away from my parents, away from family, away from people whom I can depend on. I pay my own rent and internet bills, buy my own meals, explore on my own. Well of course, sometimes I ask for an extra cash from d-a-d-d-y (*chuckles) when i have nothing left.

My father told me to save from my salary, God knows how much I tried to do that. But then I think I just got so used to being provided with money weekly for my allowance when I was a student. I never saved anything at all. Now I'm almost broke, but still surviving.

Then I watched Ugly Betty again. It really opens up my mind. It gives me so much lesson that now, I've been thinking about the money I spent on things that were not really important. Like splurging on clothes and shoes whenever I get my paycheck. I usually buy at the ukay but I really SPLURGE. I spend too much than I can afford. And then I think of how many of those clothes didn't really look good on me when it's time to use them already. How many of them just end up being on my closet for a very long time then to anyone else who looks better with those clothes on them. How many of those shoes just end up being so dusty in my shoe cabinet until they finally wear off even if I only used each of them once.

I become so generous whenever I have a lot of money in my pocket. I treat friends to dinner or bars just so I could prove to them that, "Hey! I'm so young yet I have a lot of my OWN money to spend!" when in fact, the next day, I would end up eating noodles because I would need to be careful with spending for the next couple of days or so.

I have been receiving paychecks for more than a year now but my bank account says 131.72.

Sometimes we enjoy being independent so much that we don't care anymore. We don't care how we utilize (if we really do so) our independence, we don't care what we do because WE ARE ALREADY INDEPENDENT. But being independent doesn't just mean freedom to do whatever we want to do. It's more like discovering and learning more.

Independence teaches us how to handle our lives so that we become ready when we have to live alone without our parents to run to when we run out of cash or when we have huge problems. It should make us more responsible when making decisions, from deciding which things are really important to spend money on, to realizing that it's not really easy to live by yourself.

Experience is a really good teacher. Most people don't understand things until they are in that situation. My experiences while living in the city independently taught me a whole lot of new things. Starting with saving money, then doing my own laundry, cooking meals for myself, budgeting my money so that I could pay the bills.

It's never been easy to be on your own most specially if you grew up with pampering from your parents. But in one way or another, you need to take more responsibility so that it would be less of a shock for you when the time comes that you have to stand on your own.

xoxo

A Lesson From Betty Suarez

Sometimes, when we want something really bad, we forget that there are other people involved. We just get stuck in our own little world and it doesn't matter what other people feel... except that it DOES matter.

I just finished watching Ugly Betty season 3, episode 4 and I'm waiting for episode 5 to load properly so I decided to share what I just learned from Betty Suarez.

She's right. That statement from her above is so true. We always want something. That's human nature. It's not bad. It only makes us strive even harder to get that something. It makes us stronger, it makes us more determined. We learn to fight, we learn to wait, to hope. All these good things it can bring to us.

But bad things it can bring to other people? Along the way of working so hard just to get that thing that we desire the most, some people are hurt. Maybe we know that, but we just tend to, intentionally or not, not care.

Like when loving someone so much. When you lose someone you really love, you do everything just to make him/her come back. You do all the crazy and evil stuff you didn't even think you could actually do. You just do EVERYTHING. Unknowingly (or knowingly), there are people that are hurt with your desire to be happy. Of course it's not bad to fight for your happiness. But how about fairness?

I've been so much hurt because some people are happy with what and who they have. And I have hurt people because I also wanted to be happy, to stop the hurting. I was really selfish. I'm sure we all are at some point. But at the end of the day, it's always best to do what's right. It will surely hurt you for a while. But after sometime, you'll realize that it's such a relief to let go of everything that's been hurting you and other people. Maybe it wasn't just really for you. Maybe it was not just your REAL happiness. You just thought that it was.

Somewhere along your way, you'll find what really makes you happy. And if this really makes you happy, you'll enjoy every single pain that it will bring you.Remember life's not all about laughter. It's a package--pain and sorrow come with it.

xoxo

thoughts about letting go of someone

Isn't it sad that in our lives, we're sometimes forced to say goodbye to the person we love and care about the most for there are reasons we're powerless to explain? Because no matter how we try to save the good old times and salvage the little feelings we have left, all ends just refuse to meet. And the only right thing to do is to break away and let go, to show your beloved just how much pain you are willing to take just to make him/her so damn happy.

