keeping it real 25 April 2008

i have this acquaintance who’s forever declaring to the world that she’s a health buff. she always makes it a point to enumerate everything she does to keep fit: she goes to the gym at least four times a week, plays sports regularly, does boxing, rarely eats pork, has her body fat analyzed every 2 weeks and panics if she gains even a pound. i applaud her for her efforts and she does look trim. but she’s always fishing for compliments on her thinness. like she’ll say she’s gained weight and her tummy or arms have gotten bigger when in fact she’s skinny as ever. and i really don’t agree with her tagging herself as the ultimate health buff. you see, she smokes. a lot. it’s something she can’t kick. she puffs every chance she gets. plus she loves to party and get plastered. i don’t understand how a person can have enough discipline to work out as much as she does can’t get up enough resolution to rid herself of some of the worst habits ever.

my point is, if you truly value your health and you want people to sincerely admire you for it, stop smoking and cut down on the booze.

what is love? 13 April 2008

if you google this question, you’d probably get a million hits or more. i have my own ideas of what love is but i’ll let shakespeare say it as he did in sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

on contentment 11 April 2008

it’s been said, “be careful what you wish for…”

while others have said, “people always want what they can’t have.”

there’s also “you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

and that “we should make the most of what we’ve got.”

if we stop and think about it, even if we can’t have everything we want, appreciation and gratitude for what we do have in the here and now can make us feel like we do have it all.

stop dragging everyone down 9 April 2008

i hate pessimism, negativism. i feel it drags me down. i hate it when people around me are negative or pessimistic. you know, life’s hard enough as it is. why face it with so much gloom and doom? i want to live life with a brighter outlook. but i’m not being unrealistic. i’m perfectly aware that things can go wrong, that things don’t necessarily work out the way i want it to. so why should i spend my time worrying about it when it hasn’t even happened yet? happiness merely comes in moments. grab it, savor it, revel in it while it’s there. there’ll be time enough for crying when it’s gone.