My Sunscreen

My life was never easy. If I seem like I’m living such a good life, it’s because I know how to deal with things. I’ve been dealing with things my entire life. I’m an expert. When I was 21, I decided to grab a pen and a piece of paper, and I wrote down the rules that I lived by. Well, I wouldn’t really call them rules. I think they more like GUIDELINES. Whenever I start to question my existence, I always go back to the basics. I already shared this before. Let me open this up to the world again, and hopefully, someone somewhere will read this and get something out of it.
1. If you want to understand a person, do not listen to what he says. Instead listen to what he does not say. Learn to read in between lines, and observe the way he says things.
2. The true value of a person is tested during the darkest times of his life.
3. Life is like a game. Sometimes we miss and get hurt. But life doesn’t end where our heartaches begin. It only ends when we give up and stop believing.
4. When you keep putting off things for later, it will soon be too late to do something about it. So if you want to express your feelings, do it now before you lose the chance.
5. Each one of us is unique. We may find and meet people who are a lot like us, but they will never be us.
6. Always be the best version of yourself, and never settle for a second rate imitation of someone you aspire to be.
7. Know all your strengths, and use them in a way that will be beneficial to you.
8. Don’t be affected by the people who ridicule the choices you make.
9. Stand up for your decisions, and try your best not to regret whatever decision you have chosen.
10. You can never make your dreams happen if you don’t take chances.
11. You will always have all the time in the world to travel another road and still another.
12. Make mistakes, and make sure you learn something from every journey you take.
13.Take time to be alone every now and then.
14. Be honest with yourself. If you love someone, say it. It doesn’t matter if the person doesn’t feel the same. Surprisingly, unrequited love is easier to live with than unsolicited love.
15. Laugh and enjoy your life. When you’re old and you can no longer do the things you want, you will only have your memories of all your happy moments to get you through.
16. Bask in how beautiful nature can be. Remember that you are a part of it, and you are just as beautiful.
17. Appreciate everything that you have, especially the little things.
18. Never hesitate to help those less fortunate than you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be financial. Sometimes, the mere fact that you don’t leave their side when they are in need is so much more of a help than money can be.
19. Love is a decision. Love is never easy that’s why it should never be based on feelings alone.
20. Love people as if it were their last day on earth because you’ll never know if it is actually going to be their last.
21. We can never change reality, but we can change the way we look at it.
22. Enjoy the present and what you have now. It’s today that really matters. Yesterday can’t hurt you anymore, and tomorrow is still just an illusion.
23.Appreciate everything you have. You will never know when these things will be taken away.
24. I believe that there is a whole new world hidden in the heart of each and every person. It is up to us to work out a way in discovering it and enjoying the marvels of their secret oceans and hidden mountains.
25. You don’t owe it to time when you eventually get over someone. You owe it to yourself and to the people who were with you to help you get through those lonely days.
26. There is nothing in this world more beautiful than the sunset.
27. If we just look at things appreciatively, everything around us is actually a part of a conspiracy that means to make our lives beautiful.
28. Self sacrifice is not love. It’s natural for us to want to protect the ones we love. But that’s not love. Open them up to the world. Allow them to get hurt, and give it to them to learn from experience.
29. Nothing in the world hurts as much as love does. But that fact is not reason enough to stop loving. Love is the reason why Life exists, so we cannot truly live unless we know how to love.

The Reason (reposted from my other blog)

Eyes, please work with me. I need to be awake. I  need to be a part of the living. Why do you have to fall now, of all times? I can’t be asleep. Sleep just feels so lonely right now. Everything in me just wants to crawl into bed and fall asleep.

 This too shall pass. No matter how much i am hurting right now, I know that these things won’t last. Someday, I shall look back and I wouldn’t even remember how beaten I feel at the moment.

I don’t know how long this thing shall last. But I shall take comfort in the fact that the pain is not forever. The void is here to stay, but the sharpness of the pain will soon fade. One of these days, there won’t be any pain anymore, just numbness.
I am counting the hours, surprised by my ability to survive the tragedy of broken hearts. I didn’t know I had this much life in me. I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person, but I never expected I could be this strong.

There is no happy ever after. There is always just happy now and uncertain tomorrow, and all we can do is live every moment. I know that I still have a lot of heartaches to face in the future, but I know that they too shall pass. Nothing in this world  can ever hurt forever. Everything heals, even the most painful ones. I shall wait for the day when I will no longer feel like this. But in the meantime, I will live each day like there wasn’t any heart break at all.

Weekend in New England (reposted from my other blog)

Probably the saddest song I’ve ever heard is Barry Manilow’s “Weekend in New England”. I was listening to Pandora earlier when the song played. It’s not just the lyrics that make it sad. The melody of the song itself is already a tear-jerker. I don’t know exactly what it is that makes me sad too. I actually don’t identify with the song because the story does not apply to me at all. However, merely listening to it makes me want to stop and think only of sad thoughts .