If you know in your heart that you can never be someone's happiness, all you have to do is to pretend that you're okay until you understand God's point that you are destined to be the happiness of someone else who's BETTER. Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long. Of course, it's not wrong to miss the person you had before, it's just a proof that you're a good person in a way that you still care for him/her even if THEY LEFT YOU HANGING.

Oprah once said, "Leaving a love you've suddenly outgrown can be heartbreaking, but it also shows you're strong enough to walk away from a relationship that no longer makes you happy. Movin' out of your comfort zone can be downright scary but it also proves just how brave you are to take on the unknown. Stronger, braver, wiser. You always do a little GROWING UP everytime you do a little LETTING GO."

xoxo

ARTICLE 3, SECTION 4 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution

Time to refresh your consti knowledge (if you EVER have it). Read carefully, don’t hurt yourself too much understanding this, a’ight? =D Let me know if you need help, I would gladly lend a hand.

"No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances."

Therefore, if no law is allowed to abridge, or to make it easier for you, CURTAIL… oh sorry, that’s even more painful for your brain, how about REDUCE? or SHORTEN, or PROHIBIT… use the dictionary if you still can’t understand. =P Anyway, as I was saying, there’s no way to prohibit someone from having the freedom to express his or herself. Blog is a medium where people could express themselves. There is no law against that now, is there? And you are not higher than any law to stop people from posting whatever they want to on their blogs, are you? Post on your blogs, I don’t really mind. I’ll post on my blogs, you mind, and guess what… I DON’T CARE. As I’ve said, LOVE IT, HATE IT. JUST BE SURE YOU REALLY USED YOUR BRAIN CELLS TO UNDERSTAND IT.

xoxo

'The Art of Letting Go'

If it takes great courage to stand and fight for something, sometimes, it takes even greater courage to just walk away and leave things behind… and it’s never been easy.

Sometimes, we just have to let go of someone who matters to us not because we have to but because it’s the right thing to do. Let us remember that we can‘t force anyone to love us. We can’t beg someone to stay when he wants to leave and be with someone else. This is what love is all about. However, the end of love is not the end of life. It should be the beginning of understanding that love leaves for a reason, and with a lesson.

"It's sad when people you know become people you knew. When you walk right past someone like they were never a big part of your life. How you used to be able to talk for hours and now you can barely even look at them."

Saddest part of letting someone on his own way...hurts more, when he goes his way with somebody else and not with you. still you continue to love and hope, even if it means walking behind them, waiting for that somebody else to make a turn so you can be there, again, walking with him, this time...hopefully...until the end.

xoxo

The Rain Man: Understanding Them

It’s really hard to talk. But it’s definitely harder to listen. It’s already difficult to communicate with someone who doesn’t understand the language you speak. However, with the resources that we can use nowadays, we can just look for the translation of that foreign language. But then, how hard is it to communicate with someone who definitely speaks the same language that you do yet he still can’t understand what you are saying? No matter how hard you try to explain, he still doesn’t understand and what’s more frustrating is that you have no idea how you could make him understand because there is no translation for the “language” that he uses? Having very good listening skills is gift. The problem is, not all people are given this kind of gift. Being able to “listen” and understand the verbal and non-verbal cues of a person is something that not all people can do. One of those people who just can’t is Charlie Babbit (Tom Cruise).

The movie The Rain Man (1988) showed the reality about autism. Charlie Babbit was a typical 1980’s yuppie who didn’t really know the meaning of listening. He always wanted people to listen to him yet he never listened to the people around him. Instead, he would even talk them down and most of the time, he would even end up yelling at them as if his being so domineering was not yet enough to offend. When his father died, he was left with the vintage car that he had always wanted to have and some rosebushes while the rest of his father’s assets (amounting up to $3, 000, 000) were left to an unknown beneficiary. He then went to find out who that beneficiary was and to his surprise, it was his autistic brother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), who he didn’t even know existed. Having so much anger for his father’s decision (and his father himself as well), and thinking that he deserved the same inheritance that Raymond received, Charlie decided to kidnap his brother from the institution where he has been taken care of since their mother died when Charlie was two years old.

During the times when the brothers were together, Charlie experienced, for the first time, how it was to be ignored and to be taken for granted when talking. And of course, for once, he learned how to listen. For the first time, he learned to “accept another human being for what he is, and work ‘with’ his bewildering methods of communication rather than against them.”

