CHOOSE. IT'S ONE OR THE OTHER. NO IN-BETWEEN.

As an old friend once said.... "You choose your wine." He loved wine, of course. And certainly pointed out to me that there are wines .. and wines. Meaning that there's a wide array of wines to choose from whatever your taste may be. Good wines, bad wines, mediocre ones, excellent ones. Top of the line or those pretending-to-be-wines. Haha if there is such a thing. But choose, he says.

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But it led me to think.....

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He said "Choose". Agree. Life is always about choices, like it or not. But it's only on two planes ----- the good and the bad. Choose. It's one or the other. No in-between.

From sunrise to sunset. With big issues or small issues. Everyday. Whoever you are-whatever you may be. Young or old ...and older. Smart or not-so-smart. Rich or poor. Working in the corporate world or on back-breaking jobs at the construction site. Local employment or as an OFW in a foreign country out there in the world. Hero or thief. CEO or street sweeper. Friends or enemies. Male, female, or LGBT. None exempted nor excluded. The rule of the universe.

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Life is what we make it. We are tasked to choose wisely. Life goes good for us because we choose wisely. Life goes bad because of wrong choices. Thus called mistakes.

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Can mistakes be undone? I don't think so. Instead, I think, we should better strive to learn from it and turn it into precious gems of learning - growth - development - improvement - progress. For our benefit --- in becoming better persons than the persons that we were yesterday. 👍And this, I think, we're also tasked to make by HIM above. By Divine Design.

 

 

 

 

MOTHERS --- GOD'S GIFT TO THE WORLD

Dad, mom, and two brothers.

 

This isn't bragging, not at all! Look around you........... your neighbor's mother -- your security guard's mother -- your wash-lady's mother -- the president's mother -- your mother -- your mother's mother -- the parish priest's mother -- even the corrupt official's mother ....  they are all MOTHERS. They give parenting their very best in ways they each know how. Maybe it's not popular nor the standard but they just give motherhood their darn best!! Their darn best! It's what they know. If they succeed, great is the award awaiting them in heaven. If they fail, there's always a bigger story behind that.

How their child or children will come out is beyond knowing. Because what the child becomes when he or she grows up ---- is that child's choice. Life is always about choices. Don't blame it on your mother, father, family, spouse, circumstances, or God ---- life is what you make of it. Life can be either good or bad..... according to You!

Love your mother... love your dad... love your parents. Love them for doing their job as stewards of you as commissioned by God. Whether they do their job well or bungle their job is not your judgement to make --- that is God's area of expertise.

I have missed my mom for centuries now; still do. God took her home just when I needed her most close to me. So I was left to weather life's storms as an orphan. True that it would have been easier with them by my side. Have shed buckets of tears missing her so. Her absence broke my heart. But God had his plans.

This I will say.....  Mom was my hero. She was, is, and always will be God's perfect gift to me. Always will be as she guides me from above.

HEAVEN IS NOT A FARAWAY PLACE

 

"Don’t search for heaven and hell in the future. Both are now present. Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell."    ~ Shams Tabrizi

That's right. Heaven is not a faraway place, though it's okay too to think that it is. But truth is, where there is the presence of God --- is heaven's place. And that could be anywhere where you put in some good. In our mundane day to day lives as we consciously do good to ourselves, others, animals, mother nature, and the rest of the world.... Wherever good is --- God is.

What about hell? It's here, too. When we allow the evil one to influence our lives turning it into such a big horrifying mess. Like whenever bad rears its ugly head in our character-----    whenever we allow it to dominate us...    whenever we consent to the bad of others...    whenever we turn blind towards injustice, cheating, falsehood of any kind...    whenever we serve greed, meanness, cruelty, pride, ego...    whenever we think ourselves superior to other living creatures...    whenever we twist religion to suit personal agenda...    whenever we consider bad as good and some good as bad to suit personal convenience....     whenever we stick to being wrong because it's easier to remain inside our comfort zones.....    and everything else and more along those lines.  That's hell ....... and we certainly give the devil every reason to have a party.

So then....    what's it gonna be ----  heaven  or  hell?
The choice is ours to make.  It always is.
This is just one life -----  make it count.
Blessings, everyone.

YOU GET TO CHOOSE

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Saw this in my inbox....

"With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose."    -- Wayne W. Dyer

But don't we always choose life or that of moving forward? Survival is the name of the game. But sometimes it doesn't always mean that growth or learning or progress would follow. Sometimes a man just turns round and round and then too go back again and again to the same place of misery where it all began. Then utterly defeated he begins to wonder why things keep happening the way they do.

This was the subject when I was with friends not so long ago. A friend called it ...'bad luck' and another called it ...'karma'. Followed up by another friend who said ... 'Sow good, reap good; sow bad, reap bad.' And a third friend quoted a law of the universe which says that ... 'nothing happens without reason'.  Then all four chimed in with .... 'Isn't life all about choice or a series of choices good and bad?'  (Yup, nice chorus you guys got there!)

I got to thinking. So, how a person chooses to live his life is all up to him. If that person sees life as one big ball of darn things... it's going to be darn things and his decisions messing up his life even more.  But on the other hand, if that same person decides to take his challenges positively and would determinedly aim for success, growth, hope, satisfaction, improvement, learning, opportunity, happiness, fulfillment .... he will soon in good time discover a better quality of life for himself. Whether he gets there in slow-mo or on a fast clip ... he will get there. He chose it, decided for it, aimed for it.

Being captain of his own ship he best can steer it to where he wants it to go. This decision lies with him and not with anyone else no matter how brilliant the course others may have mapped out for him. He creates his own destiny. Whether he fails or succeeds is his own burden or blessing. 

Everything is a choice, good or bad. We can choose to move forward or remain behind, progress or stagnate, win or lose, build or destroy, be informed or be ignorant, be kind or be mean, be strong or be weak, be compassionate or be indifferent, be good or be bad, and  who we want to be, friendships we want to keep, chances we want to take, lives we want to build, careers we want to shape, dreams to make come true ......... or paint the sky with rainbows, dance to the wind, walk barefoot in the rain, or lay down under the shade of a tree in quiet peace and tranquility, content and happy.  All is a choice.

Indeed  '...Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.'    Thank you, Mr. Wayne W. Dyer.

Blessings, everyone! Have a pleasant day.