don't sweat the small stuff

listening to: cocomo - beach boys
feeling: extremely hyper and blessed

i love this song! makes me think of the beach-- sun, sand, and sea!

i just got home from whole day of classes (until past 6pm!) and dinner with my family. i had a bad night last night because my father and i had a disagreement which made me cry myself to sleep. but we're okay now!!! i'm a daddy's girl and i don't think he'd stand being mad at me for 24 hours anyhow :) imagine? last night was our first fight ever! but we're okay and it started from a minor thing! but we've both forgiven each other now HAHA! he picked me up from school then we met up with my mother, my sister, and kuya john at the mall.

i bought a new book!

anyway...

there is no day in my life when i don't stop and say thank you to GOD for blessing me with a great family. of course, for watching over me too, and for giving me a life worth living -- one that is anything but perfect but i still feel that i'm the luckiest person on earth. life is ironic by slapping you with harsh realities but then it throws back realizations your way showing that it isn't bad afterall if you only look at the brighter side of things. and always... you will find a light at the end of the tunnel no matter how you cringe at the those words because it has become a cliche. i truely believe that happiness is not a privilege. it's a choice.

it's either we're proactive or reactive.

today at Prof Karganilla's class, he mentioned the book 7 habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. i bought the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens version of the book when I was in high school and i remember it immensely helping me get through my angst-ridden phase. but i vividly remember the concept of being either PROACTIVE or REACTIVE. what is this concept about?

Covey's example on the concept of being PROACTIVE and REACTIVE is simple. as a teenager, we have a lot of worries and insecurities that we don't have to sweat too much but we still do anyway.

example # 1: you fail to accomplish a certain task or you don't get to reach your goal. instead of moping about it and hating the world for conspiring against you, you can stop being REACTIVE by looking at the other side-- failing doesn't imply that you're a loser. it's just life's way of challenging you to strive harder or work your way up one step at a time. by thinking like this, you are being PROACTIVE because you take a challenge positively. you turn a bad thing to a good thing and sometimes it will surprise you because you'd actually learn things from being PROACTIVE!

example #2: a break-up. instead of crying over spilled milk and the shattered pieces (REACTIVE), you can be PROACTIVE about it by thinking that some people are just not meant to be and that some people are meant to just stay a while in your life to teach you lessons you wouldn't have learned otherwise.

so Covey's REACTIVE and PROACTIVE concept is like saying that you either choose to be an OPTIMIST or a PESSIMIST.

in Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Teenagers (Richard Carlson Ph. D.), the author mentioned that people often ridicule optimists because they think that they are mere illusionists. these pessimists don't like labeling themselves so because they think they are "realists". when you think about it, you'd think they're making sense. but then again, HAPPINESS or rather... OPTIMISM is a choice. it's either you go with the flow and turn your back against the world for conspiring against you to make your life miserable or you choose to take the other road and not sweat the small stuff.

oh, i just want to share this:

"life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.

but always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us." A.J. Cronin

come to think of it... i haven't finished 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. i should go back to it once i'm done reading stuff for school and Harry Potter: The Order of Phoenix. HAHAHA!!!

i'm off to work on that Powerpoint Presentation for the org -- OrgASM(Organization of Area Studies Majors). why the name? don't ask!

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kamusta ka na, Pilipinas? okei ka pa ba? nahihiya ako sa 'yo. sabi nga sa paborito kong patriotic na kanta...

pag laya mo'y babantayan, Pilipinas kong hirang.

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