Incline your ear to wisdom

We held a presentation for our church and guess what got featured?  Freedom of Simplicity by none other than Bo Sanchez.  Yes, if that name sounds familiar, it's because I have posted some of his writings here in my blog.  So here I'm gonna share another one, with some of my personal insights for each item in parentheses:

1.  LIVE ON LESS, AND DELIGHT IN THEM MORE

Some take their pleasure dining in classy restaurants, trips to Europe, and owning the latest home theatre-equipment.  I've chosen the simple path:

If I can simply be with my wife, or take a quiet stroll under a canopy of stars, or play with a child, or read a good book in my home, or laugh with friends over a pizza, I consider myself richly blessed.

"Focus on what you have and not on what you don't have."

(I think the quote above is easier said than done.  How our parents raised us bears a lot on our spending habits.  It would be hard to break a spending habit taught to us by our parents either conciously or subconciously.  If we had parents who gave us everything we asked without earning it by getting good grades or doing a household chore, then we are likely to think that we deserve everything we want, just because we can afford it, albeit going into debt.)

2. STOP RUNNING AND WALK INSTEAD

Here's the truth: The person who has covered the greatest distance DOES NOT win, but the one who has most enjoyed the journey does.  Stop running around chasing your own tail!

Get off your hurried pace and learn to breathe.  Replace doing with being.  Learn to say no to invitations, appointments, and commitments, activities and events that will rob you of your focus.
   Learn to say 'YES' to rest, to tranquility, to quietness.

(Remember, if you run the rat race, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, you will still come out a rat.  If you remember, one of my hobbies is reading the obituaries.  Some of the most interesting out there are not the ones who have a long list of achievements, but the ones where you can feel the grief of the families and friends who lost them.  The ones where their anguish emanates from the very words they have written for and about their departed loved one.)

3.  YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR WEALTH

   I own very few things today.  Because I am more than the brand of my watch, the logo of my shoes, the name of my car.  I believe that if in my soul I deeply respect and value myself, people around me will sense that, and they too, will value and respect me whether I am wearing Armani or not.  You are more than your wealth.

(You often see people with their cars out in the curbs although they have two-car garages.  It is not difficult to guess what the reason for this seemingly peculiar sight.  Either they have more cars than people living in the house, or they have too much stuff that they use their garage as a storage for all the clutter they have accumulated in years)

To be continued....

I'm back, again.

On the first part of my explanation to my relatively long absence, I said that one of the reasons is that our computer crashed.  Thankfully, the harddrive was still intact and we were able to recover all the data.  We had to reinstall all the programs though.

They told me it might cost us $600 to repair it, and that's not including the $120 they'll charge me just to look at it.  So...we just decided to buy a new pc, a laptop actually.  We were thinking of buying one when the computer croaks anyway.  We want something that we can take to the Philippines when we go on vacation there.

So, we bought this Toshiba laptop.  The reason I picked it is because the brand is one of the well known brand in terms of functionality and customer satisfaction.  But, and that's a big but (like JLo's, hehe), it doesn't guarantee anything.  You can still get a lemon, and sure enough, we got one.  After about 10 days, the dang thing wouldn't work.  The on button was stuck, and because it has a battery, it wouldn't turn off.  Despite that, the screen is just blank!

I work in the Information Technology industry but I'm really starting to hate technology.  We took it to CompUSA and they were gracious enough to replace it with a brand new one (you have 21 days, and I bought a 2 year warranty).  It's all good again, except that we have to load all our software and data again.  That's one of the advantages of buying software with a disc over downloading it through the web.  You can easily reinstall them if your computer breaks.

Then ya'll know about my ISP travails.  AOL gives me 4 Kbps connection.  I was literally reading a book while surfing the internet.  As most of you know, they offer 3 months free, but the service is intolerable.  So we decided to PeoplePC.  I'm connected right now at 37 Kbps (you with DSL, you can stop laughing now).  I know it's not blazing fast, but its ok.  I can blog again!

Looks like I'm gonna take another break, till we install a decent IP.  AOL takes 2 minutes to load a single freakin' page!

I guess I can use my access at the office but I tend to avoid doing that, plus its unbelievably busy at work now.

