You have a mission. You look at your closet and then in it – really look – and you cannot fight the overwhelming feeling that there is just too much that you have allowed yourself to accumulate.  Yes, it is a testament to how much money you have had and spent, of the [...]

I used to love reading newspapers. It was in fact the highlight of my day.  I could not get enough of them, and would read not one but two or more of different newspapers.  And if I make it home before 7 at night, I would switch on the television and hungrily watch the news, [...]

At Christmas time, the mall is particularly stressful. I mean the crowds are massive and stifling, the parking is horrible, the merchandise is overpriced.

Christmas never used to be this way. It used to be special. The glittery, dreamy, new-clothes-new-shoes-lots-of-gifts-and-sparkles kiddy kind of special.

(Or is it because, then, I was not in charge (and not spending)?)

But I have grown up (as I must) and now it is my turn to make it special for my brood.

(And I wonder, was it stressful too for my mom and dad, or is it more stressful now because the world has become more fast-paced, more guilt-ridden, more material-focused?)

So ever since the countdown for Christmas began, I have been on the lookout for other alternative ways to give or buy gifts without breaking the bank or losing my sanity. Here are some of my picks:

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I behooved my mind – be still.
But my mind keeps wandering off – to where, I am not sure. It just needs to meander about and hop from one idea – question – thought – decision – realization – to another. I cannot stop it. I cannot keep it still. It has to ponder the blueness of the sky or the crispness of the winds (yeah right) or what I have to do next. And before I know it, I am standing up, or jumping about, or talking on the phone, or tinkering with my computer keys, or ruffling the pages of the newspaper or a book – anything but still. It will not be still.

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I was getting tired of seeing 5,600+ unread mail in my mailbox. What’s funny is I am also being bombarded with emails that say I should simplify my life.

So I did.

But it is harder than I thought.

As of press time, I still have 3,089 unread emails. And it is growing by 50 a day.

I am confounded as to why my unread emails became that much. I am usually overly zealous at reading what’s up in my world and everyone else’s. Looking at my 2008 emails (Gmail has allowed me to keep them), I saw that I had read each and every one. I do not know what happened between then and now.

Maybe it’s just that I am a sucker for enlisting for products and services. In early 2009, I was so big on personal finance and internet marketing that I had signed up for those websites and people my mentors recommended – Schefren, Daily Wealth, Daily Crux, Morningstar, Napoleon Hill, Bob Proctor, League of Extraordinary Minds, Carl Ocab and many more other websites. I seriously think this is the time when my emails ballooned to unimaginable and my life went from simple to crazy-exciting.

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Let us face it. It is not everyday that we see the world with rose-colored glasses. It is monotony that that kisses our faces day in and day out, like waves that do not fail to come to the shore; it is the humdrum of everyday life that besets us and pummels us into submission; the unexciting coming more often rather than the exciting. And yes, there is some comfort in that. The heart can only take so much – of happiness, of excitement, of something happening all the time.

But when you need to, how do you inspire yourself?

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One day you are on top of the world and the next you are down in the dumps.
Whether I believe it or not, I think I need to experience this some of the time.

There are reasons, and there are reasons, of why sometimes it feels that the floor is suddenly giving way: unexplained fear, insecurity, a buckling in the face of adversity, a cowering, a fraying of the nerves, other people making you feel small that you are entertaining thoughts that they are probably better than you and feel threatened about that somehow, a praise that was left unuttered, a change in the direction of the wind, the weather, a tiredness that would not go away, a capitulation of the soul.

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