Sana
nais kong simulan ang aking tula sa isang katanungan,
"bakit mo ako iniwan?"
dahil ba sa ugali kong hindi maintindihan?
dahil ba sa itsura kong hindi kagandahan?
bakit mo ako binitiwan?
bakit mas pinili mo ang lumisan?
bakit mga pangako mo'y iyong kinalimutan?
bakit ka lumihis ng daan?
mahal, sana'y sagutin mo't huwag kang magalit,
kung marami akong tanong sayo na bakit,
hindi ko parin kasi talaga matanggap yung sakit,
sagutin mo naman, baka sakaling tumamis ang mapait.
hindi kita matanggal sa puso't isip ko,
at dahil sa takot ko na baka maulit ang pag-alis mo,
ipinagkatiwala ko ang puso ko sa ibang tao,
kaysa ang maniwala muli sa mga salita mo.
sa bawat paggalaw ng kamay ng orasan,
sa bawat pag-ihip ng hanging amihan,
sa bawat pagsilip ni haring araw,
tila puso ko'y nanatiling naliligaw.
paulit-ulit sa aking isipan,
tama ba ang aking napagdesisyunan?
kasiyahan sa iba ay dapat bang subukan?
nagbakasali na hindi ko ito pagsisihan.
sumubok ako, nagtiwala sa mga salitang naghatid ng panandalian ligaya,
nagpadala ako sa mga pangakong "ikaw lang at wala ng iba",
pero nagkamali ako, pare-pareho lang pala kayo,
sa una lang kayo pursigido.
mahal, nais kong alalahanin mo,
lingid sa kaalaman mo na makakalimutin ako,
pero inaamin ko, ni minsan hindi ka nawala sa isip ko,
oo mali 'to, pero masisisi mo ba ako?
bakit ramdam ko parin ang sakit ng iyong paglisan?
bakit hindi kita kayang bitiwan?
bakit sa bawat oras ng aking kalungkutan,
ikaw, ikaw ang nagsisilbing dahilan ng aking kasiyahan?
ang unan ko'y basang basa na ng luha,
mata ko'y tuluyan ng namaga,
alam ko na wala na akong dapat kapitan,
kung kaya't sanay matutunan ko ng ika'y bitiwan.
mahal, wala akong karapatan para sabihin na ako'y iyong balikan,
dahil minsan na kitang pinagtabuyan,
kaya hinihiling ko na sana sa iyong muling paglisan,
kasabay nun ay ang unti unti kong pagtahan.
patawad sapagkat hindi na tama ang aking nadarama,
patawad sapagkat alam kong tayo'y tapos na,
patawad sa mga salitang hindi na maibabalik pa,
patawad, patawad sa pagpili ko noon na lisanin ka at wag ng lumingon pa.
labis ang naramdaman kong lungkot,
labis din ang poot dahil hindi kita malimot-limot,
subalit sa mga panahong naghihilom na ang kirot,
saka ka naman muling susulpot.
lubos akong nagalak,
puso ko'y nabusog sa iyong salitang mabubulaklak,
nawala ang patalim sa puso ko na nakasaksak,
nang ikaw sakin ay kumambak.
subalit hanggang kailan kaya mayroong "tayo"?
hindi ko maalis ang takot sa puso at isip ko,
hindi ko maalis ang nadarama kong silakbo,
na ang dapat na "tayo" ay mapalitan muli ng isang "kayo"
hanggang kailan mo ako muling mamahalin?
hanggang kailan mo ako muling yayakapin?
hanggang kailan mo muling ipaparamdam ang apoy ng pag-ibig?
o papatayin na lamang ito muli ng malamig na tubig?
natatakot ako sa mga bagay na hindi inaasahan,
na baka magbago ang iyong isipan,
natatakot ako sa mga pwedeng maging dahilan,
dahilan ng iyong posibleng paglisan.
kasi minsan mo na akong isinantabi,
minsan mo na kong trinato na parang walang silbi,
minsan mo ng binasa ng luha ang aking pisngi,
at minsan mo na rin pinunit ang puso ko sa iyong mga sinabi.
natatakot ako mahal ko,
nais kong magtiwala muli sa mga salita mo,
paumanhin, subalit natatakot ako,
natatakot akong iwan mo ulit ako.
sana'y sa ating karanasan sa nakaraan,
manatili ka sa aking tabi at huwag lumisan,
sapagkat ikaw ang aking kalakasan,
subalit ikaw rin ang aking kahinaan.
ikaw, ang pumapawi sa aking uhaw,
ikaw, ang nagbigay direksyon sa puso kong ligaw,
ikaw, ang dahilan kung bakit ang puso mula sa bintana ng kaluluwa'y dumungaw,
ikaw, ang nagbibigay sigla sa akin araw-araw.
hinihiling ko na sana sa oras na magbago ang ihip ng panahon,
magbago ang direksyon ng mga alon,
tumaliwas ang lahat ng bagay sa dapat nilang posisyon at direksyon,
mag-iba man ang huni ng mga ibon,
sa oras na ikaw ay aking muling tanungin,
isa laman ang isasagot mo sa akin,
"huwag kang matakot at mangamba,
mahal na mahal kita"
The friendship test
One of the oldest pieces of relationship advice in the book is, “You and your partner should be best friends.” Most people look at that piece of advice in the positive: I should spend time with my partner like I do my best friend; I should communicate openly with my partner like I do with my best friend; I should have fun with my partner like I do with my best friend.
But people should also look at it in the negative: **Would you tolerate your partner’s negative behaviors in your best friend?**
Amazingly, when we ask ourselves this question honestly, in most unhealthy and codependentrelationships, the answer is “no.” https://markmanson.net/boundaries
I know a young woman who just got married. She was madly in love with her husband. And despite the fact that he had been “between jobs” for more than a year, showed no interest in planning the wedding, often ditched her to take surfing trips with his friends, and her friends and family raised not-so-subtle concerns about him, she happily married him anyway.