So later on, Charlie gave no more importance to the money that he wanted to have. He learned to love and care for Raymond already.

Somehow, Charlie learned how to communicate with his brother though they had very different orientations. Take for example their concept of “schedule.” Charlie grew up with “normal” people like him who understand that it’s okay to deviate from one’s routine if necessary while Raymond has been living his entire life with his 11 PM-sleeping time, Tuesday-is-Pancake day, “Jeopardy” watching habit, and so on. At first, Charlie would always have things on his way—he could cancel anything if he wanted to, he could reverse whatever it was that he already said, he could just ignore whatever the people around him tell him and just go on with his own will. However, when he started spending an entire day with Raymond, he also started cancelling flights to Los Angeles when he really needed to be there for his business just because Raymond wouldn’t want to get on the plane and started driving for almost three days from Ohio to LA. He started to understand.

Just like in real life, we tend to have miscommunication with people around us who have different ways of seeing things. This usually happens when the person we are talking to was raised on a different culture from ours. Most of the time, it’s just human nature that we feel more superior than the others and that what we think or what we practice is what’s right.

I had a very personal experience about this one. Whenever I and my boyfriend were in a fight because of his fault, it would always last for so long just because he would not say “sorry.” As I grew up in my family, we were taught of the importance of apologizing even for just a very minor wrongdoing. My father would always say, “Always apologize whenever you do something wrong because it is not good that someone hates you for something. It’s always better to be in good terms with everybody.” On the other hand, my boyfriend didn’t exactly know how important apologizing was for me. So at first, when we didn’t know each other that much yet, I would always wait for him to approach me and apologize but I would just wait for nothing. I started wondering then if he really loved me or of he really cared for me. Until we had a very huge fight that I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and I exploded out with so much anger about that attitude of his. That’s when I found out that he was not used to apologizing because he was never really brought up the way that I was. His concept of apologizing was when he would be quiet and wait for me to talk to him first. That was not a very usual way, was it? So since we found out about that difference between us, we started adjusting. As a matter of fact, we are now on our 29th month.

Sometimes we just need to take time and be considerate of other people. Sometimes we have to give less attention or importance to out own beliefs and norms and try to think outside the box. Most of the time we are so insensitive that we only think of our own beliefs to be the only righteous ones when in fact, ours are also wrong for other people who live in a very different setting from where we live in.

It is already difficult to communicate with someone who can speak but has a different perception with yours. Then it is much more difficult to communicate with people who have problems with speaking, or those who can’t even speak. Most of the time, we tend to misinterpret their actions and the same thing happens to them. Because they don’t understand fully the manner of how we communicate, they also misinterpret us. We can’t blame them of course. It wasn’t their fault anyway to be born or to grow up that way.

Actually, I think that we should be thankful for these kinds of people. Some people might see them as burden or useless but if we look closely, we can see that they contribute huge things to the people they live with. Their family, relatives, caregivers, and friends learn from them the value of understanding, sensitivity, and patience. It’s definitely not easy to take care of someone who has a condition like Raymond but everyone changes their attitude whenever they come to be with people like Raymond. Take Charlie for instance who changed so much since he had his brother in custody.

Communicating with people who have speech defects needs an extra dose of patience and understanding. One has to be very sensitive and considerate in order to know what that person really wants to convey. “Normal” people like us need to understand that for their kind, we are “not normal.”


xoxo

Taking Chances with the Online Thingy

I've always been addicted to online income-generating stuff. From pay-to-click (PTC) sites, to online surveys, to google adsense, and now, to oDesk, an online "job marketplace" where one can apply to thousands of available jobs or make his or her very own company and hire workers.
I started in oDesk last February 2009 and got hired for my first job as a Business Opportunities Advertisement Summarizer for $2.02 per hour. It was a really great opportunity for someone like me who had no idea at all what oDesk was all about.
Then I got hired for my second job as a telemarketer for an electronic modules company in the USA for $2.00 per hour. It was the start of my "career." More job opportunities and interview invitations arrived at my oDesk inbox. I had, and is still having, my third job, again as a telemarketer for a website company in Australia this time for $2.50 per hour. Another job came in, as a blogger for one's website for $2.00 per hour. I had all these three jobs at the same time, all from the comfort of my bedroom. I can work while in my pajamas, while lying in bed, while watching Gossip Girl DVD at the same time (with volume really very low of course), or while updating my Facebook account. No boss, no pressure, no need to worry for the proper "office attire."
I resigned from my full-time job as an Online English Teacher just this month. I knew it was a very risky decision but then it was the risky one that I had to take. I couldn't guarantee to myself that I would still be able to pay my house rent or my internet connection even just with oDesk. I still have two weeks left now before the effectivity of my resignation but I can't back out anymore. I thought I would regret that I did that. But as early as now, I can see that I made the right decision. I would be earning from oDesk twice what I'm getting from a 9-hour-with-boss-have-to-leave-the-house job.
It's not easy at first, but patience is really a virtue. Here's what I earned for last week at oDesk:

