Sharing happiness is an achievement!

Our department just finished celebrating the achievements earned from Quill - it was simple yet a meaningful way of recognizing the pool of talents behind the winning entries. It felt good and I'm happy to be part of it. What makes me more happy was being able to share the recognition with the different support groups, partners who did their role in supporting the programs. The time may not be sufficient to recognize all, but I'm thankful the act was taken as a step to share it.

As one of the writers, I must admit it was a pressure working on the entry but I can honestly say I was inspired to create it because I believed in my group's goal, the people who supported to ensure the programs will work and external partners who will benefit from the program.

Just like what I have hoped, writing the entry was an opportunity for our group to create an awareness about the projects we've been doing for almost five years now. In the corporate world, creating an awareness is equally tough and expensive, it also takes time to see if efforts will earn good results. But at the back of my mind - this is the opportunity we've been waiting for, our time to conquer! :)

Having said that, I now have the liberty to give the write-up a new perspective apart from the original cause, and I was blessed to be guided by the right inspirations, team mates and partners.

Learnings: Winning a prestigious award is an achievement, a blessing! And when we have BLESSINGS regardless of what it is- it's meant to be shared. From this experience, I am convinced that sharing happiness makes the difference in having an achievement. Today, my mind and soul can rest - it's a BIT in my LIFE that I can be proud sharing :)

I see you, I hear you, I feel you

I see you...I hear you... and I feel you ... these are simple yet catchy and very meaningful expressions. Expressions that are unselfish and make us feel that we are alive. It's a confirmation of our existence, an acknowledgement of our voice and emotions. A translation of us being HUMAN.

Sometimes when words are lost and we want to console someone, it's more effective to say any of these instead of too many words or advice. Often times, we are being approached not to heed for our thoughts but for our company and assurance that we can be the human who can see, hear or feel the person in front of us.

So to my friends, family and colleagues - I thank you for being this HUMAN. Rest assured that I can also be this person. Let's enjoy life and live to the fullest. Make a priority list of the things that embrace positive energy and let go of the bad ones. Otherwise, clinching to thoughts that drive us mad will just lead to jeopardy :)

P.S
For those people causing troubles, pains - making someone feeling low, not valuable and bad about oneself, Think again! who knows?... karma is just around the corner.

We can't always have the things we want

This morning I got a forwarded text from my sister-in-law. It says, "Sometimes God doesn't give u what u think u want. Not because u dont deserve but u deserve more. Always keep in your heart, God knows what's best for His children. God bless you"

It was a nice message to start the day and very timely. I guess all of us have our share of frustrations and expectations. It is just human to feel sad or even cry over a spilled milk because you and I feel that we wanted it so badly. It's a natural reaction if we let our emotions take over our mind. But it shouln't be permanent right? We always need to move on, otherwise we're stuck in the notion of loneliness and unfair world.  

I think the message is just a reminder to continue to hope and let reality bites into our life. From our pains we pull strength and from our experience we continue to learn. It's nice to be idealistic but we are reminded of challenges that idealism will not always happen to please our way of life :)

Learnings: Continue to hope and give hope. Learn from the past and be cautious next time. Strive to do better and carry no grudge. The sweetest victory is conquering achievements without having to pull oneself to limelight nor step someone. It will always go back to the Golden Rule :)

Being envious isn't always bad

Coming from an extended and poor family I had to leave my family and live with my aunt to ensure I will graduate from college. One of the important perspective I learned from her is that "hindi masamang maingit (it's not bad to be envious), if you will use it as your motivation to achieve the same fortune or success. You just have to ensure that in your way of achieving success, you wont hurt or step unto someone nor even wish him or her misfortune"...I remembered it so well and it's one of the important BIT in my memory.

