Today is Really my Kind of Day!

Hell, yeah! I woke up at 3am... again! I can't figure out why do I suddenly jerk awake at 3 in the morning when I am tired when I go to bed and I fall asleep at the same time as usual. What is it at 3am that suddenly shakes my mind into consciousness? It's really a mystery. Sometimes I just wake up thinking of nothing then I will force myself to fall asleep again.

But today was different. I woke up because of a bad dream. Trying to remember what it was all about, I'm not really sure if it was really bad or not. I'm not going into details but some part of it was gory, scary, funny and incredible all at the same time. But all the same, I knew that I wasn't going to fall asleep again no matter how I force myself into it.

And so I picked up my laptop and browse some sites. Predictably, I opened my FB. Then I watched some videos on Youtube. And the time just went by like that. At 5am, my laptop seemed to be complaining of the unusual time I used it and so it picked that moment to register some error and it suddenly shut down.

So I had no choice but to get out of bed and take a shower and get dressed. And so I was all dressed up for work when my alarm clock hasn't even gone off. I took my time to eat breakfast, brush my teeth and get ready to leave. I went down early and drove Marshall out of the sands and parked from where I took out Sydney.

And now I'm already here in the office with my eyes wanting to close at the moment. Exactly the right moment to sleep? Sigh... and now I have to endure the day with my brain half asleep. And this is the day we are relocating to the other office. And the day where there is supposedly a massive retrenchment.

Hell, yeah! It's Thursday! And it's really my kind of day.

Between Work and Fun

By Francis Kong (Philippine Star Nov 15)

I train, I speak, I give keynotes and this is why I meet people all the time.
I see different kinds of people all the time. I see people who are so happy and productive in their jobs and then I see people who look like they have entered their career as the cruise director for the Titanic.
After my talks, participants would come to me for advice. Our conversation would go like this. As I share this with you I want you to think it through as it may carry the answer to your questions about your own work and fun issues.

Participant: "I am not happy with my job Francis, I am thinking of resigning, should I or shouldn't I?"

Francis : "Well show me a job where you can be happy all the time and I will resign and join you!"

Participant: "But there is no fun with my work, Francis!"

Francis : "Sure, That's why they call it work, and that's what they pay you to do it! Had work been fun, it would have been called "FUN."

Participant: "So what should I do? I heard a lot of speakers tell me that I need to love what I do but I simply don't."

Do you get the point? Now let's be real.
You want fun? Go to a circus. But if you want to be paid, go to work, Duh!!
Work in itself is never fun. That's why it is called labor.
Fun is the feeling part in you and work is the doing part you have to deal with.
Let me ask you a couple of questions:
Do you like to be promoted?
Do you want to stay employed?
Do you use your pay check to pay for luxuries such as paying off your loans and buying food for your family? Then it's got nothing to do with your job. It's got everything to do with you. Get this, it's not what you feel. It's what you do with what you feel.

Maybe there's something lacking in you/in what you do and this is why you are not happy. There are people doing the same jobs and they are happy aren't they? Maybe age has caught up with you. You're bored and you are tired. And you want to try something else. It is not a bad thing. But you have to be practical.

Times are tough. Jobs will be hard to find. If you carry the baggage of not being happy with your current job, you will bring it with you where ever you go and you will become more unhappy wherever you are.

Why not try something else with what you are and what you currently do?
Here are a few ideas.

1. You can pretend to be happy with your work. And you're probably saying, "But that's not me." And you are right. It's you that your officemates and co-workers do not like to associate with. If you whimper and whine and moan and groan all the time, not only do you make other people unhappy, they in turn will reinforce your not being happy. If you pretend to be happy, you might just get to the point of really being happy.

2. Be grateful. Do not look at things you do not have. look at things you have and be thankful. Be satisfied with what you have but never be satisfied with what you are and you are becoming which brings me to another point.

3, Grow and learn-Learn and grow. You need to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Develop a positive attitude. Get out of your comfort zones. Read more books, listen to more tapes, attend more seminars and improve your skills. Accept more challenges and make yourself a lot more useful that you currently are today.

