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"Stop Daydreaming" is not a good advice!

Keep daydreaming Bes :D

I daydream a lot and I feel guilty at times.

I have my fair share of "Stop Dreaming" from concerned and irate people. I grew up thinking that, daydreaming is bad. 

The truth is, there is no need to be so apologetic about it. I come to realize that.

Here are my reasons why daydreaming is not necessarily a bad thing. You have my full permission to daydream as you run down the list:

8. You can't avoid it

Psychologists estimates that we daydream naturally and we do so up to half the time during our waking hours. You either let it ruin you or make good use of it.

7. Relax and cope

Daydreaming helps you to cope with the harsh reality. Didn't you feel good taking that five-minute 'vacation' in your mind while you were studying for tests?

6. Up productivity

It sounds like an oxymoron but believe it, daydreaming can improve productivity. Take a short break and let your dull mind wander. See how a recharged mind can improve your mood. Go back to your chores and you will find yourself completing them within a shorter time.

5. Relieve boredom

Escape to a more exciting place when you are doing some boring routines such as driving through a traffic jam or chopping onions. The same can be done during some unproductive meetings.

4. Get new ideas

You can achieve anything in your dream, I mean, daydream. Let your mind bring you to the level you hope to attain and see new ideas emerging as you weave through your dreams.

3. Do it again, this time correctly

We make mistakes. Instead of brooding over it and feeling sorry, try daydreaming. Bring your mind back to the scene and see how you could have done it differently.

2. Be totally yourself

We live a rather measured life in the real world. We control what we say and do. When you daydream, you are totally free to be who you would like to be. Amaze yourself with some of the hidden talents you might have. 

1. Find 'eureka moments'

Sometimes you need a breakthrough and need to see things from a totally new perspective. Your wandering mind might just be your ride to the answer.

Daydreaming is not for all situations. I hope you know that. All I am saying here is that they are not entirely bad. Before I wrote this article, I had my moments of daydreaming, just to think of what to write.

The next time you daydream, write down your ideas before they dissipate into thin air. You will never know, something big may be coming your way.

Keep dreaming!

Kristine had the perfect life. She was beautiful, wealthy, and successful. She had a handsome husband named Karl who was a police and an extremely good-looking son. However, the tragic woman soon discovered that her husband was having an affair. It was not the most original betrayal ever committed, but a betrayal nonetheless. She did not weep when she found out, nor did she shout. She did not even think of filing a case against them to put them into prison. Instead, she ran from her family and from her duty as a mother. She walked the streets at night and hoped to find peace within herself. However, that peace would not come until it was too late for salvation.

Kristine continued to walk the streets at night. Her once beautiful face had become worn and tired. She wanted food, but could have none. She had squandered her money on drugs and alcohol. She was drunk and without love, without the warmth and comfort that everyone should receive. She wanted to die more than she had ever wanted anything else.

One Saturday night Kristine looked down into the water by the bridge and thought about jumping. However, her attempt was halted when she saw a reflection of a happy couple just from nearby. To her surprise, it was her husband with the woman he had an affair with. In that moment, all sound seemingly left the noisy street. Out of anger, Kristine suddenly withdrew a knife from her pocket. However, a witness saw the act from a car nearby and warned Karl to watch out. Karl crammed and took his gun from his pocket and fired two bullets into Kristine’s chest. Within seconds, Kristine was dead. Looking at her wife's corpse, Karl cried. After 10 seconds of silence, Karl seemingly felt guilty. He put his gun inside his mouth and fired. Their corpses were found together on the street. It became cold and pale as heavy rain poured.

Break Away and Fly

So you want to be happy, eh? Piece of cake, youngster. Just get good grades and finish school, land a high-paying job, find Mr./Ms. Right, settle down, and have a wonderful family. By the way, never forget to always look great and wear nice clothes. Make everybody like you. No, make them adore you. Then you get to live happily ever after.

That was what they told me. And that is what they have been telling you, too.

But what if you get lost along the way, with no means of getting back on track? Or what if you stop taking that same old road and choose to take another? What if you don’t become what they want you to be? Does that mean you lose grip of your happily-ever-after? I don’t think so.

In case you haven’t noticed, our society in general has long been measuring a person’s worth using numbers. We are too often concerned with how much money someone has in his bank account, how much he makes every month. We measure a student’s intelligence by how high his grades are and by the number of medals hanging on ribbons slung around his neck. We gauge how successful a person has become by counting his investments, the real estate in his name, the cars sitting in his garage. We quantify beauty by looking at the numbers projected by a weighing scale, by the tape measure we wrap around someone’s body. (Our society has serious obsession over numbers. Yet, math is our least favorite subject. That’s funny. We’re kind of screwed up, aren’t we? Just putting it out there.)