I'm convinced she's right and the information from wikipedia has an explanation to it :)

Quoting from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envy - "Bertrand Russell said envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.[2] Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his envy, but they also wish to inflict misfortune on others. Although envy is generally seen as something negative, Russell also believed that envy was a driving force behind the movement towards democracy and must be endured to achieve a more just social system.[3] However, psychologists have recently suggested that there may be two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy - benign envy being proposed as a type of positive motivational force.[4][5]"

As such, even a word or behavior is generally identified as negative, we can still do something to change it based on our perspective. It's like turning a weakness into strength. Think positive and have a pleasant day ahead :)

 

Assumptions

How assumptions affect us in our life? We normally hear that it's dangerous to work on assumptions but have you also thought that to have an assumption is better than to have nothing to work on? :)

This holds true for every decision we make. Assumptions help us to deal with a scenario, scope and plan ahead. But on the negative side, it may not be constructive or always true if you are into a relationship and you live with assumptions. It will still be best to communicate with your partner to hear, feel and learn or ask for confirmation.

Just sharing this thought on how my LIFE can be described in @ BIT. Good day! :)

Silently rejoicing

It feels good and fulfilling to see that the exact write-up I made for Project VISA and links with other awards (including my.Smart) is shared. See this link for the introductory page and one work-sample of Project VISA http://lnkd.in/8pERXu  :)

My learnings: Award is not everything but just a bonus for putting teamwork into action. Though it really spells a difference, give credit where credit is due. Always keep your feet on the ground and most of all return the praises to our Creator. We are just instruments :)

What should I share ...Writing or Painting?

These are two talents I can opt to share. As a private employee, wife, mom without extra hands, I can only choose one skill to practice at a time. :)

Hmnn...so how do I choose? - both needs good mood and subject to drive or inspire me. For me, the difference would be:  required space or location, time to consume,  mediums to write or paint and most important is the consideration of the output's interpretation.

Writing articulates itself while Painting can be subjective to the eyes of the audience. Writing puts the readers into the same perspective while the other one provides freedom to create interpretation specially if the painting is an abstract. In my case, in Painting I am the boss when I would want to finish it while Writing may not always give me the luxury of time specially if somebody else asked me to finish a write-up.

Between the two I really like to paint - it's my silent way of expressing my emotions, I found this skill wayback in my high school days. I never had any formal training to paint, I just learned I have the talent when my works were published at Junior Philippine Daily Inquirer and joined their pool of illustrators wayback in 1998 (if my memory serves me right). I like using water color in my paintings because it's cheaper and I like it most when mixing colors all together. My first artwork was just a simple mountain and sea - nature as my subject. I'm so happy about the artwork I decided to share it to a newspaper without any expectation of it being published. As a teenager, it was a memorable event in my life. It opened an unexpected opportunity. Learnings / best experience I appreciate? My painting, illustrations were shared publicly, I got recognition from my school and newspaper plus a surprise fee for the artwork. Not bad for utilizing talent as a hobby, right? :)

As for writing, I know you can relate that from grade school till college we were required to create essays and do reaction papers. Even so, I never had any courage to join writing contest nor bother taking a formal training. Back then, writing was just a plain task for me, I was writing because I was asked to do so, not because I wanted to do it. After graduation from college, I thought writing essays will also end but I was wrong. Honestly, I have been in the corporate world since 2001 and I'm still compelled to write - the major difference started last year till September 2012 this year...I was tasked to supervise, write and join prestigious communication competition. It was like living in a life of lie, and I did ask myself - am not a professional writer that's why my forte is development not communications, so why do I have to write?
Learnings / best experience? I found my new skill, I was convinced I can write. My write ups, task bagged awards from Anvil and Quill. I learned that I should not under estimate myself even I'm not a professional writer, what's important is you put heart into your task. I may not have been publicly recognized as the writer of the winning piece unlike the paintings but I was able to conquer an opportunity to share my talent. Thus, the awards were just confirmation that it wasn't after all a "tsamba" :)

So for you out there, believe in yourself, explore and find out other good things in you. Utilize and share, who knows an award or a fee is at the end of the string. Till next time :)