When is Enough, Really Enough?

                                     When is enough, Really Enough?

💦This interrogative statement bothers me enough.  When is enough, really enough?  Really, this is a tough nut to crack because if you're talking to 10 folks around you, regardless within your household or with strangers out there, you'll get ten definitions of when is enough, really enough.  And once you compare those ten responses, you could be comparing night versus day, the skies versus the ground or even deep down into the dungeons.

For the most passive, laidback soul, you could here this as enough for him:  living life on a daily basis as long as he lives in his family's abode, as long as he's there with his parents who are living out of retirement.  That's all, he's fine to be a parasite, a dependent no less.  To this [hapless] soul, he's got a worry-free life?!#%

You would hear any of these retorts [a.k.a. excuses over and over].

OH, I'M PAST MY AGE, I CAN'T GO BACK TO SCHOOL.

OH, THE JOB MARKET PREFERS ONLY EARLY 20's.

OH, I'M A BLUE-COLLAR WORKER, I CAN'T AIM MORE

OH, THE JOB AD SAYS 4yrs EXPERIENCE, I GOT ONLY 2yrs

OH, ITS A LOCAL JOB.  I WANT AN OVERSEAS ONE.

OH, THE SALARY OFFER ISN'T ENOUGH.  NO WAY.

Cut the crap.  Stop chasing tails.  Any of your decisions in life becomes an INDECISION if either it is ineffectual or it does not lead to any progressive change in your status quo.  For a lot of us, we tend to set lofty goals but we don't align our self-motivation to a timeline that is R&R [reasonable and realistic]. While the digital world we now live does offer lots of instants [e.g. INSTApay, INSTANT e-Financial Aid], if you have to start with bread crumbs, take it for what it is, for what it's worth.  Take it as it becomes commensurate to what you are both capable and NOT capable for now.  Those angling for entry-level jobs should let this sink into the deepest recesses of their selves. Why go for the summit when you can't reach the Base Camp?

Two days ago, Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat was top banner news for U.S. sportswriters after signing a $163M contract to continue playing with the Miami Heat.  $163M is a very far cry from the $12,000 a year salary of her mom who single-handedly took care of him, living in a decrepit mobile home for eighteen years.  But Bam's mom was so focused on Bam's academic and basketball development going to High School, then aiming next for the big-time NCAA by looking for the best possible university and best possible basketball coach who can prepare Bam for his stratospheric 'takeoff' over to the real bigtime NBA.  These days, Bam's mom continues to shed tears when getting emotional, thinking the unthinkable, how their lives have gone this far.

What does these all tell us?  As long as you are still able to put the ball in the cup, when you come to work, have your hard hats on, give it your best shot.  You may be a dog out there but this cruel world has no place for LAZY dogs.  You gotta be a TOP DOG no less.  

If your life has been one of fumbling acts the past years, don't be harsh of yourself to hit the last nail on the coffin.  GET UP!  RISE UP! Look on your glass of water now as half-filled instead of half-empty.  Turn yourself into a bulldog with a chip on your shoulders.  The narrative is for you to write.  Change the narrative now.  Go from hard ball play to wrecking ball mode.  How?  Revisit things.  Re-plot your vision, your roadmap because the best in you are all there in your wheelhouse.  It's for your taking.

Take this from C.S. Lewis, a noted British writer at Cambridge and Oxford.  if you put a wall on yourself that you're to be angling for this goal or that next job, yours is a lost cause right then and there.  Instead, there is enormous opportunities out there.  Unfortunately, those are not left in the open [else the preying vultures will be on top of the totem pole to pounce on it].  You gotta unearth it and sometimes, those opportunities are obscured with lethal mines around it or even atop it.  You gotta figure out how to hit a homerun but rid yourself off of perverse priorities in life and even get misguided by a false sense of hope.  If your spirit seems flagging, resuscitate it.  If you need to be CPR'd, submit yourself to be CPR'd if only to get you back to life. 

You can still be that bird atop the peak, the zenith.  Indeed, reaching atop is a steep climb but such is life, you've got to earn your spurs, starting off from the trenches and stumbling multiple times because that hardens up up, that harnesses your potential.  