We have been made to believe that life works like this, and a life lived in a different way is a wasted life. We have become like robots programmed to do the same thing over and over again. And those who choose to illustrate the bright twinkling of the stars in a pitch black night sky and the rustling of leaves whenever the wind sends its sweet flying kisses with the use of their paint brushes and pens, they are the glitches, the anomalies that mess up society’s big equation.

Because of what society makes everybody think and do, because of what society makes of us, the world has been seriously deprived of great writers, painters, pianists, performers, even cooks. Those who were born to become artists were compelled to count statistics, to analyze the stock exchange, to draw up business proposals, to churn up technical reports, to solve equations, to peer through microscope lenses, or to plod through books and publications on law and politics.

I am not saying that engaging in business, science and technology, medicine and the law will not lead to happiness. What I am saying is that being in those fields is not the only way to make it. You can be the richest businessman on the planet and still be among the loneliest. You can be the richest businessman on the planet and also the happiest. It is, most often than not, all up to you.

Happiness is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. It is not like a trophy or medal given to someone who has managed to become the best. Happiness does not work like that because your happiness is not something that someone else determines for you, and it is not something the rest of the world can calculate or measure. Happiness is something that is always inside you. You just need to make the choice to become a happy man or woman. It does not cost high grades or a six-figure income, and its worth will never be equaled by rubies or gold. Not even close. Happiness is priceless, and it is always free for you to take.

You can be happy in 10 years, next week, tomorrow, today—or never. And only one person can tell you when, where, and with whom, and that same person is also the only person to tell you how. Yes, though it be a cliché, that person is you. There are those who found their happiness in telling stories that will continue to live on long after they die. There are those who have become happy in retreating from the troubles of the world and living a secluded life in the mountains. There are those who discovered their happiness in the one person they chose to spend forever with, and I bet those people who have become happy by loving another rediscover their happiness whenever they take a look at the face of the person they love as they wake up each morning. Whenever we choose and fight for something we know we love, we can be happy.

And you? What makes you happy? If you don’t know where to start looking, stop and listen to the sound that has ever been so familiar, that soft whisper amid the deafening noises around—your own voice. Who cares what other people say or think? You cannot always be what they expect you to be. At the end of the day, it has always been about you, not anybody else.

Break away, find your wings. And fly.

Obsession

I learned in my psychology class that the more you love someone, the more you distance yourself from him. It’s probably because you are afraid to show your true colors, my psychology teacher said.

I think that’s what happened to me. I fell in love with someone I admired way too much, and I thought that he would never want me. I have very low self-esteem, and at times when I see him, I become speechless. I feel very embarrassed, because I haven’t accomplished as much as he has. I think I “worship” him too much, and do not put God first. Yes, maybe I did. (If ever I did not put God first, as I seemingly did, I am sorry for it.)

I love him so much, and I am ashamed of what I have become in the past few years. I can’t recall what kind of things I have been doing, as a sense of accomplishment. I think I have developed selective amnesia, or maybe Alzheimer’s; we have that sort of history in the family (including a history of “distorted  obsessiveness” when it comes to one’s love life).

I don’t want to ever lose him. I have always wanted to take up psychology, and become a doctor. But then again, I may not make it because I am afraid of the sight of blood. He is a nurse, and I am very proud of him.

That is probably the reason I can’t face him. I don’t think I deserve him. I feel unworthy. A lot of people call me worthless, although I do my best not to be. But then again, just the mere thought of him makes me smile. And that may be, just may be, enough (rhetorically speaking).

After Sendong: Taking the Road to Recovery

Over two years ago, we experienced heart-breaking losses in our individual lives with the onslaught of "Sendong". It left us all kagay-anons scars - especially those greatly devastated by the said typhoon - that are not curable by magic creams or even by Dr. Vicky Belo!

Through the damage brought by the ranked 4th Deadliest Typhoon to ever make landfall in recorded history, we saw a vision of the houses we grew up in, covered in mud, family pictures and other manifestations of beautiful memories beyond repair, we remembered the sight of parents holding the lifeless bodies of their children, drenched in fear and regret in the circumstance.

The sight of the "Sendong", international name "Washi" evoked images and emotions so familiar to our own experiences that it puzzled a lot of us; it begged several questions of accountability.

Typhoon "Sendong", international name "Washi" claimed the lives of many, took the homes along with their means of living and opened our eyes to the effects of climate change in a global scale.