Now.

“Its not hard to live through a day if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination which pretends there is a future, and insists on on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.”

— from “A Father’s Story” by Andre Dubus, quoted in “God never Blinks” by Regina Brett

….and the imagination can also be the culprit behind reliving the past, whether its looking back at painful memories or glorious times. Then again, I don’t think there is anything wrong with remembering the past. In fact, its good to look back to see where on has come from and for one to remind him/herself of lessons learned. I don’t think there is anything wrong either with envisioning a future where you reap the fruits of the seeds you plant today. Lastly, we shouldn’t take the quote as a vilification of our imagination as it is one of our greatest assets. It is where great things are born in the form of ideas.

I guess the operative word here is “INSISTS”. When our minds become too involved with the past and/or the future that we lose our focus on now. The now that will become “yesterday”. The now that will help form “tomorrow”.

I’m guilty of this. I think a number of us are. I envy those who can easy just be in the NOW with a healthy relationship with what’s past and have a healthy dose of hope for the future.

Little by little, I find more of those moments where I’m simply “right here right here right NOW”. It feels great. I feel peace flow through me. I’m grateful for those moments because sometimes, I still slip into that old habit of immersing myself in the past. It happens more often that I want it to.

Being in the now is an art that takes time to master, an art the I’m working on.

A Reminder that Actions are Born Out Of Ideas

And you can make things happen. You have made more things happen than you realize.

Here’s a little reminder that you do make it happen… and just don’t realize it…

A couple of weeks ago, you went jogging. While jogging, you though of an idea – 26 trees for my 26th year. That’s what you told yourself. You shared the idea with some people close to you. Shortly after, on the weekend before your birthday, you did it. With the help of some people in the company of a good friend, you planted 26 trees for your 26th year. It was an awesome idea. You shared the idea with other and people loved it. Now some people are considering doing the same. All it took was to act upon the idea and make it happen.

Remember this Patty when you feel like you’re not making it happen. You did, you do, and you will continue to make it happen.

A Changed Mindset

When one’s mindset has changed/deviated/moved from that of status quo, how does one stop being in the cycle of the status quo when that’s all that one has known for a long time? At the same time, after such deviation, how can one remain within the status quo and continue without feeling like he/she is betraying his/herself.

Movie Lines from my over active imagination

I’m not here to mess up your life. I’m here to fix mine.

(walk way)

Shake it up

Sometimes, you need to shake up your world a bit by following your intuition no matter how ludicrous your “logical mind” tells you it is.

It can get quite scary but its the good kind of scary. I don’t think its fear. I think its anticipation of what can happen and that uncomfortable feeling of stepping out of your comfort zone. What’s funny is, I feel more me when I get out of my comfort zone.

I have nothing against normalcy and routine but when normalcy and routine begin to kill inspiration, creativity, and your spirit, you know you gotta step out of your current state. You need a little chaos to maybe find yourself again or answer those questions that have kept you stuck in a rut in the first place .

A great article on Passion

I’m blogging this for myself… because I want to go back to this when I need to reminded about what passion is ..

I’m blogging this for you. You may need it more than I do.

I’m blogging this for all, since I believe many of us need to stop going through the motions and really listen to intuition.

Passion: The Ultimate Key to Productivity

http://gigaom.com/collaboration/passion-as-%E2%80%9Cthe-ultimate-productivity-tool%E2%80%9D/

A Pleasant Morning Taxi Ride

In Manila, its a bit rare to have a pleasant cab ride. You have dishonest drivers, run down cabs that reek, drivers that drive like lunatics and keep the radio radio on some local FM station which cracks bad humor and plays irritating music (I’m used to it. I laugh about it… but this can get very annoying)… etc. etc.

The morning was quite different.

On my way out this morning, I was hoping to find a cab right away because I didn’t want to take the long route (tricycle + shuttle + fort bus). The moment I got out of the village gate, I saw a cab heading my direction. “Oh, swerte” (oh lucky), I thought to myself. Cabs aren’t that easy to come by in that area.

A very light floral scent greeted me as I boarded the cab. It was a nice smell…not your the piercing, headache-inducing, citrus car freshener smell. The cab was very clean and tidy too. “This is nice”, I thought to myself. I told the cab driver my destination and he gave me a polite nod. After that, he turned off the FM radio and put in a CD that played hotel lobby-like music. This is rare. Normally, the cab drivers will play some local station at almost full volume… to the point that speakers were actually struggling. I’ve gotten used to it and my friends and I joke about it a lot but it can get really annoying.

To top it all off…. the driver offered me the morning paper. I was thinking,”this is for real?” Then he locked the doors and told me our route because he passed the other route and it was traffic. I said, “ok”.

We passed the back streets to avoid the morning traffic. The back streets could be quite stressful to navigate through due to the narrow roads, the kids running on the street, and the tricycles that go every which way. He just stayed relaxed and hummed along with the CD.

As we got closer to my office, I told him that I appreciated the clean cab, the music, and him offering the morning paper. And I told him thanks for the pleasant morning ride. Its not everyday I ride a cab and get treated this nicely. He said with a polite smile,”Ginagawa ko lang po trabaho ng maayos” (Just doing my job properly). I told him to keep it up.

Finally, we arrived at my destination and checked the meter. Php 90.00. If it were tampered, it would read Php 110.00 or Php 120.00. But no. It read Php 90.00.

I paid the fair plus a little extra and wished him well. It was a very pleasant surprise. I wish more cab drivers were like that.