Caramba!

Words of Wisdom April 18, 2008

Happiness comes not because we do great things but because we do small things with great love. Be filled with love today and everyday.

June 3, 2007

Words of wisdom from a good friend:

“Keep your head up Char. Life seems unfair sometimes. But things always happen for a reason. While we figure out what is it, we lafang, we sing, we roadtrip. :)”

AMEN.

Letting go… May 3, 2007

…feels good. I love the peace that comes with it. The peace in turn brings genuine joy. And life just seems so much more fun, and worth living.

Don’t you sometimes feel the universe is talking to you? March 4, 2007

I love it when I feel the universe is talking to me, through a song, lines from a movie, entries from fellow bloggers, advice from friends, observing the lives of strangers… It gives me a sense of direction, because really, there are times when I have all but given up. I feel that Someone somewhere cares for me, and is making sure that I get the message. The latest snippet of wisdom I found in Bea’s blog:

Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason. Know a good thing when you see it and don’t let it slip away. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. No one said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

Wisdom. It’s something that I really need now.

April 13, 2006

Some beautiful entries from the past…

Monday, February 17, 2003

Happiness comes not because we do great things but because we do small things with great love. Be filled with love today and everyday.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2003

“REAL LIFE IS ALL I KNOW”

It’s a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary doctorate from this great university. It’s an honor to follow my great Uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman. Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce.

I have no specialized field of interest or expertise, which puts me at a disadvantage talking to you today. I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. REAL LIFE IS ALL I KNOW. Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work.The second is only part of the first.

Don’t ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for re-election because he had been diagnosed with cancer: “No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

Don’t ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year: “If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.”

Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”

You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has custody of your life. Your particular life…Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve gotten back the test results and they’re not so good.

HERE IS MY RESUME:

I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say.

I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me…I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.

SO HERE’S WHAT I WOULD WANT TO TELL YOU TODAY:

GET A LIFE. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

GET A LIFE in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

GET A LIFE in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter.

GET A LIFE in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I LEARNED TO LIVE many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways…And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this:

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.

This is a commencement speech made by Anna Quindlen at Villanova.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Blessed are those who do not seem to have a life, and especially those who do not have a choice—those who are physically debilitated, paralyzed or in a coma and cannot move, for they bring us a message that is lost in this age of frenzy—that to be worthy of God’s love, we need not strive to do or achieve anything, but simply be.

Got this from Rowie, who got it from Jim Paredes.

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Thursday, April 10, 2003

Borrowed from Din’s blog.

Blessed is the person who understands the reason of prayer. It’s not to receive what we want, but to accept what God has given to us.

April 13, 2006

Past is past.

Today is about the past. A good friend of mine set up another good friend of mine with a friend. It turned out that I knew this friend from waaaaaaaaay back. He was my bus-mate in grade school. I’m so curious as to what he looks like now. I still remember him as an 8-year old. What a pleasant surprise. It’s really such a small world, ain’t it?

I’ve been chatting with Clarence. He checked out my blog and was surprised to see that I’ve been blogging since 2002. Which made me check out my old posts. I’m still in awe that I can actually look back and read about how I felt then, what I was doing at that time… It’s a blessing, this blog.

Past is past, yes, but you won’t get to where you’re going if you didn’t start somewhere.

Does that even make sense?

December 16, 2003

Blessed are those who do not seem to have a life, and especially those who do not have a choice—those who are physically debilitated, paralyzed or in a coma and cannot move, for they bring us a message that is lost in this age of frenzy—that to be worthy of God’s love, we need not strive to do or achieve anything, but simply be.

Got this from Rowie, who got it from Jim Paredes.

June 23, 2003

Cute.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT LIFE THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:

1) No matter how hard you try, you can’t baptize cats.
2) When your Mom is mad at your Dad, don’t let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don’t hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can’t trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don’t sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don’t wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you’re sad is Grandpa’s lap.