THE INTENSITY OF YOUR HAPPINESS, those moments when you are given a promotion, when somebody swept you off your feet, when you won the jackpot in a game show are nice but they are not important. Frequency is. What matters are those moments of quiet happiness that comes to you as being content in whatever situation you are in your life.

There is a Swedish proverb that says: "Those who wish to sing always find a song." Same thing : "Happiness comes to those who will to find it."

Death

I never thought that dying can be as simple and as quick as switching a light on. Or as smooth as trying to swallow a big bite of banana. Or as horrific as anything you could see in a movie. But whichever way the end was met, all of them is true.

No one could really fathom the mystery behind death. It just feels a total loss and despair thinking that one's life can easily end in a second. Sometimes without a warning, sometimes a complete shock. And as the saying goes, death comes like a thief in the night. Accidents happen everywhere. Even in a sickbed, no matter how the family thinks they are prepared, it still comes as a terrible shock.

Even if you don't know the person so well, his or her death may strike you as a big blow. But some things are always true no matter how close you are to somebody who died. It is always sad. There is always pain. Grief may be unbearable. Denial may be inescapable. Life may be full of surprises. But death is the one who always surprises people.

Another End

The days seem to move with surprising speed. But they have moved in a whirlwind of ominous monotony. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not. It seems that the days are not enough to do what needs to be done or simply to do what I wanted to do. But sometimes the days feel so long and dragging.

I feel so trapped in the routine of everyday living that I feel like cracking up a bit just to break the tedium. How I wish that I could just snuggle under my bed covers and wake up when I already feel up to it. How I wish that I could fly to a distant place where all I could hear is the cracking of the waves on the shore. How I wish that I could simply make an escape.

Sigh. But I can't. This is another end that looks forward to a new beginning of same old boring routine. And I have no idea when I could finally escape, when I could finally be set free.

The Joy of the Unexpected

Amidst all the sad and unstoppable going ons here in the office because of the financial crisis, a truly unexpected thing happened yesterday. The knowledge that it is July, the month for bonuses, has been completely driven out of my mind. Who would have guessed that such thing still exists when just last week more than a dozen people got their notices that they will have to cease work after the end of the month? Then there is the abominable decrease in salary which took effect last month.

But it was a truly wonderful surprise to have received the white envelope. I received an email from a colleague that our boss was wandering and handing out envelopes. I didn't know why but I immediately thought that it was good news. I somehow wished I hadn't known beforehand though, then I will be truly surprised. Nevertheless, it was still quite a shock. I waited for my boss to hand me over the mysterious envelope. And when I finally got it, I can't help but put a big grin on my face.

My boss told me not to get overexcited because it was not that much. It was really not that much, not even half of what I previously received. But it's not the amount that has sent me over the moon. It was the fact that there is something, even so tiny, and it is definitely better than nothing.

Before all the euphoria has worn out, I got into a deep thought. Everybody seemed so happy about the little surprise though it was such a tiny thing when the previous year, I have heard a lot of rants as to why their bonuses were not enough though it was triple of the amount we just received. Then there's the realization that the fact that it was truly unexpected made the big difference. Everyone has expected nothing but when they got a tiny thing, they were overly grateful.

Perhaps people should always be like this. We should not expect for too much things because when we receive something less than what we expected, we will get a heavy disappointment. On the other hand, when we don't expect for anything and get small things unexpectedly, we will truly be grateful. Then this is the key to our happiness and contentment.

Living in a World of Men

I sometimes caught myself thinking if I am in the right place. Sometimes I feel awkward finding myself in a group of men, the only female among them. I don't really find it disturbing, but I am just amazed to realize that I blend well with them.

Looking back, I thought growing up with men made me understand them more. As I am the eldest, I usually mingle with a lot of guy cousins while I was growing up. Though I started in an exclusive school for girls, I never had any aversions with dealing with the opposite sex. I have learned to adjust with them, frequently on the same page with them. One thing I have realized though, is that men and women are equal. I know this has been an ancient battle of the sexes but as we acknowledge that there are things men can do and women can't or men can't and women can, we may say that we are equal. No need to pride ourselves to pinpoint who's the superior one.

