The New Math of Relationships

Ever wonder why we can't easily get to the bottom of life's happiness, success and all that abstract ideas until now? Only if there's a way to take all the complexities and confusions out of relationships and break everything from arguments to honeymoons and down into simple, mathematical equations-you know- a way to "quantify the world", we will all come up to something like these:



{Source via morenewmath}

Just Thinking: How Do You Define Success?

Have you ever met people who seem so successful? They have good paying jobs, living in posh condominiums, even their dogs have some breed of sorts. Their lives are so put together, their polished nails and branded bags are blameless. It’s an interesting notion, isn’t it? Just imagine how many people we randomly encounter in any given day- on the street, in a restaurant, in the checkout counter at the groceries- and half the time we often wonder is this fate or what?

Not in a jealous way, but in why-others-are-abounding- why-others-are-not kind of way. Does fate intervene in our lives more than we even know? I'm not even sure I have my own answer. The practical side of me said that what you think is what is what you are. I won’t pretend to know the science of success, happiness and life’s contentment. But I’m sure each of you who has ever peeked at your friend’s car or seen his latest Iphone Galaxy note has your own back story.



In my book, it’s not about material things that make one person fortunate. Those things that you think are "so for adults" -- managing your finances, taking your career seriously, being reliable and dependable -- are signs good enough to tell that you are taking charge of your life. Remember: learn to be self-reliant. Have faith in God but do hard work to achieve great things. Sadly, many people are still clueless as why scarcity and lack seem to run after them. And why hard work, sweat and tears are not enough. May be it's our attitude not only with success, but on how we face the challenges we meet along the way.

Francis Kong, a very good motivational speaker has mapped out these 5 different personalities and traits associated with each type…

1. Cop-outs. They set no goals and make no decisions.

2. Hold-outs. They have a dream, but afraid of the challenges. They’ve lost their childlike faith.

3. Drop-outs. When the going gets tough, they quit. They don’t pay the toll.

4. All-outs. They set goals. They never quit. They keep on keeping on, even when the toll gets heavy. They’re dedicated. They’re committed.

But I do hold out hope, friends. I hold out hope that all of you find real things that will make you happy. And real courage to make your life better than it is today.

How I Feel In Photos

As a sleep-deprived new dad adjusting to life with daughter, I find these pictures completely funny but totally relatable. The images are of Dave Engledow and daughter Alice Bee. What started as a single photo, became a viral hit in Facebook. The pictures, all 56 of them, are planned to make into a calendar. The goal of the project has always been to create something that, although funny, also offers lessons to both parents and non-parents. Really, I have yet to see a new dad too excited to be left alone at the house with a baby. They would rather defuse bombs than change nappies.

These father and daughter portraits are exactly as amusing as they are sweet. What could be more charming than a baby with a lit match next to a pile of fireworks?

P.S. Sorry for guys who are more excellent as mothers than their female counterparts. I know its not flesh and blood but heart that makes a good parent.

How I Hold Myself Together

Female or male

30 years and above

No kids

Don’t get confused – this is not an ad for a job or a contest. These are actually risk factors for Breast Cancer. “Risk factor” means being prone or being a candidate for having an illness. Family history, early onset of menstruation and late menopause are also included.

My mother, a single parent, with 3 adult children, had it at 68. Whatever the cause, the outcome is clear: this evil monster gives us all unsettled lives since then. I look at her and she’s not getting younger. I wonder how her frail body bears her sickness every single day. It's been more than 3 years since she was diagnosed with it. The symptoms started out innocently enough -- a sudden pain here, a slight fever there. We thought simple allergies were the culprit. If only life -- if only anything, really -- could be that simple, right?

So what's behind all this cancer talk? Because mother never really tell us how she is taking it. And I never really processed my feelings about it until now. On that day. Over the phone. Barely a month after I gave birth to my youngest. With my sister breaking the sad news of her biopsy. It all got to me now. Looking back, I wonder if I ever tell her how I managed to hold back my tears at the hospital bed. Not too sure how I managed that, but I did.