But once the emotional high of the wedding wore off, reality set in. A year into their marriage, he’s still “between jobs,” he trashes the house while she’s at work, gets angry if she doesn’t cook dinner for him, and any time she complains he tells her that she’s “spoiled” and “arrogant.” Oh, *and* he still ditches her to take surfing trips with his friends.
And she got into this situation because she ignored all three of the harsh truths above. She idealized love. Despite being slapped in the face by all of the red flags he raised while dating him, she believed that their love signaled relationship compatibility. It didn’t. When her friends and family raised concerns leading up to the wedding, she believed that their love would solve their problems eventually. It didn’t. And now that everything had fallen into a steaming shit heap, she approached her friends for advice on how she could sacrifice herself even more to make it work.
And the truth is, it won’t.
*Why do we tolerate behavior in our romantic relationships that we would never ever, ever tolerate in our friendships?*
Imagine if your best friend moved in with you, trashed your place, refused to get a job or pay rent, demanded you cook dinner for them, and got angry and yelled at you any time you complained. That friendship would be over faster than Paris Hilton’s acting career.
Or another situation: a man’s girlfriend who was so jealous that she demanded passwords to *all* of his accounts and insisted on accompanying him on his business trips to make sure he wasn’t tempted by other women. This woman was like the NSA. His life was practically under 24/7 surveillance and you could see it wearing on his self-esteem. His self-worth dropped to nothing. She didn’t trust him to do anything. So he quit trusting himself to do anything.
Yet he stays with her! Why? Because he’s in love!
**Remember this: The only way you can fully enjoy the love in your life is to choose to make something else** ***more important*** **in your life than love.**
You can fall in love with a wide variety of people throughout the course of your life. You can fall in love with people who are good for you and people who are bad for you. You can fall in love in healthy ways and unhealthy ways. You can fall in love when you’re young and when you’re old. Love is not unique. Love is not special. Love is not scarce.
But your self-respect is. So is your dignity. So is your ability to trust. There can potentially be many loves throughout your life, but once you lose your self-respect, your dignity or your ability to trust, they are very hard to get back.
Love is a wonderful experience. It’s one of the greatest experiences life has to offer. And it is something everyone should aspire to feel and enjoy.
But like any other experience, it can be healthy or unhealthy. Like any other experience, it cannot be allowed to define us, our identities or our life purpose. We cannot let it consume us. We cannot sacrifice our identities and self-worth to it. Because the moment we do that, we lose love and we lose ourselves.
Because you need more in life than love. Love is great. Love is necessary. Love is beautiful. But love is not enough
-- Siopao
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/self-love-39b958f7
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/trust-the-process-2286a900
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/difference-dc58dc0b
Numb...
To me, it does not matter anymore if you're still here or not. All I know is I already decided to break this chain and cut the strings between the two of us. I might see you again. I might miss you some nights. I might look for you. I might want you back but Darling. I know I do not need to ask the heaven for that because this time I know I am better off without us. I was your remedy for your loneliness but I was not who you needed when you got back on your feet. Every excuses you made leaves marks on me and they did not make me feel acknowledged. If I were really your home you would never abandoned me like what you always did.
So when you need me again, walk on your own. Find me if you want. Whisper and please if you want. But I would never take place again for you taught me love is hurt but it should not be a poison that I will swallow just to make you feel better.
-- Siopao
Three harsh truths about love
The problem with idealizing love is that it causes us to develop unrealistic expectations about what love actually is and what it can do for us. These unrealistic expectations then sabotage the very relationships we hold dear in the first place. Allow me to illustrate:
**1. Love does not equal compatibility.** Just because you fall in love with someone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good partner for you to be with over the long term. Love is an emotional process; compatibility is a logical process. And the two don’t bleed into one another very well. https://markmanson.net/relationship-advice https://markmanson.net/compatibility-and-chemistry
It’s possible to fall in love with somebody who doesn’t treat us well, who makes us feel worse about ourselves, who doesn’t hold the same respect for us as we do for them, or who has such a dysfunctional life themselves that they threaten to bring us down with them.
It’s possible to fall in love with somebody who has different ambitions or life goals that are contradictory to our own, who holds different philosophical beliefs or worldviews that clash with our own sense of reality.
It’s possible to fall in love with somebody who sucks for us and our happiness. https://markmanson.net/stop-trying-to-be-happy
That may sound paradoxical, but it’s true.
When I think of all of the disastrous relationships I’ve seen or people have emailed me about, many (or most) of them were entered into on the basis of emotion — they felt that “spark” and so they just dove in head first. Forget that he was a born-again Christian alcoholic and she was an acid-dropping bisexual necrophiliac. It just felt *right*.
And then six months later, when she’s throwing his shit out onto the lawn and he’s praying to Jesus twelve times a day for her salvation, they look around and wonder, “Gee, where did it go wrong?”
The truth is, it went wrong *before it even began*.
When dating and looking for a partner, you must use not only your heart, but your mind. Yes, you want to find someone who makes your heart flutter and your farts smell like cherry popsicles. But you *also* need to evaluate a person’s values, how they treat themselves, how they treat those close to them, their ambitions and their worldviews in general. Because if you fall in love with someone who is incompatible with you…well, as the ski instructor from South Park once said, you’re going to have a bad time. https://markmanson.net/how-to-find-the-one
**2. Love does not solve your relationship problems.** My first girlfriend and I were madly in love with each other. We also lived in different cities, had no money to see each other, had families who hated each other, and went through weekly bouts of meaningless drama and fighting.
