Towards a Healthy and Happy Lifestyle

Never borrow from the future.. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain.. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice. If you want to live a healthy and happy life, the following advices could be of great help to you. Take time to read and follow these advices and you will be amazed how great life can be.


1. Pray
2. Go to bed on time.
3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.
4. Say NO to projects that won't fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health.
5. Delegate tasks to capable others.
6. Simplify and unclutter your life.
7. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)
8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.
9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together.
10. Take one day at a time.
11. Separate worries from concerns . If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety . If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it..
12. Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.
13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.
14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.
15. Do something for the Kid in You everyday.
16. Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line.
17. Get enough rest
18. Eat right.
19 Get organized so everything has its place.
20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life.
21. Write down thoughts and inspirations.
22. Every day, find time to be alone.
23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don't wait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray.
24. Make friends with Godly people.
25. Keep a folder of favorite scriptures on hand.
26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good 'Thank you Jesus .'
27. Laugh.
28. Laugh some more!
29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.
30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).
31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most).
32. Sit on your ego.
33 Talk less; listen more.
34. Slow down.
35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.
36 Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before. GOD HAS A WAYOF TURNING THINGS AROUND FOR YOU.

Post Script: These pieces of advice are from an e-mail sent by a friend. Do you have something to say? Please leave your comments by clicking COMMENTS at the bottom of this post.

Educational Leadership: What Went Wrong?

Most of the times, the concept of Educational Leadership is confusing in different aspects and how it is being practiced. First of all, everyone seems to have vested interest in educational leadership. Like in the Philippines, village captains to town mayors to province governors to the congressmen, senators and the president decide and implement educational policies. This way, they consider themselves educational leaders if not change makers.

Another confusing concept of Educational Leadership is how it is being practiced in schools/colleges/universities. Some Educational Leaders tend to focus more on their political role while some greedily settle to their role as business administrator and consider schools as one hundred percent for-profit company.

The concept of Educational Leadership yields from the fact that schools are social institutions that play vital role in the development of the society especially in assuring healthy development among learners. Therefore educational leaders should have very deep understanding on the task that he is going to take. If we believe that effective schools are places where children have equal opportunities to learn, know who they are and understand the society where they are living I would say that educational leadership is the one who could make those things happen.

Medicinal Music

For some of us, we think that music exists as mere addition to life's entertainments. Little did we know that more than the entertainment that it provides, music also offers delightful mental, physical and emotional benefits.

Physical Benefits
Since last month I had a personal commitment to lose weight by controlling my diet and engaging myself to regular exercise. The first one is so difficult as it requires a great deal of personal discipline and abstinence to the food that I really crave for. The second one is quite easy for me because my pad (inside the school's compound) is surrounded by nice fitness facilities like 400-m running oval, swimming pool, fitness gym, basketball courts, tennis courts and others. However, my stamina is the problem for I easily give up whenever I start to jog or play some sports. Two rounds in the oval is an achievement already.

However, when I started to jog while enjoying music in my mp3 player, my jogging performance has tremendously increased. I was so surprised to have finished five rounds and then seven rounds until I reached ten rounds of uninterrupted jogging. There was no magic in there! No energy drinks or doping drugs involved. I just enjoyed my run while listening to heart-pumping hiphop, RnB, rock and disco music. It really helped a lot.

Mental Benefits
As high school mathematics teacher in a private school in Bangkok, I could not avoid those paper works which are really demanding. They are demanding in the sense that I have to extract the best idea that my brain could have in order to make a good output. As a teacher I have to arrive with the best and most engaging plan possible for my students.

Instrumental and mellow music are of great help to me whenever I am doing all of them. I could easily concentrate and arrive with ideas every time I am mesmerized by Beethoven's powerful piano pieces. I have watched several documentaries before that would support this phenomenon. The explanation was, if my mind would set me correct, these kinds of music produce waves that stimulates our brain. Thus, helping us think better.

Emotional Benefits
For this one, no doubt, everyone has experiences to share. Music makes those lonely hearts happy, the lethargic hearts inspired, and a lot more emotional transformations. Honestly, there were times when I thought of expressing my feelings to someone because of the music I heard. I even captured a picture of two lovers in which the other one is me because of a song I heard. I could not deny that, in one way or another, there were songs that inspired me.

I could still remember, as a kid, how I laughed after I cried because I heard a song that tickled my heart.

So folks, you know what to do whenever you want to change the ever-changing mood. MUSIC is the answer! However, we could not blame everything to music and we could not give all the burdens to music. Our mind is still more powerful that anything else. Still, I would pronounce, it's all in the mind.

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
--Berthold Auerbach

'METERS' AWAY from HOME

It's been a year and four months since I last tasted the real "HOME FLAVOR". I have been absolutely missing home
especially my family. I could still clearly paint in my mind the picture of our place the last time I visited Philippines. It's very different from the life that I have in Bangkok right now. Here, I have to live with heavy traffic jam and have to spend more Baht for food and skytrain or subway if I don't want to be bothered in the vehicle-polluted streets in downtown. But anyway, life has still something to offer me here for I have been enjoying my work with my teenage students and I have been meeting people of different values and characters from time to time.

Aside from it, another nice thing that has been happening here is I have been so blessed to have worked in a spacious school in the outskirt area of Bangkok. Here, pollution is not the kind that would make me feel sick everyday or the one that would compel me to go back to my den. Huge trees can be seen around the school campus, a variety of wild and exotic animals are in the school zoo, squirrels are just hopping from one tree to another in the school's camping ground and behind the Teachers' Residence (my place) is a mini agricultural park for agricultural training center. The view is relaxing inside especially on weekends wherein the area is so silent. At least, I could just think that I am only contemplating in a very nice surrounding few meters away from home although it's obviously ironic.

And to make use of those indie moments in Bangkok, I let my creativity work especially when I am all alone. That's positive psychology -- taking every situation as an opportunity that must be treasured. Recently, I had my terrace lanscaped and my photo cravings framed. I gave a new look to my room. At least, I have diverted my negative feelings into something useful and worthwhile.

FIERCE CONVICTIONS

Being an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) at a young age, I have encountered plenty of first-times here in Thailand and one of them is becoming totally independent from my parents who truly pampered me since then. Ever since, I never imagined of living in a land miles away from my Mama and Papa. However, things have changed when I started to mold my own dreams, made my own stories of success and decided to take huge steps to fulfill them. I knew it was not easy but I had to take the risk or else my thoughts would remain as they were. As Mama and Papa have always told me, "Agwantaha ang tanan kay asa ra man na kung magmalampuson na ka pohon." (Just sacrifice in order to achieve your dreams.) I always believed that the pains that I had to go through were parts of the sacrifices that I had to endure in order to reach the top.

Undeniably, the things that we want do not just ordinarily come out of the blue. We need to sacrifice. In spite of that, the choice is still ours for we could turn sacrifices into pleasure that would always be a part of our growth as individuals. By looking back at those moments in my life wherein I tried to delight myself through the pains which I should have felt, a piece of thought runs over my mind that tells me the reason why I am still living and smiling freely.

I live because I believe. I believe that I have my parents who believe in me. I believe that I have an awesome God who perfectly puts everything according to His plan. Because of them and other people who love me, I live with a strong belief that I can and I can because of my FIERCE CONVICTIONS.