As we get closer to the time of year when she got sick, I so wish she had trusted me enough to describe how it felt. To actually hear her say she’s not feeling well and something is not right. She all sucked the fear and terror, the dreadful thought of a growing lump in her right breast all to herself. May be that’s how single mothers are. They face their battles alone. I actually liked her hospital room at Bulacan Provincial. It was airy and clean, well lighted and spacious enough for us. But I did not like the smell. It smelled of death. As I watched her sleeping, I was slowly breaking into pieces. And I cried the instant I had the chance. It wasn't blubbering exactly, but truth be told, I could almost choked my self between sobs.

For all the times that she has it, never at any moment she blamed anyone, even God. Breast cancer is not her waterloo. It takes a more aggressive tumor to kill her strength. She was never on chemo and was never hospitalized again. I say, at 71, she is still the same offensive and stubborn mother we have all these years. And it is comforting to know that she, for whatever reason, didn't actually want to give up yet, that she will do everything in her power to stay with us as long as her health could.

Writing it makes me feel better. To actually believe that there's something else out there, that there's some sort of rhyme and reason why things such as sickness and death happen. Really, you can never be too happy in this life.

Here’s a song of Taylor Swift “Ronan”. She wrote the song after reading Rockstar Ronan, owned by Maya Thompson, a US female blogger who describes her honest, raw and heartfelt experience about her four-year-old son's battle with cancer.

Probably My Most Meaningful Prayer Ever

Lying on my side, eyes closed but not asleep. Half of my body lying awkwardly outside the bed, and my sleeping daughter’s messy hair just above my own messy hair. There’s just the two of us. And the house, silent enough to hear my own thoughts. It occurred to me that this must be how God wants to talk sometimes. You will know its coming. You know that any moment there’s nothing more to do but face Him up. So I didn’t move a bit.

I had wanted it to be emotive and yes, slightly melodramatic as I usually do when I pray in front of people. But when I came down to it this morning, I didn’t feel like my words belong to me. That’s when I realized that my prayers are borrowed. All the fancy verbose I hear and read and copied from great writers, speakers and pastors, although astounding to the ears, but they are not from my own heart. It’s no wonder I don’t feel the power some days. And sadly there I realize that I can never float away for as light as my head feels, my heart is like a lead, keeping my words and my praises heavily chained.

And in that moment, I came to Him in this simple worship.

My Father in heaven, I worship and adore you with the kind of love and reverence my imperfect heart can love you. You own everything I have and I am in great awe of what you have done, been doing and will do for the rest of my life. I don’t deserve it but your blessings continue to pour in.

My loving Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, I will bless your kindness and goodness to my family, my mother, and siblings. We are not the kind of people you will like 24/7 but in your unconditional heart, your love traverse all our shameful acts of selfishness, neglect and lack of commitment.

I come to you in deep desire to look upon my husband and children in their everyday errands. Thank you for giving them to me because they lend stability and genuine happiness to my life. Bless them with good health and life in all the days of their lives.

Although I didn’t want to go back to the day my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, but the life you’re giving her is more than enough I could be thankful for. You are bigger than any cancer cells. Stronger than any tumors that grow, enlarge or swell. May she continue to live comfortably, happily and strong for what is left of her senior years.

And I know it’s hard to raise kids alone, whilst husband working overseas, I rest in your unfailing mercy that you will bless my sister with peace of mind, strong arms and solid faith to get through chaotic days of raising stubborn teens. May you bless them and keep them in your sake.

My words are cheap and flawed. But my heart means it.

This is my prayer in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen.

===

In case you may not know this but October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Very quickly I'm going to give you the basic three things about breast cancer to be aware of: 1-a new lump or mass in the breast that you can feel. A lump that is painless, hard, and has uneven edges is more likely to be cancer. But sometimes cancers can be tender, soft, and rounded. So it's important to have anything unusual checked by your doctor. 2--Often, an abnormal area turns up on a mammogram, so have yourself tested. I know its horrifying to finally know you’re sick, but the earlier the better. There is help out there. 3--Your biopsy show you do have it. Now what? you got to know cancer specialists. If you developed a good relationship with these doctors, you may want to stick with them. But go ahead seek second opinions if you must.

But most of all, don’t forget that Jesus is our help. More potent than any Tamoxifen Citrate that you can get.