Going up Mount Everest is a classic.  Just reaching the Base Camp, you need to hurdle a 10-day trek no less [unless you get scathed [and that stalls you further].  Then you need to spend weeks just to acclimatize to the altitude and waiting for the route to the Everest summit to open only around May.  This is the way to go if your definition of success is to reach the top, the zenith [not just ending up in a cozy McDonalds and grabbing burger over the counter].  Unless you're a scion of the billionaires, unless you were born with a silver spoon, roll up your sleeves now.  

Look ahead.  Look afar. It's a long road before you deserve to grab a popcorn to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your [hard-earned] work🎉

Where Does a 5-letter Word Lead Us To

                             Where Does a 5-letter Word Lead Us To 

👹Way before this pandemic was more fiction than it is today, we were going through the motions in our daily lives, regardless if you're an office-based worker or you're an entrepreneur.  In between lulls, surely you heard someone blurting that getting BORED is creeping.

Fast forward to this pandemic when we are saving tons of time and effort by teleworking [from home], how many more decibels have gone up for you to hear from either flank that a lot more of us is getting BORED?

Hell no, we got to change this narrative! The narrative is for you to write because getting BORED has no place in our conversation, not these days.

Unless you have a great growth mindset, you're not going to hit a homerun.  Not when you are fixated with being idle than busy on something that justifies your existence.  Not if and when your swag and confidence may [falsely] lead you to that unwillingness to learn.  Unless you have that predilection for defiance for the sake of being different, simply for that penchant for being a contrarian.  Unless you 'kick your own ass' [pardon me for a lack of a better word], if you don't have that wherewithal, that dilemma will break you [at least mentally] even as you may try to outrun the demons.  

Which path will you take?  Take your pick!  Take the EXCITING path and off you go.  Take the BORING path and you're done, pronto!  If you need to turn your mindset upside down, switch from hard ball to wrecking ball, pronto!  Desist that tempt to pull the wool over your own eyes because that will get you blind-sided.  

Instead, please read the tea leaves.  Decipher that handwriting on the wall, if you have to but you can't second guess things when you are at the crossroads.

Not to scare you.  You can scroll all over the repositories.  You will end with Mr Google showing us16 million search results, all stumping us that indeed boredom is a poison no less.  What happens when that dreaded poison creeps into our system?  Your guess is as good as mine.  We'll be doomed to fail.  Unfortunately, failure knows no boundaries.  The domino pieces will fall into places unknown hitherto.  

Dude, it's time to close the lid.  The monkey is dead.   We gotta wake up and realize, even of late, that we're in a marathon, not a sprint.  As sprinting may lead you to be huffing and puffing, pace yourself for our 42k marathon.  And once you get into that 'hand in glove' fit, you are ripe to be a 'niddle mover'.  Squeeze that remaining juice from yourself so you can extract the best results towards the Finish Line and once you get over the hump, you'll realize that whatever you gave 'all out', that's 'chumps change', very much worth it.

And if you're being pushed into a corner, extricate yourself at the quickest possible time.  Ending up there will lead you nowhere.  And that's why prior to this pandemic, we felt BORED when working in office and during this long-drawn pandemic, we still hear around folks getting BORED when teleworking [from home].

After you have spent a good chunk of your life to turn things around, this is not the time to give up the farm for just the 'bread crumbs'.  Move yourself to be a transformational piece who can lift all boats.  Be a game-changer on your own.  That BOREdom thing, that's the worm in the bud you gotta nip asap, pronto, now.😈

The [not so steep] Price for Success

                             The [not so steep] Price for Success

🈯Heard of 1-day millionaires?  Heard of those Lotto Jackpot winners?  How long and how far were they at the zenith of their lives?  Not too long, as narratives are spilled from anywhere, be it from the U.S., U.K. and over to New Zealand and even in a Southeast Asian country.

That parallelism is as relevant as well at the NBA.  For five years, the Golden State Warriors lorded it over the NBA till they started eating the dust last year.  And that dust-eating dilemma continues to haunt them in the upcoming 2021 Season.

What all these will tell us that with success comes a price which sometimes is steep and at times with long-standing ramifications.  It can come back to bite you especially when you 'ascended the mountain with historic velocity'.  You might fall off it just as quickly.  Proof?  We got a long list of those 'horror stories' and when they went on a 'free fall' from up high, it was a hard fall that gave them almost a zero-chance to recoup and recover whatever was lost lightning quick in a couple of years.