yes, $24.83 for only 10 hours

I know it seems to be a little or low. But it's a good start, right?

Click the banner below to get started with your own account and immediately apply for jobs!

xoxo

A Cinderella Story

I am not a fan of waiting. I never really am. Well, for a couple of times I actually was. Like waiting along the line when I have to get my subjects during enrollment or when I wait for the start of my favorite program on the television. Those are just pretty small things to be waited for. I have never really done some serious waiting in my whole life… not until this guy came, and he made me wait until I just got used to it. When I first saw the movie A Cinderella Story where Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray paired up, I thought that it was just one of those almost-for-teens-only-high-school-life-slash- love-story movies. It was a story about Sam (Duff), who lost his father at a young age and was left to her cruel stepmother who had two evil daughters. Sam, under the codename princetongirl, had been exchanging e-mails with a Nomad, who turned out to be Austin Aimes (Murray), the most popular guy in their school. So, Austin, without knowing who princetongirl really is, asked Sam to meet him at the Homecoming dance. To cut the story short, their meet ended up without Austin knowing princetongirl’s real identity and when he found out the truth, he could not accept it first. Her confrontation with Austin inside the locker room was one of the best parts (better watch it). So in the end, Sam and Austin ended up well together. I never really paid attention to the message of the story. I kept watching it over again because I thought, with that cute movie, that was what an ordinary teenager, like me, would do. Then I finally got its message—“never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” That was the exact quote from the movie. But behind these words, the message was simple—do not be afraid of showing who you really are. Believe in yourself and stand up for your beliefs. Do not allow anybody to have control over your life. Anyway, I loved one part of the movie. Sam quoted a very attention-grabbing sentence while confronting Austin in the locker room—“…because waiting for you, is like waiting for the rain in this drought, useless and disappointing.” This quote grabbed my attention and then I remembered the guy that I was talking about earlier. I don’t wanna mention his name so let’s just call him Dude. Dude and I had something very wonderful. We planned our future together. Everything was almost perfect. I was so in love with him that the thought of our relationship having a problem did not occur to me. We were together for six months and on the sixth month, he had to go out of the country for over a year with his parents. Even if I did not want us to part, I had no choice but to let him go. So, he left me with a promise that he will come back for me and that he loves me so much. I also made a promise that I will wait for him no matter what. With that, I accepted the fact that we had to part. Almost a month after he left, I found out that he left another girl here in the country. Dude and this girl had the same relationship that Dude and I had. But to my surprise, their relationship started two months before he left. I was still his girlfriend then. It broke my heart so much. It took me a very long time, as long as two years, that is until now, to move on. Even though he did not keep his promise within those two years, I still thought that maybe he’ll keep it next year, or ten years from now. As for me, my promise to him remains intact. I told myself that I would never give up waiting for him until I see him getting married. He was the only guy that made my heart beat fast and slow at the same time. I loved him so much and until now, I think I still do. I get hurt whenever I look at their (Dude and the girl) pictures in the internet. I mean, why are they happy after they’ve hurt me? Why can’t I be that girl? Then, I saw the movie… and I realized, how long am I gonna wait for him? If I continue waiting for him, will he be there in the end? If I keep my promise, will he do as well? Will he come back to me? Will hestill love me? Does he still love me right now as I write this? I kept on thinking about him and each day that passes never ends without me thinking of him. I want to keep on shouldering on. I do not want to give up this fight. I want to raise a family with him one day and I just want to look back from the future to where I sit now and just smile at everything that we have gone through. I want to continue loving him… But I cannot do any of these without him. I am not tired of loving him, but I am tired of waiting for him. Because waiting for him is like waiting for the rain in the drought—useless and disappointing.