We think that our happiness depends on our circumstances in life. But when we really think about it, our happiness is entirely up to us.

“Are you happy?” I asked a friend who was recently receiving so much accolades for her various achievements.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I am thankful for the awards and recognition. But I feel tired because of all the work. And there is still so much I want to do: I want to study, I want to make movies, I want to teach…”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I don’t have a choice. I have to work and I just don’t have the time.”

Continue reading “2 steps to happiness” »

Photo by Wisdom for World Domination

If you had a choice between pursuing your passion and getting a job with a steady paycheck, which one would you choose?

After I spoke to a room full of students in a career talk session months ago, one of them raised a question: “How do I pursue my passion if it is deemed an unprofitable career?”

The young girl said she wanted to be a theater actress. But her parents want her to study nursing, to go abroad as a caregiver and to earn dollars she could send back home.

She was still in high school and her parents are the ones spending to send her to college so “disobeying” their wishes was something she said she could not do.

But what about her dream of becoming a theater actress?

Remember how we were dreamers?

Photo by kcc_10

When we were kids, dreaming and having an ambition was an easy thing.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” somebody asks.

And we would just say it out loud. “I want to be a doctor!” “I want to be a lawyer!” “I want to be a ballerina!” “I want to be a movie star!”

We say it with certainty, fully believing that our dreams would come true someday.

Continue reading “How to choose between your passion and a paycheck” »

I used to ignore those little orange buttons with a dot and two slanted parentheses. Besides, the words “RSS Feeds” sounded too technical to me.

But when I started blogging actively and reading other people’s blogs too, these handy little buttons became my instant bestfriends.

They did not only save me time, they made my blogging experience so much richer and they proved to be good for my soul too.

This post is divided into two sections: the first one gives a simple explanation of RSS Feeds and subscribing to blogs and the second part is where I share the blogs on my RSS reader that “feed” me.

Continue reading “RSS Feeds for the Soul” »

How did the photograph make you feel?

I felt like a kid again and I wanted to jump as high as I could too.

But when I looked at this picture…

The light and happy feeling seemed to fade away.

Continue reading “Empower yourself with positive images” »

Have you been constantly waiting for everything to be in place before you go after your dream?

Have you been extremely obsessing for everything to be just right?

Have you been over planning for everything to be just perfect?

If you answered “yes” to all three, knock yourself on the head and face the truth: Nothing will ever be perfect.

So stop waiting, obsessing and planning and start doing!

Always aiming for perfection does not help help you to achieve your dream, but accepting imperfection does.

Continue reading “How accepting imperfection takes you one step closer to your dreams” »

If I tell you to ask for anything and everything you want in your life, what would you do?

It sounds quite easy, doesn’t it? It seems like the ultimate fantasy.

I have often fantasized about freeing a genie and getting three wishes. But I thought I’d use one wish to wish for infinite wishes so I can ask for everything that I want.

What if a genie actually appeared and told me, “You now have infinite wishes, ask me everything you want!”

Continue reading “Set your wants free!” »

I slowly opened my eyes to the rays of morning sunshine slipping through the window. “What now?”

I looked outside the window, the skies were blue and there was a soft breeze blowing on my face. It looked like a wonderful day. But for some reason, I felt so heavy as I dragged my feet to the bathroom to get ready for work.

It was like I was operating on auto-pilot as I took a shower, brushed my teeth and got dressed. For me, it was just the beginning of another dragging day.

“What am I doing with my life? Why am I here?”

Have you ever gone through that time when every waking day was such a drag? You feel tired even before your work has begun. Nothing seems to go right and all you want is just to get through the day.

I used to go through my days aimlessly. I allowed myself to fall into a routine and thought I’d just go wherever life takes me.

But what I didn’t realize was I was missing out on having an amazing and wonderful life.

Once I started believing that I was meant for something greater than an automatic work robot, I realized that I needed to determine why I was here.

Continue reading “What is your life purpose?” »

Once you’ve found your passion, how do you begin?

When you’ve figured out what your passion is, you will tend to go in two directions: either you feel so fired up and raring to get moving or you feel so overwhelmed and your fear of starting a big thing leads to procrastination.

Lucky you if you took the first direction.

As for me, I got overwhelmed.

I mentioned before that this blog is part of my efforts to pursue my passion. But just when I was starting to think of all the great possibilities this blog held for me, I felt like I was flooded with so many ideas that I drowned into procrastination.

For weeks, I was content with staying under the water, scared to see what I needed to do or who I needed to be.

But I knew I couldn’t stay there for long if I wanted to get somewhere, so I pushed myself up and got my head out of the water.

Continue reading “3 Steps to pursue your passion” »

“What’s your passion?”

I asked my friend once when we were having dinner.

“You know what, I haven’t really thought about it. Why do you ask?”

“Well, ” I said, “It just occurred to me that we’ve been working for the past six years and I just thought if this is what we really want to be doing for the rest of our lives.”

What is passion?

In my first post about this site, I found several meanings of passion.

And in my personal quest for passion, I’ve come up with my own definitions.

Passion drives you to do something and be somebody.

When you tap into your passion, it just infuses you with this tremendous energy and power. It fills you with confidence so that you can say to yourself, “I can be somebody.”

Passion is something you get excited about.

Your passion gives you that thrilling sensation. It brings you that natural high that moves you to do more and be more.

Passion is something you enjoy doing.

In fact, you enjoy doing it so much, you lose track of time when you do it. No matter the effort involved, it still feels effortless and it’s almost as if you don’t get tired at all.

Passion is something you’re good at.

You’ll find that your interests veer toward your passion. More than that, you’ll find that you are equipped to pursue your passion because your skills and talents are geared to fulfill it.

Are you beginning to form an idea of what your passion is?

Continue reading “How to find your passion” »