Bottom line, you must know 'where your bread has been buttered'.  And before lifting your finger, nothing is of most paramount importance than exercising due diligence prior to take each next step when and where you need to fork out and slice something from the whole pizza.  Before you know it, that pizza will start to crumble into pieces until all what will be left with you will be bread crumbs you can hardly survive even for the next day.

This chart says it all:  hard work, sacrifice, struggle[S], faith and patience are all bundled together.  That formula for sacrifice just can't be compromised.  You can't cut corners.  Can't take shortcuts because.... 'shortcuts will cut you short'.

To quote Nathan Morris, the noted American financial guru, 'the speed of your success is limited only by your dedication and what you're willing to sacrifice'.  Key word here is 'sacrifice' and there's the problem.  For some of us, just walking up to the next corner is a sacrifice.  Sweating it out for a day is a sacrifice.  Rendering overtime work for another three to six hours is a sacrifice.  Skipping lunch only once at work the past year [all because of work] is and was already a sacrifice.  

And if that's the way we are [mis]aligned when it comes to our personal sacrifices in our life, that becomes your 'albatross around your neck'.  It may not come out as a punishment [as you didn't commit something that warrants one] BUT that becomes your heavy and inescapable burden you need to carry on.  Not to be poetic, in Samuel Colridge's poem titled 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', the narrator kills an albatross.  Indeed, it's tough to 'get a word in edgewise'.😇

Ripe for Decluttering

                                                             Ripe for Decluttering

🚯Happy Saturday morning.  

DECLUTTERING is a motherhood statement no less.  That explains why more often, we have given it the lip service it does not deserve.  Moreover, all throughout in our lives, we [wrongly think and thought] of decluttering simply literally.  In truth and in fact, every facet of our lives does deserve decluttering, starting off from everything in our minds, in our emotions and even in our [finite] memories.  Can you believe that ?

And nothing is farther from the truth.  In our lives, there are just one too many clutter spots and don't look far back.  Pick your brain. What comes up on top?  Those ill-fated events in our lives, those natural calamities, those force majeure which are and were way beyond our control.  Those trials and tribulations that challenged us and we fell short. Those hurtful moments when emotions were hit hard by malicious, nasty, pernicious distressing insults and diatribes.  Sounds familiar?  But such is life.

What's worst if of all these got stuck in our brain cells, in our finite memories because when that happens, you tend to live with it.  Before you end up your day, you kept thinking of those hurtful moments.  Trust me, when you wake up come next morning, those distressing moments will hover all over you.  Thereafter, you go through that same vicious cycle, you clock-in, you clock-out but you seem to be carrying the same baggage, same burden day-in, day-out.

So, let's pull by bull by it's horns.  Why am I [vociferously] pitching you to declutter N-O-W ?  Plain and simple, as this poster goes, 'decluttering will change your LIFE.  WHY?  

Primera - you have dumped off anything that's akin to rubbish.

Segunda - you erase whatever doesn't deserve slice of your time

Tercera - you reset anything in the past you can't alter or change

Cuarta - you refocus your energy and time only on the 'non crap'

Quinta - consider these 'low hanging fruits' immediately ripe for your taking:  without those past fears and concerns, it reduces stress and leads to self-esteem.  And remember in our digital lives now, you're aware that capacities are finite.  Your laptop HDD.  Your mobile phone capacity.  Your USB.  So is your mental space.  So what to do next?  Run 'disk cleanup' NOW as in NOW.  Thereafter, run 'defrag' so that you can reclaim and reorganize the limited spaces you have which are likely fragmented.

Still on my sales pitch this morning.  Don't look far.  As To quote one of Bill Clinton's fav one-liners tagged with the acronym "KISS", 'keep it simple, shit'.  No hard sell is needed here. Visually think of your decluttered life akin to this desk, neatly laid out, clearly spaced with every item at its proper spot and anything unwanted, you would never see at all.  Visualize your daily life this way, simplified, rationalized, organized.  But you might retort back, but not everything in life can be organized.  Ummp, you're right and those uncertainties are reserved for the unknown variables, e.g. unexpected ill health, natural calamities, accidents, way beyond our control.  And such is life.  Leave the unknowns as is where is.  Manage and control anything and everything that's going on now.  Word of caution here:  don't put off your decluttering of your life till next day, next week, next cycle.  I'm afraid you might fail [again].😢

That Tipping Point

                                                 That Tipping Point

🔖Can you recall the times in the past when you were at the tipping point? Probably you were oblivious during those points. But you would have sorely missed out something substantial, something significant if in the past you were totally unaware you were in a tipping point. To be on the same page, let's define tipping point as that situation in life wherein you can either make or break, fly or fail and if it's about your health, it could have meant either your wellness or illness.

