16 Funny Things To Ponder About Living in the 21st Century

 1.  The one thing that unites all human beings on the internet, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside we ALL hope that our friends/network will click that "Like" button on our Facebook status.. 

2. There is a very fine line between “Facebook,” "Twitter" and “mental illness.” 

3. The most powerful force in the internet and the whole universe, is gossip. 

4. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one Filipino policeman who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that policeman is crazy. 

5. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she’s gaining weight. 

6. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why your company has not achieved, and never will achieve, its goals, targets or implement plans for salary increase, that word would be “meetings.” 

7. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests and rallies is to annoy people who are not in them. 

8. If God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will NOT use, as His messenger, that guy on IBC 13, wearing red suit with fake smile who wants to be Philippine President. 

9. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. 

10. You should not confuse your LIFE with career and money. 

11. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the fastfood waiters and salesladies, is not a nice person. 

12. Your friends love you, don't doubt that. 

13. Friends come and go, that's normal. If your enemies is accumulating - that's abnormal

14. Nobody cares if you can’t sing well in a videoke bar. Just get up and sing.. 

15. The battle of the sexes ended a few decades ago, too many already betrayed their own and joined the other side. 

16. A man usually feels better after a few winks, especially if she winks back.

Comments, Thoughts? Any additional points to ponder you might want to add?

Are you living your life as an adventure?

I consider my life as a continuous adventure of risk-taking, contentment and successes. But it wasn’t always that way. During high school, I sensed that there was something bigger in life – something exciting and fulfilling – but I didn’t know how to go about getting it. Growing up in a small town in Occidental Mindoro where the norm was waiting for the day to be over, I strive to have a different way of life. I try my best to be an achiever – salutatorian of my high school class, a full government scholar during college and now striving to finish Graduate school. I’m not trying to brag here, it’s just that I thought that worldly success alone would bring me what I am searching for.

But after seven years of working as an employee, I have to face the hard truth that I am not on the journey I wished and planned. Though my work was sometimes exciting, I still wasn’t living life as an adventure. I always dreamed of being a professional mountaineer, a fiction book author, professional photographer and a teacher with a PhD. However, life doesn’t always go how we wanted it to be.

Sometimes, when I lazily wake up every morning, forcing myself to work, I had these funny thoughts, with a flash of miserable lucidity, that I was just fooling myself, but I did nothing. And for many years, I did nothing but drift. Like a driven leaf, I just do everything expected or demanded of me.

The deterioration of our ambitions

I remembered a phrase by a poet or maybe a Greek philosopher I read somewhere, something like “He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.” I was a mass of aspirations and dreams unacted on, of fantasies as unreal as those that awed me during childhood which was mostly spent in the farms. I always wanted to go somewhere, to travel the world perhaps, but suddenly I found myself paralyzed in a rut at the age of twenty-nine – making payments on an apartment room, receiving bonuses – (sometimes at the mercy of the management), going from my boarding house to office, to gym and back to house, going to occasional barkada out-of-town trip but mostly just imagining luxury vacations, daydreaming, escaping through books, blogging and surfing the net.

Working life itself was routine and habit: morning rush, breakfast at the office pantry, check e-mails, morning work routine, buying lunch at Lola Payat and Lola Simangot’s carinderia (that’s the name we gave to our nearby office carinderia), exchanging jokes about sex, clitorology and gossips at lunch, afternoon work routine and a quick barkada chismis before leaving office. Office friendships was surely based on that dismal reality which cost us nothing to share the workplace and life’s irony with which we viewed the mediocrity of our lives and the deterioration of our ambitions. In a company, where there is no such thing as internal career advancement but merely a training ground, we see in the other the mirror of our insufficiency. With identical correctness, we carried out our duties as employees, always voicing out the overwhelming sarcasm of our conversations - blaming HR, attacking Healthcare policies, complaining about unjustified salaries, etc. – but always never intended for a true complaint (maybe that’s how the corporate world works).

The curious case of Mang Frank

I remember Mang Frank (may he rest in peace). Funny old guy, started as a Recruitment Assistant, served a forced retirement (still in the same position) after serving almost half of his working years in this company and died broke the following year. I imagine him telling me, while sitting in front of his favorite old noisy typewriter: “Don’t get stuck in this rut, don’t let what happened to me happen to you, get out while you can – don’t cave in!”

