How life should be lived

"Pliny the Elder once said that the Romans, when they couldn't make a building beautiful, made it big. The practice continues to be popular: If we can't do it well, we make it larger. We add dollars to our income, rooms to our houses, activities to our schedules, appointments to our calendars. And the quality of life diminishes with each addition."

The other day, I was in a class with this guy who showed me a piece of writing he did, I would summarized it as his view of life, how it should be lived and how it should be balanced. He brought out the points of balancing work vs. other stuff such as family, leisure, and what not. He got me thinking about how I see life, how I want to live life.

In my opinion, I always believe it is so important not to submerge into work and forget everything else that are also important, such as hanging out with friends, spending time doing things I life , or just sitting around not doing anything. Those are important moments that shape my life and make me who I am . I feel that we are always stressed because we don't do little "time outs" and just sit there, not doing anything. We often feel that we are not doing enough, not spending enough time working and not making enough money, etc etc etc. For me, when I am lying around enjoying some silly reality TV or harassing my dog, those are great times!

Just last night, I was thinking, what makes me happy and it was quite odd, suddenly it hits me, I wanted to be surrounded by love. I am the happiest when people show me that they care and love me. When I am enveloped into these feelings, I feel the most blessed. Yes, our job is important, but it is also important to maintain relationships we have with people outside our work. We need to care about people that are a part of our lives, people who would continue to walk with us as we explore and learn because they are the ones that would support us and encourage us when we hit obstacles and barriers.

We live in a materialistic world, we all have our wants and needs, money is important, thus our jobs are important. As I conclude this post, I realized that I need to enjoy my job, I need to be inspired and continually challenged. Since I spend a great deal of time dedicated to work, I need to love it too! Then, the next thing is to balance and enjoy life! Life is so short. what we could pack into our experiences allow us to reflect as we move through various stages, and these silly little endeavours of life are priceless memories.

A promise made to myself: I would never become a workaholic and not make time for other things that are important, because what counts is the quality of life. This is such an odd post coming from me, lol, because I rarely work. So, I see this post as a reminder to myself when my opportunity hits.

When the West Meets the East

When I started thinking of moving to HK, I guess one of my biggest worries was not being able to adapt to the HK way of life...yes, I had culture shock, but if you really really think about it, HK is so international, you don't even need to know Chinese! Surprisingly, I speak less than 10% of Chinese in a day! All my friends are English speaking, even when I walk my dog, everyone I meet speak English because usually it would be the Filipino maids walking the dogs, haha. My entIRE social network, from work to church to friends are all English speaking...so where does the 10% Chinese come from? When I go shopping; rather I am grocery shopping at supermarkets or doing retail shopping, I would communicate in Chinese. I would also be speaking in Chinese when I go to restaurants or when I am in the mood to chat up the taxi drivers. Finally, when I say "thank-you" to the security guards and doormen at my building, I would be speaking in Chinese; however, I random do that, I have adapted to the Chinese nodding the head style to acknowledge them. If I am chatting on the phone with my grandparents, my 10% of Chinese per day will increase, but yea, that's as far as my Chinese speaking goes. With that type of language routine in my life, how could anyone think HK is a scary place where no-one speaks English? It's truly a Western paradise for everyone in the world because it's such a diversified Metropolitan. What the West lacks, HK has; excellent and advanced public transportation system, extremely low crime rate, especially since this city never sleeps, and so many places to shop and dine, there is no way you could sample the same place twice! Just when you think you've tried them all, something new will spring up, people in HK EXPECTS the city to entertain them! Alright! After all the raving, there are downfalls, duh! There is no perfect Utopia, because we are not in heaven yet; I wish the quality of a typical citizen in HK could be better, since I can understand Chinese, it is so frustrating hearing a slash of profanity spitting out of someone's mouth as you sit innocently on the public transportation! Also, if you are a low income family or not very affluent, housing is so crappy in HK, so when I complain about my 850 sq apartment, it is not intended for everyone. So ridiculous what I heard on the news today: the housing department of subsidized apartments was saying the 500-600 sq per person flats are too big for one person and they're working harder to meet the demands of individuals who require smaller living spaces. EXCUSE ME, WHADDA!???!!!