I do miss reading your blogs and will do as soon as we get things fixed.

Till then my friends.....

Whew!  With this post, I hereby end my hiatus!

And, attempt to explain my absence.

Boy those were some busy weeks that passed.

I was so busy everything is still a blur as I try to review all that happened to post here.

First, I would like to thank everyone who's id I see in my visitor tracker, I appreciate the visit, specially the comments.

Ok, I'll attemp to answer the question many of you might be wondering.  Where was seeker during his unexplained absence?  Its not that I was gone for eons but for someone who used to blog regularly, that's a fair question.

Well, there was this and that and then this happened and then boom! another thing came and that was that!

Ok, I'll try to do it the way you can understand, but where do I start?  

Well, there was this wedding that I volunteered to videotape as a gift for the couple.  They asked a pro and his starting price was $500 so they just asked if I could do it and I agreed.  Granted my work couldn't be considered professional but I think it's not too shabby either.  Hey, you get what you pay for, right?

Then I got assigned as a project lead for this big project that compels me to travel.  I just arrived from Chicago last night and all I did for the day I was there was attend meetings and listen to presentations.  I'm not complaining but it seems like too much information to absorb in just a day. It's like reading a book, watching tv and playing a video game all at the same time.  Anyway, we ate dinner at this restaurant called the Wildfire and got a chance again to eat some fare that I wouldn't normally order, heck I wouldn't normally go to such classy joints.  I decided I would try the London Broiled Swordfish this time and ordered it without hesitation.  The reason being I scanned the prices and it's one of the cheapest dishes among fillet mignons and tenderloin tips, which my collegues ordered without flinching.  Well, my dinner didn't disappoint.  Worth every penny my company paid for :)

Oh yeah, almost forgot, another reason for this break from blogging was that our PC crashed on us.  The darn thing just died, the screen wouldn't even show a flicker.  So took it to CompUSA and had it checked.  The good news was the hard drive is still intact so we could still retrieve our data.  The bad news is that the motherboard is toast and they want to charge me $120 just to look at it.  They're not even sure if they can fix it, but they want to fleece me just for their nerds to gut my once trusty computer.  Bah!  What do they think of me, stupid?

To be continued....

  By Bo Sanchez

    & nbsp; Let me tell you a crazy story I heard recently.  There's this husband who out of sheer love for his wife  decided to prove it to her.  So he swam the widest oceans, crossed the  deepest rivers, and climbed the highest mountains to show his deep devotion to her. 

    & nbsp; But in the end, she divorced him.

    & nbsp; Why?

    & nbsp; Because he was never home. (Get it?)

    & nbsp; Let me tell you an experience I had as a kid.  One  day, I asked Mom, "Why do my shoes keep eating my socks?"  As a young boy, that was always a mystery for me.  All my other classmates never had that  problem. Their socks remained tight and high up their legs the entire day.

    & nbsp;  Mom didn't answer my question but simply gave me  two rubberbands which I dutifully placed around the top of my  socks.  To this day, fifteen years later, I still have permanent circle  marks around my legs.  But aside from giving me this slight defect, the two bands worked like magic.

    & nbsp;  It never occurred to me that Dad and Mom didn't have the money to buy a new pair of socks for me.  So I wore five-year-old socks, all soggy, grayish, and garterless.

    & nbsp;  And yet amazingly, I never complained. I believe it  was because Dad was always home when I needed him.  Every night after coming from work, we'd jog together, sit around, and talk about Tarzan, Farrah Fawcett Majors, God, and what I wanted to be when I grow up (a stockholder).  On Saturdays, we'd walk to Cubao, eat a hotdog-on-a-stick, and buy new rubber bands before going home.

    & nbsp;  I've learned that in truth, we don't want our loved  ones to show their love for us in big ways.  Swimming the widest  oceans, crossing the deepest rivers, and climbing the highest  mountains seem spectacular - but that's not what we really want.  Deep in our hearts, we just want them home.  With us.  

    & nbsp; Sometimes, God will operate that way.  Suddenly,  He decides not to answer our prayers, or fill our need, or heal our  sickness, or give us the miracle we're asking for. (He's got reasons why He won't, and believe me - they're pretty good ones.)