And every time we fought, we’d come back to each other the next day and make up and remind each other how crazy we were about one another and that none of those little things matter because we’re omg sooooooo in love and we’ll find a way to work it out and everything will be great, just you wait and see. Our love made us *feel* like we were overcoming our issues, when on a practical level, absolutely nothing had changed.
As you can imagine, none of our problems got resolved. The fights repeated themselves. The arguments got worse. Our inability to ever see each other hung around our necks like an albatross. We were both self-absorbed to the point where we couldn’t even communicate that effectively. Hours and hours talking on the phone with nothing actually said. Looking back, there was no hope that it was going to last. Yet we kept it up for *three fucking years*!
After all, love conquers all, right?
Unsurprisingly, that relationship burst into flames and crashed like the Hindenburg into an oil patch. The break up was ugly. And the big lesson I took away from it was this: **while love may make you feel better about your relationship problems, it doesn’t actually solve any of your relationship problems**. https://markmanson.net/break-up
This is how a toxic relationship works. The roller coaster of emotions are intoxicating, each high feeling even more important and more valid than the one before, but unless there’s a stable and practical foundation beneath your feet, that rising tide of emotion will eventually come and wash it all away. https://markmanson.net/6-toxic-habits https://markmanson.net/how-to-get-over-someone
**3. Love is not always worth sacrificing yourself.** One of the defining characteristics of loving someone is that you are able to think outside of yourself and your own needs to help care for another person and their needs as well.
But the question that doesn’t get asked often enough is exactly *what* are you sacrificing, and is it worth it? https://markmanson.net/when-to-break-up-with-someone
In loving relationships, it’s normal for both people to occasionally sacrifice their own desires, their own needs, and their own time for one another. I would argue that this is normal and healthy and a big part of what makes a relationship so great.
But when it comes to sacrificing one’s self-respect, one’s dignity, one’s physical body, one’s ambitions and life purpose, just to be with someone, then that same love becomes problematic. A loving relationship is supposed to *supplement* our individual identity, not damage it or replace it. If we find ourselves in situations where we’re tolerating disrespectful or abusive behavior, then that’s essentially what we’re doing: we’re allowing our love to consume us and negate us, and if we’re not careful, it will leave us as a shell of the person we once were
--Siopao
hope you read some of my articles also ☺️☺️☺️ godbless!
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/self-love-39b958f7
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/trust-the-process-2286a900
https://read.cash/@LifeChanges/difference-dc58dc0b
regret in human love turn to god
dont quit..
We may be a little confused. We do not know where we are heading. This is an endless roads of struggles and challenges. Maybe you feel a little outcast to where you are right now. You do not know if you're doing the right thing or things are just complicated for you to deal with. With that age pressure, regrets, fear and rejections will be your biggest enemy. This is your life and if ever you have your cards wrong, may you still have the courage to play with it while you're dealing with things that has to be done.
When you stop from playing, basically you will lose. But when you pick up the game, reshuffle your cards. There will always be chances of winning. Life will give you chances to get up everyday. May you use it to encourage yourself to live your life in a way that it would make your self proud in the end. No matter what the process. No matter what it takes.
-- Siopao
Take some rest
The world is sometimes, too much to carry. That is why sometimes we have to take our own space and time to regain our strength. To divert our attention to things that makes us go insane, enough to forget the weight we carry. This is why I engage myself to writing, this is why I got paints in my pallet. Why I got books, why music make me dance and the night make me dream. This is my way to create the universe inside my head.
They wonder sometimes how much satisfaction I get when I'm with myself, alone. To be honest. Too much. Too much that I forget sometimes that these whole crowd exist around me. Too much that I think I got the moon in my plams. Too much that it make others think less about the little universe I created for myself. It's less for them and it's too much enough for me and I have nothing to appologize for creating something peace and beautiful for myself in times when I needed it.
-- Clau Blanco
Art | https://pin.it/1J6bfqd
Tonight...
My heart has travelled hundred times
To different places and encountered
The heavy fall of raindrops
If you want to stay right here
You must ready yourself to be drowned
Through the ocean placed in my heart
My eyes barely look at people's eyes
But if you're dying to catch them
You must ready yourself to be lost
While counting the stars
I leave mark to people
Barely in the flesh
Mostly in the heart
You must know I am not as calm
As the moon at midnight
For I am the wolf longing for embrace
You see
I am done being admired
Only when I am whole
Only when my voice travels
Through the skies
I cannot afford another
Constellations tonight
Allow me to be the dust that fall
In your hands
Only for tonight
Siopao
just sharing this
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Mental Models and Making Decisions You Don’t Regret
What makes a good decision? When I ask people that question, I often get answers like:
“When the outcome is successful.”
Why is it that we, as a society, romanticize outcomes? Only things and people that succeed are celebrated. Just look at all the articles and books that idolize successful people. And to a degree, that’s obvious.
But it’s also misleading. We tend to overlook cases that did *not* come with a successful outcome. And when we *do* look at failure, we are often quick to explain why things failed.
In hindsight, we can all look at mistakes and say that it was imminent. But if preventing mistakes is that easy, why are we still make decisions that we regret? https://dariusforoux.com/what-to-do-when-you-screw-up-badly/
Take the case of the Titanic. Looking back, we all know that the luxury liner that traveled from Southampton to New York made many costly mistakes.
For example, it is well known that the Titanic didn’t carry enough lifeboats.
“What happens when all the lifeboats are used in case of an emergency?” is something that someone surely said, right? We just don’t know! We weren’t *there.*
How about another interesting fact? The Titanic was tested for 6 hours and never with a full crew. After that, they loaded up the passengers and set sail towards New York. http://www.ultimatetitanic.com/sea-trials-launch/
“Shouldn’t we try this thing out more before we bring passengers on board?” someone surely said. I guess not.