I am hired in this company as his replacement but I actually avoided him on his last few weeks because I was so bored with the tedium of his increasingly disjointed stories, his detailed account of the intrigues and tricks he was victim of in the office and his very detailed sexual escapades. The years went by, I am just thankful I am not in that position anymore but still in the same group of companies. I go to work every morning, pay my monthly bills and trying to stretch the money till the end of every month, which is not always successful – life of a typical bachelor eh? So I was considering looking for a second job to have more savings. In this way I will not give up all the plans that seemed so courageous when I started working: preparing myself for a better career, say, university professor or researcher in some institute. But I didn’t have the time or the will, and my free evenings got away from me without me noticing.

I know what the ghost of Mang Frank would say: “What are you doing? Why haven’t you got out of here? How many more years are you going to take it?”

Once in a while I did go somewhere, but most of the time things doesn’t always go as planned. There are always set-backs and a lot of things to consider.

Life as an Adventure – One step at a time

Then it hit me. This is the adventure. This. This up and down, success and failure, back and forth – all of it is the adventure. All the time that I was looking for what I want, I was learning what it was to live a life of adventure. It wasn’t about being perfect, doing things right, receiving big salary, getting rich and having wild success with no downside. It was risking decisions, stumbling and falling short of my expectations as well as enjoying and building on my own successes.

As the famous Filipino salawikain said, “Habang maiksi ang kumot, matuto kang mamaluktot. Kung mahaba na at malapad saka na mag-unat unat” [Refers to situations when resources are scarce, one should learn to be thrift and adapt].  

My adventure was really just beginning – I’ll just have to take it, one step at a time.

 
P.S.
How about you, are you living your life as an adventure?
Are you satisfied and happy with your current situation?

Please share your personal thoughts on the Comments section below.                   

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Image credit: Desperation by Antonina

Sick Cycle

If shame had a face, I think it would kind of look like mine. If it had a home, would it be in my eyes? Would you believe me if I said I am tired of this, well, here we go, now one more time,

I tried to climb your steps, I tried to chase you down, I tried to see how low I could get to down to the ground, I tried to earn my way, I tried to change this mind.

You better believe that I tried to beat this. When will this end, it goes on and on. Over, and over, and over again. Keep spinning around I know it won't stop, till I step down from this for good.

I never thought I'd end up here, I never thought I'd be standing where I am, I guess I kind of thought it would be easier than this, I guess I was wrong, now one more time.

This is a sick cycle carousel
This is a sick cycle carousel

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Sick Cycle Carousel Lyrics - Lifehouse

Power Shift – Forget Trying Hard

My insecurity activated my doubt and began to wonder why I was here. The internal dialogue kicked-in as I began to convinced myself I should stop being on this situation, on this battle against my own self and cut these series of wrong decisions.

I was listening to myself and realize the enormity of my faults.

I asked myself why I was here and what did I want to create or make happen. Am I on the wrong job, in wrong relationship, in a wrong track? As I wait for the answers, I felt tired.

I am riding the sick-cycle-carousel again – it is killing an important part of me, slowly… slowly, until all is gone, inflicting the terrible pain after the fun.

Luckily I got the answer – FORGET TRYING HARD : this will allow life to shift around me.

What I allow myself to focus on is what I tend to see transpire in my life. Therefore the question I must continuously ask myself is, "do I want more of this in my
life? -- if the answer which comes back to me is anything short of an resounding "YES!" then I need to shift my thinking to focus more on what I do want to see happen in my life.

Awareness and knowing when my thoughts are no longer serving to move me in the direction of the goals I have set for myself is an important part of getting back into alignment, back to the place & doing those ongoing actions which are required of me to see my dreams through to completion.

My 15 Minutes Love Affair

"Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end."
“You're Beautiful” – James Blunt

A girl of twenty-three, I assume, steps in into the MRT train, Boni Station. My random rumination about life suddenly came into a halt. I suddenly put aside my worries about being late today for my 2 o’clock class, in fact, I don’t care about my terrible professor anymore. The gales of laughter from the few passengers, which annoys me a while ago, suddenly vanished. There’s a miraculous silence on that MRT couch, or maybe it’s my heart that stopped beating.

She is dressed in the uniform of a nursing student. It is white like lonely starlight shining at dawn. She has let her long black hair down to brush it, and stirs languidly in the occasional aircon breeze. The cold artificial light of the MRT makes her face glow like the face of Lady Arwen Undómiel, the elf princess in the Lord of the Rings, so beautiful and mysterious.

She hides behind a thick medical book for a moment, concentrated on it with her bowed head. Then she lowers the book, inhales deeply and scanned the empty MRT seats – gradually revealing her high cheeks, her perfect little nose, the fantastic sculpture of her lips, and teeth, white and fetchingly crooked, barely visible. Her deadly chinita eyes instantly killed me. Dead on the spot.

She is smiling. (Or that is what I thought.)