BTW, you can go through that tipping point at every facet in your daily life. It could be your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your boss at work or it could be all about your health or if you're running your own business, it could be the state of health of your business where it will either weather the market forces or your business will skid down significantly.

Frankly, it could be those moments when you need to literally perform a 'balancing act' for you to either hit or miss out things. Those are moments when all it takes is one misstep and there you go, plunging into the deep blue sea. At your tipping point, there is simply NO ROOM FOR ERROR as all it takes is one miscalculation or misjudgment and there you'll go down the drain. Or you could be running your own business or you're selling your services. You can keep adjusting your pricing but only so much. If you go beyond bounds and price yourself way beyond the reach of your customer, you'll end up driving away your customers. So, there you go again, with your 'balancing act'.

Back to your relationship either with your spouse or your boss at work. Honestly, it is so dreadful to think your relationships either with your spouse or your boss at work will reach the tipping point because if does, it would tell us that by then, it's all 'water on the bridge'.

Suddenly, entropy in our life will kick in. That is the natural tendency of things to go haywire and lose order. That is when the inevitability in life kicks in.

Now, c'mon, you may be a Christian or not but at this point, I'd like to quote Moses that 'WAKE UP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE'. And this aptly applies especially during this pandemic when some leaders and their cordon sanitaire are all singing HOSSANAH in the HIGHEST, assuring the population that we're all good, that the covid statistics show that we are in good shape and that we simply need to wait for December? To HELL, there's even no roadmap to recovery!📌

Why Life Matters

 

📌Does life matter ? It does and it does a lot. Don't look too far. Look within your family because that's your universe, your solar system all rolled into one.

A decade ago, my high school buddy's meteoric rise in his navy career can't just be stopped as every few years, he went up the organizational ladder that will surely catapult him to secure his first star as a navy flag officer. Until he dropped unconscious on the ground while going through the motions of their morning exercises.

A few years ago, our neighbor tied the knot with her Fil-Am fiance and one weekend, his newly minted husband was playing hoops nearby. Next day, we got wind of the tragic news that he suddenly fell unconscious right at the basketball court.

All these unfortunate things do tell us one thing: let's NOT waste time. let's VALUE time. And your time only becomes that VALUED if you inject the essence of PURPOSE in your life and get it embedded in your family's fabric because it is them that matters most.

During this global pandemic we are all struggling, we saw thousands of lives lost right within our localities, our regions. Not to mention the almost daily news of murder, homicide and pre-meditated crimes within our communities.

Why can't we take a page out of the playbook. When a polarized situation like this pandemic we are all in now, with these dark clouds hovering all over us, everything becomes dicey. If and when you are 'off the bus range', you've got to wrestle over the steering wheel and be more than just a needle mover. Do revisit why we, YOU, exist in the first place? And does our life matter, if at all?

Stumbling across these 3 no-brainer questions can cause any of us to grind to a halt and ponder. Dissecting it will lead us to realize that indeed, life matters but what matters is what happens next. But leading us to the next thing can only shape up after you have plotted your direction in life.

If we're here to lead passive lives, ending up in mediocrity is a given. But if we juxtaposition our life vis-a-vis our immediate families, that should be a good 'wake up' call for us that today is never too late to pick up the pieces and continue your journey. At the end of the day, yours is not a 'lost cause' if you keep trudging on. Trust me, you will surprise yourself when you end up farther and at a higher pedestal than you ever thought yourself is capable to achieve.