But here’s the thing. No one *wanted* the Titanic disaster to happen. And no one predicted it…Until *after* the fact.
A few decades before all those innocent people died, Fyodor Dostoevsky famously said:
*“Everything seems stupid when it fails.”*
Bad Decisions and Good Decisions
It’s easy to look at success and attribute it to good decision making. But here’s the thing—that statement is also true the other way around.
Failure is not always explained by bad decision making. However, that’s what most historians do. But like Dostoevsky said, in hindsight failure is always obvious. https://dariusforoux.com/failure/
The people who were responsible for the Titanic probably thought they were making the right decisions at the time. After the fact, they probably regretted many things.
But I don’t think good or bad decisions have anything to do with the outcome. Peter Bevelin, the author of Seeking Wisdom, puts it well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578644283/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dariusforoux-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1578644283&linkId=a728b745d6a5f1ce37a41808a9ae35e8
*“Good decisions can lead to bad outcomes and vice versa.”*
The truth is: You can’t predict the future. Sometimes even bad decisions can lead to good outcomes.
So that’s why I think it’s pointless when people pretend they can teach you how to make “good” decisions. There’s no such thing. Any person who’s failed a lot in life will tell you that.
Mental Models: Focus On The Process, Not The Outcome
The way you look at how something works in the real world is called a mental model. It’s your thinking framework about *something*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_model
But when we make decisions, we often don’t think about our framework and immediately jump to a discussion about potential outcomes.
We ask, “What will happen if we make this decision?”
That’s an incomprehensive method because you’re not questioning your decision-making process. You’re only looking at the outcome.
But have you considered what specific thinking frameworks (mental models) you can use for your decision?
Too often, we skip the process and jump right to deciding. Maybe that’s due to a lack of time, resources, or knowledge— it doesn’t matter.
Whatever your reason is, it’s never an excuse to skip the decision-making process altogether. Because that’s the only way to become a bad decision maker— regardless of the outcome.
So instead of focusing on how successful your choices are, focus on how comprehensive your decision-making process is.
Look, you don’t have to know everything about mental models—I certainly don’t. Most pseudo-intellectuals spend more time *talking*about what a mental model is instead of using them to achieve anything meaningful in life. They just like to *define* mental models.
But as you and I both know, knowledge without application is useless.
That’s why I recommend reading only the following two books that focus on this topic:
Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin—Discusses the mental models of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578644283/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dariusforoux-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1578644283&linkId=a728b745d6a5f1ce37a41808a9ae35e8
Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Taleb—One of my favorite mental models. It helps with understanding how random events influence outcomes. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812975219/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=dariusforoux-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0812975219&linkId=9c7a7c1200b57f0e0b7ac513129068a8
We can never predict the future, nor can we know all mental models that exist. But we *can*make decisions we don’t regret.
By simply focusing on the thinking process, we can always say we did the right thing. And that’s the only sure way to avoid regret—no matter what the outcome is.
“What’s the right thing?”
It’s clear we should never regret making mistakes. Every mistake is a lesson after all. However, there’s another type of regret that literally kills people. It’s the regret of inaction.
I’ve seen this up close with my grandmother. At the end of her life, she drowned in her own sorrow. And that sorrow was solely made up of regret about the things she never did.
Look, no matter what you do, we all suffer in life. But there’s a difference in suffering, as Jim Rohn once said:
*“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.”*
Achieving your goals. Improving yourself and your relationships. Writing a book. Building a business. It’s painful. It takes a lot of time, energy, and sacrifice to achieve things that are worthwhile in life.
But you know what’s also painful? The regret of inaction, disappointment, and laziness.
Which type of suffering hurts more? It’s up to you to decide.
Love
They wonder how I write about heartbreaks, how I write about love when I haven't experienced it yet, romantically. They wonder how a writer can write about feelings, things, situations, and people they haven't experienced and met, yet. I have bunches of definitions for love. I have bunches of words to describe what is love. Not just because I write, use metaphors, and play words. But because I read books, and I observe lovers. But most of all, because I am loved by people who deserve the depth of the ocean itself.
I knew what is love
I felt love for so many times
Even closed eyes
I can write about it skillfully
Even the most painful heartbreak
I knew it so well.
-- Siopao
Moon
Some people are naturally obsess with things that are no emotions they said. I couldn't agree more. We fantasize things that are, sometimes, out of our reach. Stars and the wide sky that holds the moon and the sun. The shades of nature as well. The different weather it brings that define our emotions sometimes. The ocean that is as deep as your emotions or maybe its closer to the depth of as his eyes? There... the beat.
For me, we are full of emotions for things that has no feelings because we couldn't offer them to people who are not passionate enough to accept what we feel towards them. Maybe you love the moon so much because you remember someone who is no longer in your life now, or maybe not? Maybe you are the person who has so much emotions that are self inflicted and you chose to pour it by admiring the night, because its dark, more lively, just like your eyes. I may not know exactly but one thing is for sure. We are pouring our emotions through things when we have so much of it that we cannot hold it any longer that even writing them, painting them, singing them can't suffice to calm our soul.
-- Siopao
Kindness to everyone
When it's raining, basically, you find a place where you can at least rest and where you can wait for the rain to calm or to stop. You'd thought of just going back home perhaps. But what if the storm was inside of your home? Where will you go? When you cannot make it stop, you catch every raindrops with you hands, shaking, waiting for it to stop. But worst is to feel another storm forming in between your eyes.
If there's anything in this world that we should offer best to everybody. That is kindness. After all, we do not know exactly what kind of home they're returning to everyday.
-- Siopao
Self appreciation
You are one of those books in the bookshelf, where people randomly see and read you whenever they want to. You are afraid they might not like what they would find out in you. But their disappointments are not for you to carry. No matter what you show towards them not because your intentions are clear and good does not always mean they will see you as one, too. We are different to many people. We are beautiful to some. We are smart and kind to some. We are messy and difficult to some.
