"Nothing is inherently interesting until you gain some information which you can engage with, focus on, concentrate on and even enjoy."

- from The Art of Concentration by Harriet Griffey

Things can start with 'I can't do it, yet'. Then you patiently, sometimes frustratingly, try to learn how to do it. After some time, you learn just enough and get the hang of it. Eventually, you become so interested and you actually enjoy doing it to the point of hating it when the day has to end and you have to go to sleep, or you just can't wait for the day to start so you could get back doing it. Then you just want to explore more about it.

The time from 'I cant do it yet' until the time 'you actually enjoy doing it' is where all of the demons lie. But you only have to pass that way once, for every things you want to learn. Just smile your way through it - my personal preference of dealing with demons.;) 

That is, don't say, "I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. I can't figure it out."

Instead say, "I can't do it YET. I don't know how to do it YET. I can't figure it out YET."

That simple three letter word has the power to change your negative thinking into possibility thinking.

- from Changing Attitude

"Times alone are when you can listen to your own mind. That's something we don't allow ourselves today."

     - Ray Mears

"You can always find distractions if you're looking for one."

     - Tom Kite 

- from The Art of Concentration by Harriet Griffey

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

- from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Whatever roses and foxes could mean to you.

Roughly 2 months had passed when a friend and I had a conversation during one tama moment. We talked about work and life outside work, and whether we had something we are passionate about. Most of our officemates were into biking, one is into photography, another is into wedding planning. We wanted to have one too, some break and diversion would be good to break the monotony of working.

I wanted it to be a sport, I’ve been reading lots of lots of articles telling me sitting would kill me, so engaging in some sort of exercise would do me some good. Badminton is good, but I’ve stopped playing for some time because its a bit expensive to play this sport considering the court rent I had to pay every time I wanted to play.

I’ve been running since college, but its the tapol kind of run, once a week or twice, and only during stressed times like exam periods. When I started working, I became more serious about it, running at least 3 times a week, but not as serious to the extent of doing long runs or joining marathons. Lately, I’ve been meeting people who are into running and they introduced me to a community of runners. I never knew there could be such interest in running. Two officemate run marathons and even ultra-marathons. The runners community, they call themselves Ungo runners, would run around 5km every Friday night, organize activities and weekend long runs and some trainings, share knowledge regarding running, plan and join marathons. I’ve been joining their Friday night runs, and the experience is actually fun. You see them enjoy running, laughing and sharing and teasing and just enjoying the activity. The after-run feeling is also nice, I guess its the same for all sports, sometimes you get exhausted physically but still it feels good. You’re tired and all but you get healthier. And you don’t get poor afterwards.:)

Another great thing about running, you get to visit places! Waking up early, running to places I've never been to, having the chance to appreciate small things you get to see on your way, like that cute little house on my first LSD to Busay, arriving at the destination just being thankful that I would'nt have to run many last 1 kms, bumping into runners along the way, bumping into officemate/bikers, etc. Also its cheap, you only need water, and you can have refills along the way, and to get you going, you can grab bananas in the carenderias along the corner.

Somehow I also feel independent. We have different pacing while running, and sometimes I get left behind. Its fine as long as I know the route, and one good thing about it is that I dont get pressured keeping up, I get to follow my own pace. Another thing, you alone can battle your own demons, no matter how much they fool you into thinking the destination is just a few blocks away. You have to convince yourself you just have to do it.

Its also a nice thing that the office is supporting health-related activities. You get the encouragement and the atmosphere you need to get serious about any physical activities you choose.

So after 2 months :

• did 3 LSDs (12km to Busay, 17km to Liloan, 17km 3-bridges run)
• at least 3 times a week jog, at least 5km every jog
• Ungo runs 
• investment on some running gadgets (shoes, garmin - office support, warmers)
• training for the Kawasan Falls Marathon, running the 21k event, my first marathon!:) 

This is a start at least, little improvements here and there, and I hope this will get more serious.:)

"When we believe beforehand that something will be good, therefore, it generally will be good -- and when we think it will be bad, it will be bad."

-- from Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

"Speak into existence." 

-- from my college professor..:D

"In 210 BC, a Chines commander named Xiang Yu led his troops across the Yangtze River to attack the army of the Qin(Ch'in) dynasty. Pausing on the banks of the river for the night, his troops awakened in the morning to find, in their horror, that their ships were burning. They hurried to their feet to fight off their attackers, but soon discovered that it was Xiang Yu himself who had set their ships on fire, and that he had also ordered all the cooking pots crushed.

Xiang Yu explained to his troops that without the pots and the ships, they had no other choice but to fight their way to victory or perish. That did not earn Xiang Yu a place on the Chinese army's list of favorite commanders, but it did have a tremendous focusing effect on his troops: grabbing their lances and bows, they charged ferociously against the enemy and won nine consecutive battles, completely obliterating the main-force units of the Qin dynasty."

- from Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

** scratching for the other side of the coin..@_@

If you had read the book Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin, you would probably remember the words deliberate practice. Those two words could probably summarize the whole book. 

• What comprises deliberate practice?
  • design, high repetition, feedback
• How deliberate practice is done, in different fields
  • music model, sports model, chess model
• How will deliberate practice help you perform better than the average person in your field
  • high memory of their domain, see more with less

It also gave examples of how famous people applied deliberate practice, how it helped them excel in their own fields.

For one, there was writing. The design of the deliberate practice is to first, read good articles. Then try to express them in your own words. Do this in high repetition, like everyday or two or more times a day. Try to let others read it and then ask for their feedback. Then never stop improving. Increase knowledge of the domain you are writing about. 

As for me and this blog, Ill try to write an article as often as I could, if possible, every night(??). I could write on different topics. This would help me improve my vocabulary, my skill in composing sentences and paragraphs and putting them together to make up a substantiated article, expressing completely what I want to say. The most important skill that I would need to learn is bridging the gap between the readers and me. I need to learn how to compose an article that would effectively get across whatever I want to deliver to the readers. I could write about what I learn for that day, my frustrations, anything that made me smile or laugh. Im a sensitive person so I probably would write about other people also. I could write geeky stuff, programming stuff, what-I-think-is-fun stuff. Just about anything under the sun. The main goal is to practice writing, increase vocabulary and learn composition skills.:) And pollute the web?

So many have to leave, to end, to change.

Its scary, people don't need to start from scratch, but it still is scary.. Nonetheless, this will take me somewhere, and I just want to be there.