Quoting Mark Twain: 'The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why'. Hell no, if you miss out finding WHY, then that could be seriously troubling because you could be still be afloat that rudderless boat, you could continue to drift away from the shore till nothing is left of you except as another footnote across the huge expanses of sheet of waters across the oceans. But how about luck ? Someone so passive day-in day-out just keeps buying lotto tickets and one day, kabooooom, he hits the jackpot. Will he go any further ? Sort of. Only momentarily though. Because anything achieve with the least efforts will easily dissipate like thin air. Earn your spurs. Sweat for your earnings. Grind to earn a living. Have we heard of '1 day millionaires' ? I guess we heard it many times over time. We've seen them sprout out only to suddenly end up incognito.

Don't get us wrong. Joining the fray by betting on a game of chance is not that bad. But what's not just bad but simply detestable are souls who fall prey to games of chances being turned as their very lifeline. Have you heard of risk-takers who get burdened with debts because they went too far beyond the edge [of risk-taking]? Worst, have we heard a scion ending up mortgaging the patriarch's properties [and sometimes even selling them off] because that's the only card left for them to stake on the table?

Oh yea, we do hear sprinkling news of a penniless soul who did bet everything that was left of him and later hitting the lotto jackpot? But hey, that's a one-in-a-million story. And before the 2nd lotto jackpot winner gets plucked out amongst the 2nd million of gamblers, 1.99 million souls would have been in dire straits by now and it's too late to extricate them out from that deep morass. Thing is, as this old adage goes: 'What comes easy won't last long, what lasts long won't come easy'.

Dude, to be forewarned is to be forearmed.🙏

Natural Calamities are Root Causes BUT Who/Where's the Culprit ?

 Natural Calamities are Root Causes BUT Who/Where's the Culprit ?

😢Whose heart won't get pierced and bleed to death with tragedies after tragedies, all because of natural calamities?  An expat resident in our community sighed in frustration by way of sharing that ever since he came over to his current country of residence, he has went through volcanic eruption, horrendous traffic, unprecedented drought, turbulent and seismic waves, torrential rains leading to engulfing floods till the post-calamity will trigger various illnesses that will creep hapless communities causing a heavy toll on the less fortunate and struggling population.

When the population endures the scorching heat of rain-less days and weeks, it gets battered and drained by the heavily polluted environment caused by hundreds of thousands of smoke-belchers out in the road.  So does it surprise us if practically every week or so, you would hear one [either in your community or at work] suddenly becoming unwell?  And wait till finally rainfall comes.  These days, you don't need a heavy downpour to cause floods.  Just typical rains for about half an hour will trigger those floods even in a supposedly highly urbanized metropolitan community.  No thanks to clogged drainages which further clog waterways that lead towards the arteries that will supposedly relieve the urban areas of floodings.  But at the end of the day, what's staring in our eyes are the ripple effects of cloggings from households to communal drainage systems which rightfully should find its way to the next creek that flows down to the wider waterway that further finds its way out to the nearest 'catch basin' to avert any potential overflows within the communities.

Run back to our forests and what do we witness?  Denuded expanse of land waiting for the next  volume of rainfall to trigger floods down the communities.  We owe mother nature an explanation no less.  And no thanks to big-time syndicates of illegal logging yet how far have authorities gone to crack the whip?  Yes they have slapped wrists left and right but that's about it.  And the government authorities will go through the motion of filing an administrative complaint against WHO?  That hapless worker running the chainsaw?  But the buck stops there.  Where's that bigtime illegal logger?  He's beyond reach.  Not even the arms of the law can reach him.

Knock-knock.  Here comes the most favorite, popular and most abused jargon 'DISASTER CONTINGENCY' bannered all over when an incoming typhoon forecast is finally let out of the bag.  But what's the score?  You would hear, see and feel the whole bureaucracy moving heaven and earth just before that dreaded typhoon's expected landfall.  At the aftermath of another tragedy, out goes those banner stories of DISASTER CONTINGENCY.  By that time, things revert back to normal.  Politicos go back to their sworn agenda in office, that is to ensure they remain entrenched and ready enough for the next political battle, fielding either the spouse, next sibling, next son, name it.  When rightfully, DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING should happen round-the-clock BEFORE, DURING and AFTER.  Unfortunately, politicos are NOT the sole culprits for this vicious cycle.  Blame the media for being that tamed and timid and in today's digital technology, media gets MUTED, pronto.