There are pros and cons, as there are always two sides of a coin. But I'd rather not dwell on the disadvantages. I find it amazing to be living in a world of men in the sense that I really belong there. Male dominates the workplace but I never find it hard dealing with them. I even smile when I read emails addressed as "Lady and Gents", making me feel distinct and special. I find them easier to persuade and eager to listen to whatever you say.

There are occupational hazards but as I said, it is simply amazing. As a realization though, there is no such thing as a world of men. We all belong in the same world.

Anticipation

Another idea of Jojo's:

I can hear the roaring thunder. I can see the flash of lightning. As I stand still in the middle of the vast and empty meadow, my anticipation started growing. The sky is turning from blue to gray, making the meadow an immense shadow in the growing darkness. I close my eyes. I can hear the gentle rustling of the trees surrounding me. But there are no birds that can be heard. All the animals have long before scurried away to shelter. The wind is starting to blow harder and colder. I can feel its breeze already damp with coldness. It makes me feel like being pricked with a thousand tiny needles. Yet I remained still. Here I stand alone. I am not betrayed by fear. I close my eyes tighter and face the now dark sky. I stretch out my arms wide to welcome the coming downpour. I wait with baited breath as my anticipation reaches its peak. It is as if I can already feel its cold drops on my skin, taste its sweetness on my lips. This is my bittersweet moment, so sad and so beautiful at the same time. I know something will happen and some part of me wanted to prevent it but I don’t have any power to stop it from happening. And as the rain finally falls, I decide to accept that it is really happening. As the first drops hit my face, I felt my own drops of tears, and the rain and tears blended together. I drop onto my knees and gently and slowly open up my eyes. Though everything is a blur and darkness and coldness, I felt no fear. I suddenly feel the calm and peace the rain brings, knowing that after this rain, a beautiful sun will shine toward a new morning.

Harry & Charlie

Got this very funny vid from youtube.

Warning: YM Hacker on the Loose!

This is not a chain or spam email, just a warning to all Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail users out there. As I am totally relying on my YM account as most of you also are, I feel it’s just right to give you this warning.

Just this morning, I received an instant message (YM) from one of my contacts, asking me for a favor. Since I know the person, I said yes and asked what favor. She said she wanted to show me pictures of a girl who she thinks I know and sent me a link. She asked me to click the link and sign in. It was this link - http://surney15.t35.com/image.html

When I clicked the link, it was a yahoo flickr site asking to sign in my email and password. As I don’t have any doubt that I am talking to someone I know, I was about to sign in when I received a text message on my phone coming from the same person. The message said her YM account had virus and if someone sends instant messages asking for favors, ignore it. I got confused and called her. I then understood that her YM account has been hacked. Somebody else was using it. She cannot login anymore but at that moment while I was talking to her, her YM account continuously sends me messages asking me to sign in. She said it all started when she clicked a link similar to this and signed in. She got disconnected immediately and wasn’t able to sign in anymore until this moment. I also found out that the person using her account sent the same message to one of our common friends who was also on her contact list asking for a SMARTLOAD! Our common friend can’t believe that she was asking for a prepaid load so she asked around until we came to this conclusion.

It’s obvious that another hacker is on the loose. Just be careful and send this warning to everyone you know.

The Saddest Birthday of My Life

Oh, yes, it's my birthday. I'm 28. And I'm supposed to be happy, coz it's my special day. But I don't feel any happiness. I don't feel that today is something special. Worse is, I even cried early in the morning. I don't know why but I wasn't able to help it. I just feel a tad frustrated about everything that's happening around me. Everything feels so wrong, so tiring, so sad. Everything is the same, or getting worse. I just feel bad and nothing is worth celebrating. Maybe just the fact that I'm still alive, and healthy enough to have another birthday. Sigh. It really feels like the saddest birthday of my life.