The lyrics are not nearly as heartbroken as “Somewhere Down the Road”. This song holds so much uncertainty, but for the other song, goodye was really inevitable. Still, this song is really the saddest. There’s a line in the song that says, “last night I wave goodbye, now it seems years”. I think it just shows that whenever we are separated from the person we love, the time we spend being apart feels so long.

So many of us have been through this. Situations may be different, but we have all experienced the pain of being away from the ones we love. Yes, it feels like eternity. Sometimes, we fight with those we love, and we need some time apart. Sometimes, we need to be away from them for a bigger reason than a mere fight. Whatever the reason is, time always feels so slow. The waiting feels like eternity. Waiting seems to be the most painful part when you’re away.

Another line from the song that I like goes like this: “time in New England took me away to long, rocky beaches and you by the bay.” I also think this line is true, and this happens to almost all of us. When we try so much to be away from people, to think or move on, we get swept away by the new places that we go to. The new things and new faces we come across take our mind off the things that we are running away from. But after all the thrill, underneath all the chaos, we always go back to that one person who can comfort us and make us happy.

When we take a time off, we try so hard to forget. We try to forget the hurts, the people, the responsibilities. In doing so, we fail to notice that what always brings us back are the things that we run away from. When we lose ourselves too much in the effort of moving on, the things that keep us on the ground are always those things that we don’t expect to do so. Then, when we realize what we really need, we always come running back. Sometimes, we return to things that have already become unfamiliar, things that have slowly evolved into something else during our absence. Sometimes, we go back and find out that there’s already nothing there, that nothing’s waiting for us anymore.

This is what makes the song such a sad one. It’s the uncertainty of things. We can never tell what happens tomorrow, or even a couple of minutes from now. We can’t ever foretell what’s in store for us, and I believe that’s the scariest and saddest part of this life.

To balance it, the song is not totally just a waste of tears. If we understand the lyrics, we will find that even if the song cries out loud with sadness, it is also a hopeful song. The song is hopeful because even if the singer is not sure when he will be reunited with his love, he knows that they will still be together in the future, but he’s just not sure when that time is.

As for us real people, this is what makes us move one with our lives. It is the hope that someday, everything will happen in its own time. If we are far from the person we love right now, we all have this hope that someday soon, we will be with that person again. Yes, love leaves, and sometimes love stays out of our reach. But there is always one thing that makes us keep believeing in it. It is the hope that love will never be forever out of grasp, and this is why love songs are always a hit.

The Facebook Mania (reposted and edited from my other blog)

There was a time when I really did not understand why people were so addicted to Facebook. I already had memberships for a lot of networking sites, and I definitely felt like Facebook was just like the others.

But one day, I let my curiosity get the better of me. I typed www.facebook.com onto my browser’s address bar. I went through the registration process, and before long, I found out that I was previously mistaken. Facebook wasn’t like any other networking site at all.

I became addicted to the RP games that my friends invited me to. Mob Wars anyone? How about Mafia Wars? Would you care if I added you to my posse in Fashion Wars? Can I add you to my crew in Pirates? How can I grow my family for Gangster Battle? I need more chips to play poker! I have to harvest my crops in Farmville now! These were usually the things that racked my brains out.

I had a lot of contacts in Facebook just because of these games. I had a lot of fun doing missions, adding friends up, collecting money, buying properties, and winning battles. I would get mad at people who attacked me, and I always made sure that I attacked them back. If they were too powerful for me to beat, I would add them to the hitlist and leave them to the other gamers to kill for a price.

I also got addicted to Farmville. I planted crops that could be harvested in one day, so I could grow my farm fast and earn coins right away. I spent valuable time in maing my farm beautiful and arranged. I bought limited and special items, based on the holiday that was being celebrated. I would look for posts from my friends, so I could get a bonus or adopt a lost animal.

But it wasn’t just the gaming part that entertained me. I also had a lot of fun with the applications that I could send to my friends. I am amazed by the fact that I could send pictures of Filipino or Korean food to my friends. I could also take a pick at which junk food I want my friends to receive. I could also send them plants, alcoholic drink, candies, and fishes too.

The fun doesn’t end there. I could also post pictures, tag people, make comments, and write notes. My friends and I could chat while we’re online. I could blast my current mood. I could update my status time and again. I could become a fan of celebrities, products, and other websites. There’s just no stopping it. Facebook is really addictive. I could spend half a day just browsing through it and going through all the things I could find in the site.

Now I know why millions of people are addicted to Facebook, and I’m sure that a million others will be addicted too once they sign up for it. Yes. I am a Facebook addict, and there’s no denying that.
 
I don’t mean for this to sound like an advertisement. I am merely expressing my opinion. I like Facebook, and I am hooked to it. But for all the others who have yet to experience it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Just make sure that your future Facebook addiction (I am confident you will have it too) will not go beyond the usual. Facebook-ing is good, but we should remember that there are still so many other things that we can learn over the internet. We should also spend a considerable amount of time exploring the web and learning a lot of new things. There are a lot of other websites out there which are not as popular but have so much to offer. Let’s try to make our “internet time” as productive as we can.