Swing over to the other end of the spectrum,  Have you witnessed throngs and tons of commuters clogging almost half of a major metro thoroughfare, with their necks all stretched out and upwards, waiting for the next public transport to come?  Looks a common setting anyone in the third world.  Digging deep into this issue, what's the culprit?  Transportation?  Nope sir.  It's you, it's us, it's this exploding and unwieldy population that's triggering all these harsh realities.

Over to China, the world's most populated state.  Once their regime opens the floodgates for its population to go on vacation, isn't this a typical sighting?  Swimmers literally rubbing elbows alongside all the incessant push from the unwieldy crowd?  Who's the culprit?  The government?  Nope sir, it's that over-population that has gone up beyond the rafters.

Now, let's swing over to a sector of our society, a sector pitifully neglected, those public prisons.  If population has imploded out in our communities, what else do we expect within those public prisons?  And when you throw in the fact that we're all in this long-drawn pandemic, what do we have at hand?  Nothing less than another recipe waiting for the next tragedy to happen.  And we don't even want to banner prison riots because that has become more of a footnote.

At the end of the day, who bears the brunt of all these?  It's our Mother Earth no less.  Fifteen to twenty years back, environmentalist spearheaded the global campaign to push for a no-nonsense global climate change mindset.  Even Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his vociferous push for global climate change.  Frustratingly, and this is the saddest truth, even trailblazers like Al Gore can only do so much.  Our fate really lies in our own hands.  Go over your home's kitchen and revisit your trash disposal.  Just dumping a big plastic bag out there?  Anyway, the government contractor will pick it up come next day?  And before that rickety garbage truck comes, the astray dogs have thrown a monkey wrench out of those garbage bags dumped out there, waiting for predators to lord it over.  Poor grief.  Poor us.😢

 

Success is a Journey, NOT a Destination

📌Many times, we [wrongly] thought we deserved success simply by dreaming for it or at best, by just lifting one's finger. NO SENOR, you are grossly mistaken if you thought success will be served on a silver platter for you. One of the most quotable quotes is: " SUCCESS IS NOT GIVEN. IT'S EARNED", Even the scions of the rich and famous, they never sit back and relax. Take the children of President Donald Trump. Take Ivanka. Herself and her husband, the ambitious businessman Jared Kushner. You can tag them as overly ambitious but that's the way it is, they got to work for it. Else, even the billions of wealth President Trump amassed through the past decades will eventually dissipate. Sometimes, life seems so good, we tend to enjoy the

amenities that give life the luster we always dreamt. Elevators and escalators [and even travelators and walkways like those at Changi Airport] give us the unfounded notion that to live life, it is simply effortless and all you need to be is to be right there on the spot. C'mon, success has its pitfall and you will get buried deep into that pitfall if you thought success is a destination. Many of us, once we achieved success, we splurge on celebrations, spending sprees, [WRONGLY] thinking that now that you have achieved success, you have reached your destination. Before you know it, all the fruits arising from that success is just a fleeting moment and if you are standing up now with your head unbowed, you would realize that you were just standing on porous sands.

Around Asia Region, the magnates who built their business empires. Li Ka Shing of Hong Kong. The Salims of Indonesia. Even Henry Sy of the Philippines. Even the Ayalas and the Razons. Before their respective patriarch passed away, the scions took over things, lock, stock and barrel and since then, they have been burning the midnight oil to bring their business empire to the next level and the next success milestones. Take the Razon scions. They have been gobbling up, buying ports even in far flung areas of Africa and Latin America. Dare to us why they are still working their butts? Tell that to the marines.

To borrow this meaningful quote: " WE ARE NOT GIVEN A GOOD LIFE or BAD LIFE. WE ARE GIVEN A LIFE. IT'S UP TO US TO MAKE IT GOOD or BAD". Furthermore, 'success doesn't just come and find you. You have to go out and get it'. The departed Florida magnate, Wayne Huizenga, who owned the Florida Panthers in the NHL [the U.S. hockey major league] and the Miami Marlins in the MLB [the U.S. major baseball league] summed it all this way: "Some people dream of success while other people get up every morning and make it happen". Does this complete the puzzle as to why with the business magnates, they never seem to sleep. Investments need to find their way for the best ROI prospects, even if it takes expanding the conglomerate beyond their core industries, they will go for it. Back to our own selves, why can't we take a leap of faith, a quantum leap for us to become the game changer that we have always dreamt of. The divide may be there but we should never look at it as the great divide we cannot climb and cross over. Roll up your sleeves and go for it.⏳

Why BAD turns to WORSE [and sometimes GOOD turns to GREAT]

             Why BAD turns to WORSE [and sometimes GOOD turns to GREAT]

Why do things turn from bad to worse ? And at times, the good things turn to great ?