Of course you cannot just hide yourself behind other books. But just by reading. People can learn, people discover different ways how to value a book that they thought was not knowledgeable enough. The magic is still there. For they might realize something beautiful in you while reading. But my Love, you prove yourself to no one. You will be happier if you stop caring about what people think about you.
You will be recognized if they appreciate you enough. People kills the meaning of art when they seek too much explanations from it. Too much explanations leads to disappointments. Let them embrace you through their own ways and appreciate yourself more that they can even imagine.
-- Siopao
It's not your fault
It's not always your fault. If you're not feel valued and loved by them, listen to your feelings and process everything. Do not ignore. The way they value you is also the weight of how they love you. Value and love should not be separated. Do not be thorn in between for you should flow both sides.
Relationships are not flawless as what other people think but it is not made out of pride and grudges. Not made out of walls and chains. It is not made out of lies and selfishness. It is not made out of blaming what your trauma left on you. You'll know if the people around you are genuine enough. You will feel it and laying your cards for them will and should be worth it.
-- Siopao
What is for you cannot be taken away.
We are, sometimes, society's outcast. Some days we are hopeless and sometimes we feel like we are going nowhere. Some nights we are dreamers but some days we are just... exhausted. But you see, we are trying our best to be better, to live the life we always dreamed of. But like what they always said; easier said than done. it's not easy to always be motivated all the time. it's not easy to pick up yourself from the dust after you see your greatest dream vanishes from your own hands.
It's so hard to realize that that best is not always good enough. You have many dreams in your head and it feels like everyday you're just waiting for them to crash for thinking no dream is for you. Well Darling, you can always try. You can't have everything you dream of, but you can always try. I hope at the end of the day, no matter is where your destination, I hope you made yourself proud for not giving up even if it feels like you're carrying the rest of the world sometimes.
-- Siopao
Believe in yourself
And when you are in a crowd, see people at your age. You can't help but think if you are really belong somewhere. If there's really a place for your dreams. Everybody else seems like they're living their life differently from yours. Perhaps they have goals and that is different from yours and that's okay. They might be a little ahead of you or even far from where you are right now. I want you to know that not because the path you're taking is different from them does not mean it's not valid.
Society's standard will always be there and to be qualified is not your main goal here. Remember that. You are not here to fulfill somebody else's path. You are here to fulfill yours and make yourself proud. Life has so much to offer to us. Regardless of what you will going to choose in the future. I hope happiness will be the end game of all the sacrifices you're making. Risk that you're taking.
We are all roaming around our places, trying to fit somewhere. Where we can plant and grow our dreams. I hope we harvest them well.
-- Siopao
Self love
I hope, wherever you are right now, you get the love that you deserve. I always pray you find place where you can love the way you want to because I know, you do not want to stay vague and explain your heart to someone for the rest of your life. I hope you can sit and let your heart beat in silence. I hope you can simply love, connect and be what you feel when you finally find that person, or when that person finally find you.
I hope you do not waste the rest of your life trying to fit in through those blackholes for you deserve better than that. I hope you good memories with the rest of your 3AMs. I pray you happiness that doesn't only make you feel lost, but can heal you and lift you instead. I pray that your journey leads you to your best circle of people.
-- Siopao
Trust the process
What makes it worth having is the process. The process of waiting, the excitement. The process of getting there even if you are in slow motion. You gotta hit rock bottom sometimes. But the feeling of finally having it after all the struggles, sleepless nights, and downfalls. The feeling of getting there changes everything. It changes the way you look at things and it changes the way you appreciate things. For you know, you've walk miles and prayers has been your way. You know in yourself how is the value of it for it mirrors what you've faced just to get there.
Some people might not believe how far you can be. But keep on moving. Once you get there. Stay your feet on the ground, be proud. You win.
-- Clau Blanco
Art | @sinashagrai
Difference ...
But because I don't compete to anyone does not mean I have no plans. I don't need to follow anyone's path. I don't need to rush myself just to get ahead of them. I keep myself calm because I want to take my time creating the way I need for myself. I have no time to compete and prove my way just to show this is better than them. Everybody else can be better than us.
We have differences. Different goals and dreams. Different paths to take. We are so full of things that sustain our whole system. Competition is everywhere. For once, let's calm ourselves. Let's focus on ourselves and work for ourselves.
Let's live softly, let's live proudly, and let's live with what our hearts aches for.
-- Clau Blanco
Art | @chuwenjie
We are, sometimes, society's outcast. Some days we are hopeless and sometimes we feel like we are going nowhere. Some nights we are dreamers but some days we are just... exhausted. But you see, we are trying our best to be better, to live the life we always dreamed of. But like what they always said; easier said than done. it's not easy to always be motivated all the time. it's not easy to pick up yourself from the dust after you see your greatest dream vanishes from your own hands.
It's so hard to realize that that best is not always good enough. You have many dreams in your head and it feels like everyday you're just waiting for them to crash for thinking no dream is for you. Well Darling, you can always try. You can't have everything you dream of, but you can always try. I hope at the end of the day, no matter is where your destination, I hope you made yourself proud for not giving up even if it feels like you're carrying the rest of the world sometimes.
What is for you cannot be taken away.
She....
She, the one who is jealous of you, the one who fights for everything, the one who cares that you do things right, the one who scolds you if you behave badly, the one who, regardless of your economic status, remains by your side, she who every time you Something happens to you, she dies of worry, she who would give everything for you, It is she who is worth it, and I doubt that there is someone else who will love you as she does, because the idea is to be together not only in the beautiful moments if not in the bad ones in the dark days, in the worst moments. So stay with the one who fulfills that promise, together in health and more together in illness and if obviously she is not your wife but if your girlfriend and there is no need for her to rub it in her face every time she scolds you or tells you something to make you a better person.👫❤️
Every loss is a partial loss of who you are
One of the most common emails I get from readers is from people who want to get their ex back. Some of them word it more nicely than that—they say they want to “make things up” or “fix things,” but really it comes down to, “He/she left my ass and it hurts; what do I say or do to get them back?”