    & nbsp;  So He'll just be there beside you, holding you in a hug.  Sharing your pain.  Weeping as you weep.  Oh, He might give you some rubber bands. And  that small comfort from Him will be more than enough to sustain you.

    & nbsp;  Because the most essential truth you already know.  Daddy's home.

Don't you love it when you learn something new?  I do, and I did!  Just learned that the word perk is actually an abbreviation of the title of this post.  Kinda remind me of the word tip, which is actually an acronym of To Insure Promptness.  Bet you already knew that.  But have you ever thought that it’s actually a misnomer?  You actually give tips at the end of a service, so you're not actually insuring promptness but rewarding it.  So it should actually be trep, To REward Promptness.  Or maybe tregs, To REward Good Service.  Maybe I should submit these to Merriam Webster.

ANYWAY, here are 10 of our company perks that I truly appreciate:

1.  Pay me while I sip pinacoladas.  In other words, paid time off.  They give us 25 days when you join the company and it becomes 28 days after 5 years of service.  My wife and I take full advantage of this one, especially when we take long vacations to the Philippines, which we plan to do this year.

2.   Angry lobster.  No, this is not the actual name of the perk.  It’s actually business travel.  From time to time, we get the opportunity to attend conferences and the company pays for everything including the airfare, car rental, hotel accommodations and food.  Which brings us to angry lobster.  One time we went to Chicago for the company’s yearly outing.  We went to a restaurant called Smith’s and Wellenski and ordered a dish called angry lobster (there were 4 of us and all of us ordered the same thing).  When our orders arrived, we each had a steamed 2-pound lobster staring at us with the fiercest eyes a lobster could muster!  All the other customers were also staring at us with mouths agape in disbelief.   It doesn’t end there…the bill came to $75 apiece.  We went out the restaurant worried that we will have angry bosses when they see the charges.

3.  Sharpen the saw and climb the ladder.  I’m not talking about basic carpentry here (although it might be a useful thing to learn), but about furthering your education.  The company subsidizes higher education or other courses related to your field.  The percentage they contribute towards the tuition fee depends on the grades you get on the course.  The higher your grade, the less you pay out of pocket.

4.  Wanna do Italian or Chinese today?  We usually have team lunches every month.  Our managers always take us to nice restaurants (read expensive) and sample their menus.  Good thing cause I would never go to those places if I am gonna pay.  I have seen the bill several times and almost have a stroke every time.

5.  Staying connected.  We have access to high speed internet here at work.  I use it mainly for checking news and posts of my blog buddies.  Those of you with the same privilege, try to limit your web surfing.  You don’t want your boss to see you on the net every time he passes by your cube.  Unless you have very fast fingers to switch to other windows.

6.  Stockpiling some stocks.  We receive a 15% discount on our stocks and you can set up an automatic payroll deduction so you can avail of the bargain with ease.  After two years, you can sell those stocks without incurring a penalty.  My wife usually gets her Philippine vacation fund from this.

7.  Catching up some needed sleep.  We have flextime and if you arrive late, you can just make it up by staying late.  This perk is great if your kid has a doctor’s appointment or if you need to take your car to the mechanic….Or if you are a night owl like me and hit the snooze button 5 times every morning.

8.  The help-me-pay-jenny’s-bra ces fund.  Otherwise known as the Flexible Spending Account or FSA.  This tax-deductible fund can be used to pay for things that your health insurance doesn’t cover, like over the counter meds, co-pay fees, and yes, your kids’ braces.

9.   There’s nothing certain in life but death….The company will give a lump sum of $50,000 to your family if you die.  You can also buy supplemental life insurance for a lot less when you buy it from insurance companies.  If an immediate family dies, they give you  extra 5 days paid time off to bereave the loss.

10.  ….and taxes.  The company provides a wide array of investment options for our 401K plan.  That’s a major advantage because people’s risk tolerance widely varies.  I’m an extremely conservative guy so most of my stock is in stable value (which gives me a not too shabby 5% a year).  Add the tax benefit, the compounded interest, the company match and you should have enough stashed for your golden years. 

If you think our company perks are cool, check out this link: http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/culture/0" title="http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/culture/0" target="_blank"http://wired-vig.wired.com/ne...,1284,20972,00.html