Monday, October 30, 2006
instructions for life
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
~ Respect for self,
~ Respect for others and
~ Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
got this in an email from my email-forward-happy auntie and thought it was quite timely. there are lots of lessons to take from it and i know some people who need these reminders these days too. (and yes, i may be talking about YOU! hehe!) but for me at this time, what stuck out was the "great achievements take great risk" and "judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it". i'm not a big risk-taker. i take calculated risks, as in if i'm at least 75-80% sure it'll work out, then i'll go for it. but if i'm like the underdog or i'm on the other side of that %ile range, i'm probably not even going to try.
i was thinking the other day that i really wish i studied more in college. cuz i see friends who are finishing their grad school programs now (or see ends in sight) and they'll be making so much more money with an investment of only a few more years. and i tell myself that crap, i could've done that and heck, if i wanted to, i still could. but then the thought of my gpa totally brings me down and i totally disqualify myself from anything happening. my mother's been bugging me to go get my masters already and yea, a big part of it is also the fact that i'm lazy and don't really want to study anymore. but at the same time, it's more the psychological whisper in my head of, i won't get in anyway, so why bother with starting an application process.
i don't think i've ever worked that hard to achieve things in my life. yea, i worked hard in high school, but still, it came somewhat easy to me. and obviously, i didn't work that hard in college. i sacrificed hard work and studies in order to hang out with friends, have fun... but where did that get me? yes, friendships, but i guess, at this time when i am looking toward the future, i do see value in the hard work and investment of time for future gain and wish that i had the same foresight back in college.
then at the same time, it's not like i'm unhappy. i'm very happy with my little job (with great security) and i'm challenged and content. i'm not scrimping for cash and i'm not rollin in the dough either. but i never really needed to be rollin in the dough or anything like that. i'm not sure it's the money. but it's what it symbolizes. it's the sense of achievement that it represents and maybe cuz i didn't exactly make it a goal of mine to become a compensation analyst for the healthcare industry. but then again, i never made it a goal to be anything specific really. i just kinda got plopped into this position and found that i was happy here. and i do have my wedding planning that i'm really really happy with. and with every wedding, heck even invitation, that i help design and create, i do get that sense of achievement.
i keep flip flopping between wanting more and being happy with what i have. it's the grass is always greener on the other side type of thing. but maybe i did choose this life. i knew i didn't want med school because of the hours and lifestyle. most doctors i know, even my relatives, work long hours even late in their career, have only 1 or 2 children late in their life. i never considered anything else because i wasn't that interested. so maybe all this thought process still concludes with the same thought every time: i'm happy and quite alright with where i am and where i'm going with my life.
(hehe, but maybe i'll take the gre's again. hehe.)
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R’s:
~ Respect for self,
~ Respect for others and
~ Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
got this in an email from my email-forward-happy auntie and thought it was quite timely. there are lots of lessons to take from it and i know some people who need these reminders these days too. (and yes, i may be talking about YOU! hehe!) but for me at this time, what stuck out was the "great achievements take great risk" and "judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it". i'm not a big risk-taker. i take calculated risks, as in if i'm at least 75-80% sure it'll work out, then i'll go for it. but if i'm like the underdog or i'm on the other side of that %ile range, i'm probably not even going to try.
i was thinking the other day that i really wish i studied more in college. cuz i see friends who are finishing their grad school programs now (or see ends in sight) and they'll be making so much more money with an investment of only a few more years. and i tell myself that crap, i could've done that and heck, if i wanted to, i still could. but then the thought of my gpa totally brings me down and i totally disqualify myself from anything happening. my mother's been bugging me to go get my masters already and yea, a big part of it is also the fact that i'm lazy and don't really want to study anymore. but at the same time, it's more the psychological whisper in my head of, i won't get in anyway, so why bother with starting an application process.
i don't think i've ever worked that hard to achieve things in my life. yea, i worked hard in high school, but still, it came somewhat easy to me. and obviously, i didn't work that hard in college. i sacrificed hard work and studies in order to hang out with friends, have fun... but where did that get me? yes, friendships, but i guess, at this time when i am looking toward the future, i do see value in the hard work and investment of time for future gain and wish that i had the same foresight back in college.
then at the same time, it's not like i'm unhappy. i'm very happy with my little job (with great security) and i'm challenged and content. i'm not scrimping for cash and i'm not rollin in the dough either. but i never really needed to be rollin in the dough or anything like that. i'm not sure it's the money. but it's what it symbolizes. it's the sense of achievement that it represents and maybe cuz i didn't exactly make it a goal of mine to become a compensation analyst for the healthcare industry. but then again, i never made it a goal to be anything specific really. i just kinda got plopped into this position and found that i was happy here. and i do have my wedding planning that i'm really really happy with. and with every wedding, heck even invitation, that i help design and create, i do get that sense of achievement.
i keep flip flopping between wanting more and being happy with what i have. it's the grass is always greener on the other side type of thing. but maybe i did choose this life. i knew i didn't want med school because of the hours and lifestyle. most doctors i know, even my relatives, work long hours even late in their career, have only 1 or 2 children late in their life. i never considered anything else because i wasn't that interested. so maybe all this thought process still concludes with the same thought every time: i'm happy and quite alright with where i am and where i'm going with my life.
(hehe, but maybe i'll take the gre's again. hehe.)
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quotable quotes
-
"To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the
greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks
nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid
suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change,
grow, live, and love."
~unknown
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
~ Abraham Lincoln
"live a life that others will remember years from now, NOT because it pointed to you but because of how it pointed to the One who made you."
~ Mark Hart, the Bible Geek
"we grow up learning to become self-reliant, but really we need to be God-reliant"
"we could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box"
"never wound hearts that love u, never give them the endless pain, because wounded hearts are like roses that never bloom"
"there comes a time when we have to stop loving someone not because that person has stopped loving us but because we have found out that they'd be happier if we'd let go"