This question never made sense to me. For one, if there was a tried-and-true way to get an ex back, then no one would ever **break up or divorce**. The world would be flooded with happily married couples. And I’d probably be out of a job. https://markmanson.net/when-to-break-up-with-someone https://markmanson.net/relationship-advice
But more importantly, trying to “win” back an ex is impossible because even if “it works,” the reformed relationship will never resemble the one of the past: it will be a fragile, contrived affair, composed of two wholly different and skeptical individuals, replaying the same problems and dramasover and over, while being constantly reminded of why things failed in the first place. https://markmanson.net/psycho
When I think of all of the happy couples I know, you know how many of them say, “Oh, he was a total piece of shit, but then he apologized and bought me cake and flowers and now we’re happily married”?
None of them.
What these emailers don’t get is that relationships don’t end because two people *did something wrong* to each other. Relationships end because two people *are something wrong* for each other. https://markmanson.net/compatibility-and-chemistry
We’ve all been through breakups before. And we’ve all, in our moments of weakness, pined for our exes, written embarrassing emails/text messages, drank too much vodka on a Tuesday night, and silently cried to that one 80s song that reminds us of them. https://markmanson.net/break-up
But why do breakups hurt so bad? And why do we find ourselves feeling so lost and helpless in their wake? This article will be covering coping with *all loss*, but because the loss of intimate relationships (partners and family members) is by far the most painful form of loss, we will primarily be using those as examples throughout.
But first, we need to understand why loss sucks so bad. So I’m going to whip out an epic bullet point list to set everything straight:
To be healthy, functioning individuals, we need to feel good about ourselves. To feel good about ourselves, we need to feel that our time and energy is *spent*meaningfully. Meaning is the fuel of our minds. When you run out of it, everything else stops working. https://markmanson.net/four-stages-of-life
The primary way we generate meaning is through relationships.2Note that I’ll be using the term “relationship” loosely throughout this article. We don’t just have relationships with other people (although those relationships tend to be the most meaningful to us), we also have relationships with our career, with our community, with groups and ideas that we identify with, activities we engage in, and so on. All of these relationships can potentially give our lives meaning and, therefore, make us feel good about ourselves. https://markmanson.net/how-to-let-go#footnote-2 https://markmanson.net/you-cant-have-it-all https://markmanson.net/how-to-start-a-cult-and-save-the-world
Our relationships don’t just give our lives meaning, they also define our understanding of ourselves. I *am* a writer because of my *relationship with writing*. I *am* a son because of *my relationship with my parents*. I *am* an American because of *my relationship with my country*. If any of these things get taken from me—like, let’s say I get shipped to North Korea by accident (oops) and can’t write anymore—it will throw me into a mini identity crisis because the activity that has given my life so much meaning the past decade will no longer be available to me (that and, you know, being stuck in North Korea). https://markmanson.net/downloads/self-knowledge https://markmanson.net/parents https://markmanson.net/american-dream
When one of these relationships is destroyed, that part of our identity is destroyed along with it. Consequently, the more meaning the relationship added to my life, the more significant its role in my identity, the more crippling the loss will be if/when I lose it. Since personal relationships generally give us the most meaning (and therefore, happiness), these are the relationships that hurt the most when lost. https://markmanson.net/diversify-your-identity https://markmanson.net/emotions/how-to-be-happy-in-life
When we lose a relationship, that meaning is stripped away from us. Suddenly this thing that created so much meaning in our life no longer exists. As a result, we will feel a sense of emptiness where that meaning used to be. We will start to question ourselves, to ask whether we really know ourselves, whether we made the right decision. In extreme circumstances, this questioning will become existential. We will ask whether our life is actually meaningful at *all*. Or if we’re just wasting everybody’s oxygen.3 https://markmanson.net/downloads/self-knowledge https://markmanson.net/risk https://markmanson.net/values/meaning-of-life https://markmanson.net/how-to-let-go#footnote-3
This feeling of emptiness—or more accurately, this lack of meaning—is more commonly known as depression. Most people believe that depression is a deep sadness. This is mistaken. While depression and sadness often occur together, they are not the same thing. Sadness occurs when something feels bad. Depression occurs when something feels meaningless. When something feels bad, at least it has meaning. In depression, everything becomes a big blank void. And the deeper the depression, the deeper the lack of meaning, the deeper the pointlessness of any action, to the point where a person will struggle to get up in the morning, to shower, to speak to other people, to eat food, etc. https://markmanson.net/5-books-for-dealing-with-anxiety-and-depression
The healthy response to loss is to slowly but surely construct new relationships and bring new meaning into one’s life. We often come to refer to these post-loss periods as “a fresh start,” or “a new me,” and this is, in a literal sense, true. You are constructing a “new you” by adopting new relationships to replace the old. https://markmanson.net/connection-course
The unhealthy response to loss is to refuse to admit that part of you is dead and gone. It’s to cling to the past and desperately try to recover it or relive it in some way. People do this because their entire identity and self-respect was wrapped up in that missing relationship. They feel that they are incapable or unworthy of loving and meaningful relationships with someone or something else going forward. https://markmanson.net/diversify-your-identity https://markmanson.net/boundaries
Ironically, the fact that many people are not able to love or respect themselves is almost always the reason their relationship failed in the first place.
The subtle art of not giving a fuck
In my life, I have given a fuck about many people and many things. I have also *not* given a fuck about many people and many things. And those fucks I have not given have made all the difference.
