Inspiring

Instructions for a Bad Day

By Shane Koyczan

[You may listen to the poem here.]

There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go. Be confident. Know that now is only a moment, and that if today is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, today will have ended.

Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the somewhere you cannot escape. Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the truth, and the truth is whether we see them or not - the sun and moon are still there and always there is light.

Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say "it's alright, I'm okay" - be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity. 

Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you've been going through, be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone - that pain is part of the human condition and that alone makes you a legion. We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we “dissmissers” of odds, we “blessers” of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. 

So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you'd never make it through. Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.

Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self-absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed. 

Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful - because it doesn't know it's not supposed to grow there. 

Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it. 

If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for. If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can - do more.

There will be bad days; times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you friend. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed's silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud.

Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again. Everyone is blessed with the ability to listen. The deaf will hear you with their eyes. The blind will see you with their hands. Let your heart fill their news-stands. Let them read all about it.

Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes. Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us – it's the only way we know how to say, be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.

Seduction: The Movie

Some behind-the-scene pictures from my shooting day for Regal Films' Seduction movie starring Richard Gutierrez, Sarah Lahbati and Solenn Heussaff showing in 2013!

Korean Sojourn

The third week of September found me in Seoul, Korea during the  2012 Asian Publishers Fellowship Program. The week-long program was a very informative and even eye-opening experience. Many thanks to the kind and warm people of the Korean Publishers Society (KOPUS).

PASSIVITY is Not Good

Allow me to share with you an essay by author-blogger Jason Williams.

Sometimes life feels as if it would be easiest if we do just enough to get by; maybe it would be easier to avoid rejection, to hold back and not give our best simply because we might not succeed even if we do try.

But by passively seeking our goals, we suffocate hope but not the dream, not the desire, merely the fulfillment to the question of whether we could have attained success. Passivity is the lifeblood of disappointment. It allows our dreams to die a slow death and increases the burden we carry by distancing us from our purpose.

The passage of time does not mean that we have abandoned our interest in an unattained goal. We’ve simply allowed it to linger like a flickering flame in an airtight room. It will never burn to its full potential unless we open the door. Unless we make an effort, our ambition will eventually die out without ever having the chance it deserved.

As children, we are allowed to dream our way through the world. As adults, it is better for us to burn a dream down by failing miserably in the pursuit or honestly cast it aside rather than leave it flickering in our imagination with only the faintest chance of realization.

How many people do we know who wanted to pursue a career, but shrugged it off as impossible or unrealistic? Did they really put the dream aside, or does it still remain quietly unfulfilled? How many of us want to do something but don’t because we are afraid we will fail? There are friends around us who believe we have greater potential than we give ourselves credit for, and then there are those who doubt and never give us a chance.

There is very little in this world that is certain and very little that we must accept. But if we never step forward, if we keep our aspirations to ourselves, certainty’s hold on our lives increases.

Though we might be inclined toward passivity, the world around us does not favor that tendency. It is not led by people who are passive. The world is led by those who envision what they want and pursue it, the people who accept a difficult challenge rather than waiting for the ideal situation.

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them” (Henry David Thoreau).

If we want that promotion, we have to make it known; if we want to be a leader, we have to step forward in difficult times; if we want to be an actor, we must be willing to step out onto the stage; if we want to be a political figure, we must have the courage to believe in ourselves when very few will.

Life is about going from point A to point B, but to get there we must be willing to commit ourselves. We must push ahead in an aggressive world even if we feel intimidated.

If we want to be a success, we have to be willing to start at the bottom, where it is most difficult. We must never let doubt hold us back from the pursuit of our purpose.

We must have the confidence to motivate ourselves before others encourage us. To persuade others to believe in us, we must demonstrate our belief in ourselves.

CREDIT: Author:  Jason Williams, 25 July 2010, from "Ripples of Belief"

Mga bagay-bagay na hindi mo naman itinatanong tungkol sa akin, pero sasabihin ko pa rin:

61.  Noon, paborito ko sa UP Vinzon's Hall food center yun Ginisang Corned Beef with Sayote. Ngayon, paborito ko ang Ginisang Sardinas with Sayote.

62.  Hindi ako mahilig mag-shorcut, mas gusto kong lakarin ang mahabang kurba sa daan.

63. Marami akong alaala tungkol sa UP Sunken Garden: lahat dahil sa CMT =P

64. Naging voice talent ako sa mga japanese cartoons, pero HINDI sa Voltes V.

65. Sa kolehiyo madalas akong umupo sa tabi ng bintana.

66. Sinasagot at dinudugtungan ko yun mga nakasulat sa armchair, pati na yun sa mga pader.

67. Pag may tabinging frame sa pader, aayusin ko iyon-- unconsciously.

68. Pag hindi ko naisuot ang relos ko, babalikan ko iyon kahit malayo na ako sa bahay.

69. I once walked the distance from Merville Park in Paranaque all the way to Libertad in Pasay. Hindi ko kasi napansin wala na pala akong pamasaheng pauwi. Yun akala kong barya sa coin purse ko eh isa palang medallion!

70. Nung college ako, akala ko ako yun tinutukoy ng classmate ko na crush nya. It was after a week of carrying her books that I realized she was referring to my seatmate! Hu hu hu

A Beautiful Day

I woke up early today, excited over all the things
I get to do before the day ends...

My job is to choose what
kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or ...
I can be thankful that the grass
is getting watered for free.

Today I can grumble about my health or...
I can rejoice that I am alive.


Today I can mourn my lack of friends or...
I can excitedly embark upon a
quest to discover new relationships.

Today I can whine because I have to go to work or...
I can shout for joy
because I have a job to do.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or...
I can feel honored because life has provided
shelter for my mind, body and soul.

Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped ...
And here I am, the sculptor
who gets to do the shaping.

Today I am going to have a BEAUTIFUL DAY...
Because I am blessed with
so many gifts in my life.

~ Author Unknown ~

The Story of the Pencil

 

By Paulo Coelho (Translated by James Mulholland)

The little boy was watching his grandfather writing a letter. At a certain moment he asked: “Are you writing a story that happened to us? And is it by any chance a story about me?”

The grandfather stopped writing, smiled and said to his grandson: “I’m writing about you, that’s true. But the pencil I am using is more important than the words I am writing. I hope you are like it when you grow up.”

The boy looked at the pencil with curiosity, but did not see anything special about it. “But it’s just like all the other pencils I have ever seen in my life!”

“It all depends on how you look at things. There are five qualities in it that if you can manage to keep in yourself will make you a person always at peace with the world.

The first quality: you can do great things but you must never forget that there is a hand that guides our steps. This hand we call God, and He must always guide it according to His will.

The second quality: from time to time I need to stop what I am writing and use a sharpener. This makes the pencil suffer a little, but in the end it becomes sharper. So, learn how to bear some pains, because they will make you a better person.

The third quality: the pencil always lets you use an eraser to rub out what was wrong. Understand that correcting something that we have done is not necessarily bad, but rather something important to keep us on the path of justice.

The fourth quality: what really matters in the pencil is not the wood or its outer shape but rather the lead that is inside it. So, always take care of what happens inside you.

Lastly, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. In the same way, know that everything you do in life will leave traces, and try to be aware of each and every action.”