RelAtioNshiPs

I feel I am a better person in HK, I feel more whole, it seems like I've goals and the ambition to do something with my life has returned. Tonight, I've started thinking about my sister which turned into thinking about our relationship. Oddly, with me an ocean apart, I really do feel our relationship has improved a lot, compared than when we lived under the same roof. I should give some credit to the Landmark Forum, it has opened me up and taught me to share my feelings and acknowledge other people's ways of thinking; though I still need to work on the latter a bit more. We actually talk on the phone a lot more than before, at least a couple of times a week, and it's not the routine stuff like what I have to do, what she needs to do, what payments are coming up, blah blah blah, the topics we really don't even want to talk about, which actually makes picking up the phone that much harder. Ever since the Forum and telling her how I wanted our relationship to change and how we should share, we really have been doing that; we are not just dealing with bullshit issues now, we are sharing about stuff that is happening in our lives, or even funny little stories and stuff we've heard. I value this tremendously because at the end of the day, she is the only person in the world I truly trust. She is the only person I know that do not have any hidden agendas (known or unknown); this fact is happy and sad at the same time--> happy because someone like that actually exist, sad because it's so few, it's really in a singular form. Actually I retract, I trust my uncle Henry immensely and value our relationship; but at the same time, it's a little bit different, I won't pick up the phone and call him and tell him how my day is, but when we do see each other, I really enjoy his company as well as his opinions.

This leads me to evaluate my friendships. There are a couple of gals I've known my whole life, we went to high school together and our bonds are so deep, we've remained the best of friends through University and afterwards; however, looking back, I cannot deny the fact that even though we have a special bond and share a deep loyalty towards one another, we have indeed drifted and changed as we continue on with our lives. So sad to realize that we no longer share everything, but at the same time, I do know that when we do see each other and have conversations, they are not surface meaningless conversations, I know that under the right environment (lol), we could really be honest and straightforward, which I appreciate.

Then I started to reflect on the friends I've made in HK, they're very special to me, and God is really great. With faith, I can go such a long way, he is always looking out for me, I really feel. From finding a job to meeting people I could share different aspects of my life with, he has provided me with those needs and connections. Then just when I feel relatively settled and loose a bit of desire to become even more than I should right now, he reminds me and sends down career opportunities/possibilities that I could so clearly see leading to better things and many opportunities I have never imagined. How great is my GOD?

The moment I stepped out of my safety zone and plunged into a new place where people are virtually unknown to me, I now realize it was a right decision, it leads to so much better things, so much more possibilities...

New Beginnings?

When I moved to HK, to a certain extent, it is to escape or to get away from everything that is going on in Vancouver; however, at the same time, I envision many new beginnings and possibilities. Now, as I sit here reflecting, I am still imagining the possibilities ahead....but am I acting or moving toward them? Yes and no...I truly believe in the saying that "it is easier said than done", which I guess leads me to believe that "action speaks louder than words" eh?

I don't quite know why I've this sudden desire to start a new blog, but lately, I've been thinking more and perhaps by writing down the things travelling through my mind, they could give me perspective and when I look back, I begin to understand these are my thoughts, before they are modified or added on by other's opinions and thinking, which I value highly too.

I really need to get my sister to stop procrastinating and send me lease documents so I can begin talking to accounts about overseas companies and what not. I keep getting pissed off at her because she keep saying she's busy and really, it is a mere form of procrastination, but...maybe I am hiding behind her laziness at the same time. By going to the accounting firms in HK, I am signalling to myself it's time to move on, venture out of my safety zone yet again, and I am so scared to fail or mess things up. Being an part time English instructor right now, I am living the most relaxed life imagined, but I know I cannot be this way forever, seriously, then I am just wasting the 4 years of post-secondary education and I don't think I can be happy like this forever. It's a relaxing and comfortable 1 year transition, but, argh, I got to move my ass!

I declare that I shall stop procrastinating; in fact, I'll be meeting Doris and Stephanie for dinner this weekend to get the accountant contacts ready, and I'll start learning about offshore companies and their benefits and the possibility of doing that. Next step, I just pray my sister and the agent back home are gooooood and get the house sold, then that too, signal another beginning, sigh. I can wire the fund to HK and look into small commercial properties to purchase. When I've rental income coming in, I would consider getting a mortgage, so BEL-AIR (possibly), here I come!