People often say the key to confidence and success in life is to simply “not give a fuck.” Indeed, we often refer to the strongest, most admirable people we know in terms of their lack of fucks given. Like “Oh, look at Susie working weekends again, she doesn’t give a fuck.” Or “Did you hear that Tom called the company president an asshole and still got a raise anyway? Holy shit, that dude does not give a fuck.” Or “Jason got up and ended his date with Cindy after 20 minutes. He said he wasn’t going to listen to her bullshit anymore. Man, that guy does not give a fuck.”
Chances are you know somebody in your life who, at one time or another, did not give a fuck and went on to accomplish amazing feats. Perhaps there was a time in your life where you simply did not give a fuck and excelled to some extraordinary heights. I know for myself, quitting my day job in finance after only six weeks and telling my boss that I was going to start selling dating advice online ranks pretty high up there in my own “didn’t give a fuck” hall of fame. Same with deciding to sell most of my possessions and move to South America. Fucks given? None. Just went and did it. https://markmanson.net/how-to-quit-your-job-and-travel-the-world https://markmanson.net/minimalism https://markmanson.net/5-life-lessons-5-years-traveling-world
Now, while not giving a fuck may seem simple on the surface, it’s a whole new bag of burritos under the hood. I don’t even know what that sentence means, but I don’t give a fuck. A bag of burritos sounds awesome, so let’s just go with it.
The point is, most of us struggle throughout our lives by giving too many fucks in situations where fucks do not deserve to be given. We give a fuck about the rude gas station attendant who gave us too many nickels. We give a fuck when a show we liked was canceled on TV. We give a fuck when our coworkers don’t bother asking us about our awesome weekend. We give a fuck when it’s raining and we were supposed to go jogging in the morning.
Fucks given everywhere. Strewn about like seeds in mother-fucking spring time. And for what purpose? For what reason? Convenience? Easy comforts? A pat on the fucking back maybe?
This is the problem, my friend.
**Because when we give too many fucks, when we choose to give a fuck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and** **happy at all times****, that’s when life fucks us.** https://markmanson.net/emotions/how-to-be-happy-in-life
Indeed, the ability to reserve our fucks for only the most fuckworthy of situations would surely make life a hell of a lot easier. Failure would be less terrifying. Rejection less painful. Unpleasant necessities more pleasant and the unsavory shit sandwiches a little bit more savory. I mean, if we could only give a few less fucks, or a few more consciously-directed fucks, then life would feel pretty fucking easy. https://markmanson.net/life-purpose
What we don’t realize is that there is a fine art of non-fuck-giving. People aren’t just born not giving a fuck. In fact, we’re born giving way too many fucks. Ever watch a kid cry his eyes out because his hat is the wrong shade of blue? Exactly. Fuck that kid.
Developing the ability to control and manage the fucks you give is the essence of strength and integrity. We must craft and hone our lack of fuckery over the course of years and decades. Like a fine wine, our fucks must age into a fine vintage, only uncorked and given on the most special fucking occasions. https://markmanson.net/values/personal-values-guide
This may sound easy. But it is not. Most of us, most of the time, get sucked in by life’s mean trivialities, steamrolled by its unimportant dramas; we live and die by the sidenotes and distractions and vicissitudes that suck the fucks out of us like Sasha Greyin the middle of a gangbang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasha_Grey
This is no way to live, man. So stop fucking around. Get your fucks together. And here, allow me to fucking show you.
A Pound of Butter (Honesty)
There was a farmer who sold a pound of butter to a baker. One day the baker decided to weigh the butter to see if he was getting the right amount, which he wasn’t. Angry about this, he took the farmer to court.
The judge asked the farmer if he was using any measure to weight the butter. The farmer replied, “Honor, I am primitive. I don’t have a proper measure, but I do have a scale.”
The judge asked, “Then how do you weigh the butter?”
The farmer replied;
**“Your Honor, long before the baker started buying butter from me, I have been buying a pound loaf of bread from him. Every day when the baker brings the bread, I put it on the scale and give him the same weight in butter. If anyone is to be blamed, it is the baker.”**
**Moral of the story:**
In life, you get what you give. Don’t try and cheat others.
More is not always better
Psychologists didn’t always study happiness. In fact, for most of the field’s history, psychology focused not on the positive, but on what fucked people up, what caused mental illness and emotional breakdowns and how people should cope with their greatest pains. https://markmanson.net/emotions/how-to-be-happy-in-life https://markmanson.net/best-books/psychology
It wasn’t until the 1980s that a few intrepid academics started asking themselves, “Wait a second, my job is kind of a downer. What about what makes people happy? Let’s study that instead!” And there was much celebration because soon dozens of “happiness” books would proliferate bookshelves, selling millions of copies to bored, angsty middle-class people with existential crises.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
One of the first things psychologists did to study happiness was a simple survey. They took large groups of people and gave them pagers (remember, this was the 80s and 90s), and whenever the pager went off, each person was to stop and write down two things:
1) On a scale from 1-10, how happy are you at this moment?
2) What has been going on in your life to cause these feelings?
They collected thousands of ratings from hundreds of people from all walks of life. And what they discovered was both surprising, and actually, incredibly boring.
Pretty much everybody wrote ‘7,’ like, all the time, no matter what.
At the grocery store buying milk. Seven. Attending my son’s baseball game. Seven. Talking to my boss about making a big sale to a client. Seven.
Even when catastrophic stuff did happen — mom got cancer, missed a mortgage payment on the house, junior lost an arm in a freak bowling accident — happiness levels would dip to the 2-5 range for a short period, and then, after a certain amount of time, promptly return to seven.
This was true for extremely positive events as well. Lottery winners, dream vacations, marriages, people’s ratings would shoot up for a short period of time, and then, predictably, settle back in around seven.