In The Heat of the Moment

Let’s check out some funny quotes found on Twitter regarding the much talked about Anti-Cybercrime Law.



Again, I invoke my right against self-incrimination.

Cute Sommeecard eh?

Let's Talk Anti-CyberCrime Law

As I’m sure most of you all know that the Anti-Cyber Crime Law is in full swing starting today. I usually don’t care about things unless if it will cost me my dear life. So if it is not about me, I could sit around all day and not have to worry about any thing. But in very, very brief terms, I'm going to tell you, my fellow bloggers, why you should be fight tooth and nail to get this act revised, modified, amended or repealed.

The full name of the law is the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. As a normal citizen, I’m all about Copyrights. Claiming one’s material you do not own is next to theft and robbery. So hackers in a way, are close cousins of thieves and stealers. As bloggers, I know that we bust our heads to create the stories that we write and will unleash holy hell on anyone who steals them. And I also know that it’s difficult to think that with millions of file sharing sites there are, that we would actually “waste” money to buy, for example, a music album. Why do it if we can get it so easily? However shame on me if I tell the whole world I love Regine Velasquez but cannot shell out five hundred pesos to support her to make music that I love.

I am for one appreciates the backbone of the anti cyber-crime principles. They are up against:

• child pornography

• computer-related fraud

• identity theft

• computer-related forgery

The question is: Is the whole thing a good thing?

The Anti-Cybercrime Law may have been crafted with the best of intentions, but the final version of the bill poses nothing less than a most serious threat to our freedom of speech.

What it does is expand the coverage of libel.

Imagine a young man who has just turned 18. He is now legally an adult. In a fit of anger, he blasts his neighbor in his Facebook page, or in his Tweeter and calling that person all sorts of names. Under the anti-cybercrime law, he can be imprisoned and may not be released until his 30th birthday.

Ridiculous perhaps, but it’s the law.

I am speaking as a mother – one who is concerned not just for her children but for all the other young kids out there who spend so much of their free time on the internet and are unaware that they are covered by some repressive provisions of this law.

Let’s look at some possible scenarios:

Scenario 1: An allegedly libelous status is posted on Facebook. Your child ‘likes’ the post. The offended party can claim that by ‘liking’, your child seconded or gave approval to the libelous post.

Scenario 2: An allegedly libelous status is reposted/shared/retweeted by your child. That may be considered, under this law, to be republication or re-publishing, and your child can be held liable.

Scenario 3: In an impulsive, angry moment, your child could post something online against a classmate or friend. The angry parents of the offended child cry ‘Libel’ and bring a case against your child. Your child is faced with possible jailtime.

What should be done instead?

Well, first of all, there are several other acts that are already in place to protect copywritten materials.

Art. 353 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines defines libel as follows: “a public and malicious imputation of a crime, or of a vice or defect, real or imaginary, or any act, omission, condition, status, or circumstance tending to cause the dishonor, discredit, or contempt of a natural or juridical person, or to blacken the memory of one who is dead”.

The thing with libel is that it isn’t whether what you said or wrote was true or not. Truth is NOT a defense. Something is libelous if MALICIOUS INTENT is shown. With all the slipups, defects, blunders our present law against libelous act, would we want to make our lives harder by adding the Anti-CyberCrime Law? This law is so loosely constructed that any person including any site with any kind of copywritten material on it could be shut down as a violation. And kids, in their lack of knowledge, can also be incriminated.

As one blogger said, the social media is so intertwined in our children’s lives but it can be misused and abused. But shouldn’t this be addressed differently? After all, if no one bothers to teach the youth proper social behavior online, how can we fault them for crossing the line from non-libelous to libelous?

As a mother of 8 year old boy who is active on Facebook, who clicks and likes and shares and plays anything that caught his attention, I can limit his use of computer. But he can always go to his cousins anytime and watch actual normal child birth via You Tube.

The thing is, we really can’t stop the changing times. And I believe that our children are this country’s future. And the way to make them future leaders is to shape and form them in body, mind and spirit and that includes their online lives. As parents, we should take conscious effort to help them realized that no one should be maligned, bullied, disrespected, stolen with, gossiped, or insulted in any manner. That they should always be responsible for their actions, with or without the Anti-CyberCrime law.