Game changer, man. There is a game-changer and that is the NOW or LATER variable. When we are in the crossroads, the element of time will likely tilt things, time will either make or break things. You put things off later, it could be a game-changer [down the drain]. Whereas when you decide to do things NOW and not putting it off later, at the very least, you have a fifty percent probability of turning things around, and that's not a bad proposition at all.

At the other side of the coin, there are zillion reasons your mindset can dictate upon you that "I can't".  That's when you yourself puts up a wall, an immovable wall for you to hit head-on till it becomes a show-stopper.  God knows, you must have heard someone postponing to proceed with a pre-planned schedule because the skies are gloomy, because it might rain.  Poor grief.  If your next step hinges on something beyond your control like the weather and those atmospheric pressures entering PAR, you're lost, you're dead very soon and you're doomed to fail even before you start.

BAHALA NA ! Sounds familiar ? Yes, very much indeed. If BAHALA NA is a new jargon for you, here we go, to quote: "it is a socio-cultural value in the Philippines that is an expression of a FATALISTIC ATTITUDE towards life [especially when one is in a challenging situation where uncertainty prevails]". Too bad, this defeatist attitude has turned a hell lot of situations from BAD to WORSE. Leaving things to fate means giving up by default. Taking a step back is akin to giving up. And doing nothing all in the name of fate renders YOU inutile. If you are in a work setting, that makes you expendable and incompetent [and unfortunately it's YOU who pushed yourself to that cramped corner [and NOT your boss]]. At your home setting, especially if you happen to be the head of the family, that makes you no less than weak, a weakling at that, worthless and unworthy to be the responsible head of a family looking up upon you for you to lead and not abandon things in the middle of the road.

On the same breadth, how can we achieve goodness and yet end up in a state of stupor ? Whereas others even turn from good to great ? Look no further than the bemedalled athletes. They keep raising the bar ! They keep raising the stakes ! And in the end, they end up in a raised and lofty position, quite afar from the 'good state' he was in earlier. Come tomorrow, let's nip things in the bud. Turnaround a bad situation into a good one. And if you're in a good situation, don't settle for less, turn it from good to great. Which reminds me of my High School buddy [our class salutatorian] who lectured me when we were just freshmen at that time: "if you aim for sky, if you fail, you will fall on the tree top whereas if you aim for the tree, if you fail, you will fall on the ground'.

And here's my favorite one-liner from Alan Curtis Kay: "If you don't fail at least 90% of the time, you're not aiming high enough". But, and here's the big BUT, many of us fear to fail. We dream for a sure-fire success. We want no less a smooth path, no rough patches, no potholes, no cliffs and ravines. But hey, you earn your spurs when you become battle-scarred. Your mettle gets tested only when you embrace the difficulties lurking out ahead of your view. Which reminds me when I overheard a casual exchange between two close friends with one asking the other what are his plans because he remains jobless? He retorted, 'abroad' and when asked where, he shot back, 'wherever there is an opportunity'. Can you believe it, there's one too many options from A to Z, from Angola to Zambia, yet you can't even concretize your plan. To take a leaf from the gurus, your goal has to be SMART, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant and Time-bound. Take away any of these variables, your goal falls apart even when you hardly finished uttering a half-baked token statement.

Oh yeah, things are easier said than done but in real terms, how do we start, where do we start? Take a leaf from Henry Beecher, the respected American clergyman who espouses that 'The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day'. Oh that's a mouthful. To be blunt to a 'lazy dog', you got nowhere to go and achieve something unless and until you have set your task[s] for the day in no concrete terms and make yourself accountable before the day is over. BTW. How do I set the tone of my day, it's penning, writing the tasks I need to commence and complete, be it at work or at home. Have a productive and meaningful day ahead. Keep smiling though. We can make life light enough without taking our life lightly.😄