End the Year with Gratitude

So it is not happiness that makes us grateful. It's gratefulness that makes us happy. If you think it's happiness that makes you grateful, think again. It's gratefulness that makes you happy.

                                                                                                            - Bro. David Steinl-Rast

             I have to say that 2015 has been a great year for me. It’s a year of accomplishments and realizations, it made me taste what and how a really busy life goes.  It has taught me how to value my time more and value the people who really matter.  The year has been driven by tough decisions I had to make, life offers a lot options to choose from and it demands that we choose whatever is best. It’s never easy but there is always something to be thankful about.

            Gratitude, doesn’t end with what we have received and being thankful for them but being thankful and being ready to share what we have received to those in need. That is perhaps, as I see it, gratitude in its truest sense. So let me begin with my immediate family who have always showed deep concern and care for me. My parents and siblings were always ready to listen and talk to me about my plans and decisions I have to make. The guidance they have provided proved how strong the family supports each member. I have seen that support a lot of times and although they are always physically far from me, distance is not a limiting factor anymore because of technology.

            Let me express my gratitude to the people who have devoted, shared and even gave their time and effort in helping me during the times when I was trying to finish my Masters in the university. They are the professors and friends who have given their words of encouragement during the time when I was at the edge of making or not making it to this year’s graduation rites. I’ve seen how things which have fallen apart fall into place.

            I’d like to give my appreciation and gratitude to my former students who have now become part of a team (Arboists) working with me. It is that time when I am aware I cannot do all things alone, your assistance have contributed a lot and I look forward to working with you more in the coming years.  

            I am definitely grateful for my friends and colleagues, for making work a little easier to carry, work is more meaningful when it is done and spent with you. The organization is not perfect but our awareness that it is not, makes us grow.

            I am very thankful for the miracles this year! Strangers who have helped me when I literally fell off my motorbike, planned and unexpected visits from friends, people who offered help and accommodation during my visit to different places, new friends I gained in my trips, making it through life’s problems and finding the courage to pray. It is true. It is all in His grace. An Saiyang padagos na pagcamoot satuya! With these, I'd like to say I am ready to meet 2016, begin the year also with gratefulness and whatever it brings I am quite sure there's always a reason to be thankful!

               Happy and Peaceful New Year to All! 

"Thoughts" After Seven Years

           This is my first post after almost two years of unplanned dormancy. I'm still alive and kicking! I just did not have enough time to devote to philosophizing and writing them in this blog. The offline world had been very demanding and it seems easier to post on the social networking site called Facebook.
I am currently maximizing my vacation here in Laguna and just randomly checked this blog to see how it is doing. Looking at the stats, it had 331 page views last month. Not bad. So here's a new post to celebrate my seven-year old "Thoughts'. The idea of creating this blog came from Blaise Pascal's "Pensees" centered on his perspective of man's nature/condition and his concept of 'the heart' or 'coeur' as the center of our very being. Starting with a very philosophical-sounding blog, it has evolved to a blog of reflections, life experiences and lessons. The transformation made it closer to the real essence of philosophy:experience life, reflect and learn from the experience. If philosophy is love of wisdom, wisdom is, as others have defined it, simply the right use of knowledge.
The writer is seven years older too and it's not just this blog, and the past seven years I have to say were years filled with challenges and blessings for which I am very thankful. I have to say that life has been very fair to me. The opportunities it has brought me and the people I've met have been very helpful in attaining growth. The capacity to make important decisions have become stronger as time passed. The most important lesson I gained so far brought about by life's blessings and even obstacles is to take advantage of every opportunity to be grateful. Gratitude leads to contentment. Gratitude gives a clear idea that not much is required in experiencing happiness. For the past two years I have constantly reflected on the value of being thankful, and these reflections have been fruitful since I started to appreciate what I have and whatever comes.When I practice gratitude slowly, slowly I get to see and sometimes experience can experience life's daily miracles. The celebration of life continues to be the focus of this blog. As it matures, as it attains Pascal's idea of "the heart" I hope to publish this someday. I tried to make a book three years ago by printing it, produced very limited copies and gave my personal copy as a gift to a good friend.
Let me take this opportunity to thank you my dear readers, for your time and for sharing this blog to other people. I am looking at the possibility of writing more often and of course hearing from you.