Then she caught my eyes, “Oh my gums” I know that staring to a girl is rude, but I can’t help myself, and this is my way of saying – “Jesus H. Christ, you’re goddamn beautiful do you know that?”

And she’s fucking smiling back at me – (or that is what I thought, again)

And she goes back in her deep thought – alone in her own world, sad but contended. I suppose, she’s the type of girl that is free, highly opinionated and outrageous but tamed by the nuns of a strictly Catholic school.

“Ding! Taft Avenue station!, taft avenue station!... this is the last station….,” – announced by the automatic and lifeless voice. For the first time, I felt like MRT train is moving so fast like a light.

Then the commotion of all sorts of people ensued. With that avalanche of people – I lost her. Back to reality again – with all these uncaring-always-in-hurry people trying to fit in on this almost dead city.

The memory of her face goes directly to my heart. I want to hug her. I want to understand her. I want to love her... (music please..)

Knock! Knock! wake up and stop dreaming you ugly farmer!

Ok ok, yeah I know, I know - most of my wishes are impossible.

A King-Size Bed As A Reward for Patience & Diplomacy

This event happened last November 16, 2008. I always remember this event in our Boarding House whenever I am in my room so I guess it is worth posting even if its about two months ago.
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One lazy Sunday afternoon while I was taking my luxury nap, I heard a loud hammering outside my room. Irritated because it woke me up, I grudgingly inquire what was happening, and to my horror, I found out that somebody was demolishing my room. Thanked heavens, I managed to keep my temper and diplomatically inquire as to what the hell is he doing?

I remembered that Ms. N., our new house caretaker cum mistress of the owner, informed me that my room would be demolished by the end of the month – suppose to be on the 30th of November, which gives me enough time to pack my things. The previous caretaker, the niece of the owner with a dysfunctional family, was so infuriated by the idea that the owner decided to give full control of the house to his mistress. So Mrs. L., the niece and adopted daughter of the owner, together with her husband Mr. E. – who depends on his wife to feed himself and his son and still living with his mother, was so enraged over the owner’s decision and decided to ransack the whole house. What happened next was a real chaos. They get all the things that they think was their property: from a simple cloth hanger, electric fans, furniture, light bulbs and yes including my room. They said that they installed it, so they must demolish it.

I do understand their rage because that means, now without the house, they have to work hard to earn a living. Unlike before, they will just longingly wait for the 15th and 30th of the month to collect the rent and have their regular drinking session – that is five times a week, believing that that was normal and that they are not yet alcoholic.

Out of their desperation, Mr. E. decided that end of November was too long and decided demolishing my room right at that lazy Sunday while I was taking my luxury cold afternoon nap.

Goddamn it! I know my right. I am religiously paying the monthly rent and they still have my one-month advance payment and one-month cash deposit. They cannot treat me like I am an illegal squatter. I decided to talk to both of them but Mr. E, obviously because of so much anger will not listen to reason and logic. So I insist on talking to the owner, which is by the way staying in the United States.

Anyway, I know Ms. N. is in constant communication with the owner via online webcam – making her an online mistress. So I immediately knock on her room. When she opened the door, I said Hey! Mr. E. is demolishing my room! I want to talk to the owner! To my relief, the owner Mr. J. was online at that moment and she immediately asked me to sit down in front of her webcam and talk to Mr. J. Out of the confusion Ms. N didn’t even closed those porn sites before letting me use her pc. While I was talking to the owner, I can still hear those oohhh! harder baby harder, ahhhh! – because, oh my gums! she was watching a porn video while chatting with the owner when I knocked on her room. Under the active chat window of Mr. J and me are nude pictures in action and partially hidden in the screen is the porn video with an ongoing orgy, in action like acrobats. What d’ fu*# is this girl doing in the middle of the afternoon while the crazy Mr. E is demolishing my room? It gave me terrible goosebumps, but my concern that time was some clarifications about my rights.

The owner promised me that they will install a much better room for me and asked me if I’m willing to temporarily stay in the bedspacer’s room. I agreed because I will only be staying there for two or three weeks and besides it's time that I should know the other new boarders and expand my circle of influence.

In the end, everything goes back to normal. I have a brand new room now. Very comfortable. Very convenient because they even included a small lababo inside the room. And the most important thing is that Mr. J. let me used his king sized bed just for me. Living a nice bachelor's life eh. A-huh, that's right, living single, independent and free in my own room.

Well, life is really getting better. I realized that diplomacy and patience is necessary to get the most out of a terrible and confusing situation.

We should also not try to talk to those people that we know will not listen to reason. Always talk to the right person and never try to argue to the angry one.