This fascinated psychologists. Nobody is fully happy all the time. But similarly, nobody is fully unhappy all the time either. It seems that humans, regardless of our external circumstances, live in a constant state of mild-but-not-fully-satisfying happiness. Put another way, things are pretty much always fine. But they could also always be better.
But this constant ‘seven’ that we’re all more or less always coming back to, it plays a little trick on us. And it’s a trick that we all fall for over and over again.
The trick is that our brain tells us, “You know, if I could just have a little bit more, I’d finally get to 10 and stay there.”
Most of us live most of our lives this way. Constantly chasing our imagined 10.
You think to be happier, you need to get a new job, so you get a new job. And then a few months later, you feel like you’d be happier if you had a new house. So you get a new house. And then a few months later, it’s an awesome beach vacation, so you go on an awesome beach vacation, and while you’re on the awesome beach, you’re like, “YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING NEED? A GODDAMN PIÑA COLADA? CAN’T A FUCKER GET A PIÑA COLADA AROUND HERE?” And so you stress about your piña colada, believing that just one piña colada will get you to your 10. But then it’s a second piña colada. And then a third. And then… well, you know how this turns out. You wake up with a hangover and are at a three.
But that’s OK.
Because you know that soon you’ll be back at that seven.
Some psychologists call this constant chasing of pleasure the “hedonic treadmill” because people who are constantly striving for a “better life” end up expending a ton of effort only to end up in the same place. https://markmanson.net/you-cant-have-it-all
But wait… I know what you’re saying:
*W-T-F, Mark. Does this mean that there’s no point in doing anything?*
**No, it means that we need to be motivated in life by something more than our own happiness. It means that we have to be driven by something greater than ourselves.**
Otherwise, you will simply run and run towards some vision of your own glory and improvement, towards your perfect 10, all the while feeling as though you’re in the same place. Or worse, like Riley’s championship teams, slowly undermining what got you there to begin with.
The Elephant Rope (Belief)
A gentleman was walking through an elephant camp, and he spotted that the elephants weren’t being kept in cages or held by the use of chains.
All that was **holding them back** from escaping the camp, was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs. https://wealthygorilla.com/holding-you-back-from-achieving-success/
As the man gazed upon the elephants, he was completely confused as to why the elephants didn’t just use their strength to break the rope and escape the camp. They could easily have done so, but instead, they didn’t try to at all.
Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why the elephants were just standing there and never tried to escape.
The trainer replied;
**“when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”**
The only reason that the elephants weren’t breaking free and escaping from the camp was that over time they adopted the belief that it just wasn’t possible
6 Questions to Help You Simplify and Focus on What Truly Matters
*“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.”*
**Charles Richards**
There are many important things in life.
Your family and friends. A hobby perhaps. Working out and staying healthy.
**The most important relationship in your life**. And reading, learning and growing as a person. https://premium.positivityblog.com/self-esteem-course/
But finding the time for what is most important in life is not always easy. It sometimes feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
But even if it may not feel like it, there are often ways to improve how you use your attention and your time.
This week I’d like to share 6 of the best questions I have found for doing just that and for shaking yourself out of a rut.
**1. What are the top 3 most important priorities in my life right now?**
With a lack of focus on what is most important in your life it becomes easy to spend too much time and energy on aimless actions or work.
On things that aren’t really that important but you do out of old habit or because of other unhelpful reasons.
To keep your attention in the right place it is essential to remind yourself every day of what is truly most important to you.
So ask yourself: what are the top 3 most important priorities in my life right now?
Write those three things down on two notes and put one in your workspace and the other one on your bedside table.
**2. What are the 1-3 most common distractions that keep me from doing my work in a focused way?**
Figure out how you can prevent those things from distracting you. It could be by:
Shutting the door to your office.
Putting your phone in silent mode.
Having notifications for your email or an instant messaging program/app shut off.
**3. What are the 1-3 most common distractions that keep me from having quality time with the people closest to me?**
The answer could for instance be your smart phone, TV-shows you just watch out of routine and not because you like them very much or bringing your work back home.
Then figure out how you can reduce or eliminate those distractions.
**4. What is one healthy limit I can start setting in my life this week?**
One of the smarter ways to **simplify your life** and to free up time is to set limits. https://premium.positivityblog.com/31-days-simpler-life/
Here are a few key areas that you can set powerful and healthy limits for:
**Your daily input.** Reduce the number of blogs, newsletters, magazines, book clubs, podcasts, TV-shows etc. you follow. Just keep the ones you are really getting something out of.
**Email.** Just check and process your email during one chunk of time once per day. Instead of checking it 10 times or more each day.
**Social activities.** Write down a list of the social activities you are involved in after school or work. Maybe you are involved in a club or an activity that it is not as fun or rewarding as it used to be. Maybe you want to rearrange your priorities a bit to focus on something else this fall.
**5. How can I minimize or eliminate one thing I may have missed?**
What else can you eliminate or minimize?
Some meetings at work or in school? Redditing or some online forum you hang out on a lot?
Really question and reconsider your own daily and weekly habits regularly instead of moving along in the same old tracks just because it is what you usually do.
**6. What is one piece of unnoticed or misused piece of free time during my regular day?**
There is often quite a bit of open travel- or waiting-time during a year.
What will you use such time for as we go into the fall this year?
Perhaps you would like to read more while riding the train or while waiting for a meeting to start.
I, for example, often listen to podcasts while I'm out and about or while waiting for a meeting.
Even if you only have 10-20 minutes of commuting time each day you still have a many, many hours in a year that you may want to, at least partly, use in a new way.
Getting a good start in the morning can make the entire day useful and full of positive energy. Some of the nice tips to make your day, you can start with something you love!!
@LifeChanges
