When I was in high school I played on the tennis team. For three years I was the number one player. It felt good being number one. It felt good having people compliment you. But all of the praises and admiration did not matter my senior year. On my senior year in high school, I just didn’t want to play tennis. Simply put, I was burned out!

For the past 5 days, I felt like I had a blogging burnout.

Every day, I would login to my blog and I would stare at the blank screen on my “write” page.  I had plenty of ideas to write about but I could not bring my self to write. I wanted to write but somehow the ”write you lazy bum” messages from my brain weren’t reaching my fingers.

I visited my friends blogs to get inspiration but still, nothing…

I decided to jump in the mix and to start commenting again, but I couldn’t do it. I was “comment shy.”

Since I couldn’t find anyone who is a certified blogging therapist, I did some self-reflecting to figure out what’s going on with me. I discovered that everything is out of sync. Work, family and my project expectations have finally caught up with me and they are all kicking my royal butt.

I’m usually pretty good at handling multiple things. In fact, I thrive on pressure and stress. However, I realized that there’s a big piece missing. Whenever I’m under pressure or under stress, my family was always physically there to keep me going. But this past few weeks, this was not the case.

Now the question is how I got myself to write again. The answer is very simple. With the exception of my wife and my youngest who are still back in the Philippines, my other children are back. 

Yes, the house is messed up and crazy again. Dishes are already all over the place, all the lights are turned on even though they are not being used, and teenage bodies litter the living room.

Yes, things are coming back to normal again. Now, all I have to do is keep praying and hoping that my father-in-law recovers swiftly from his operation so that my wife and my youngest can return home.

So what the heck does my family and blogging have to do with me getting tennis burnout in High School?  Well, while I still loved the game, I had no inspiration to continue hitting that fuzzy green ball across the net.  

These past few weeks, I realized that I love to blog and I love reading and commenting on blogs, but without my blogging inspirations, my love for blogging is not enough to compel my fingers to start typing. After all, my family pretty much povides me with the majority of my blogging materials.

Without them, the images swirling in my mind will never make it into my canvas.

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Quick Updates!

1. My father-in-law came out of his surgery with flying colors!!!! Yiiiiipieeeeeee!

2. I was able to fix my school’s crazy schedule even though I made some of my teachers unhappy.

3. People are still continue to donate for my school project in the Philippines. The pot is at $305.00

4. We had a death in the family last week. It happens.

5. HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!

Since I can’t focus long enough to write a full post, I’m going to share with you what swirled in my head during my 1 hour drive to work this morning.

1. I’m getting old. One of my students e-mailed me to let me know that she just passed her bar exam! I’m not really surprised that she passed the exam. I’m more surprised of the fact that after 15 years she still wanted to keep me abreast of what’s going on with her life.

2. During the Presidential Primaries, I supported Senator Clinton over Senator Obama. I supported her because my mind told me to do so even though my heart yearned for Obama. I followed my mind because I honestly feel and still do that America talks a big game about race relations, but in the end America is still not ready to elect a black President. I really hope that I’m wrong about this, but seeing what the polls are saying and what people are talking about, it seems that my assumption is true.

3. When Faith and Science get into an argument, Science will always lose because Faith will never listen to emperical reasoning.

4. Would you rather pay higher airfare or drive 16 hours to Disney World with kids in the back seat arguing, crying and asking, “Are we there yet?” I’ll take the former. We really can’t afford for the airlines to go bankrupt.

5. Since there are too many variables involved, our school schedule need to be done manually. When we tried to use a computer program, the program spat out 1, 300 inconsistencies. So guess who gets to fix it manually? You got it, moi. Lucky me!

6. My father-in-law will be having an operation Monday because of an anuerism and a blod clot. The doctors said the chances are 50-50. *sigh*

7. Life is worth living when you know that at the end of each day, after all the hard work, struggles, and obstacles, someone will be there next to you to kiss you goodnight and say I love you.

8. Great news! I’ve lost my potbelly. Not because I was trying to do so, but because I am forced to eat my own cooking…I guess there’s an upside to my wife not being back yet.

Have a nice weekend!

I haven’t been very good at moderating my comments, nor I have been diligent at visiting and commenting on my friends blog. I have been very busy with work. School will start August 25th for us and the teachers are reporting today. Needless to say, I have plenty of things that need finishing at work.

In addition to this, my Muse is still in the Philippines. And quite honestly, I’m pretty useless without her. So please forgive me if I haven’t been a good blogging friend lately. Please bare with me and enjoy the post below. This is a filler. My sister forwarded it to me.

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Only great minds can read this

This is weird, but interesting!

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltete r by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

 photo by flickr 

On Monday morning, driving to work, I was heading towards a bad storm. It was 7:00 a.m. but it appeared as if it was 9:00 p.m. I had three pre-cautionary choices. First, I was only 10 minutes away from home, so I was close enough to go back home and wait until the storm passed. Second, I could take a different route to work and avoid the storm. Third, I could do what many of the motorists were doing, which is stopping on the road shoulders and waiting the storm out.

I took option number four, which I didn’t list, and proceeded to drive through the storm.

While what I did was foolish, I knew that if I had taken any of the three pre-cautionary choices, I was going to be really late for work. At the same time, I knew that there was no guarantee that the storm would improve. I was already in the storm so I thought the best thing to do was to go through it and deal with it the best way I can so that I can get to work on time.

That same night, Chicago experienced one of the worst storms in recent history. I was at home alone. The tornado sirens went off and mother nature’s symphony started. Lightning illuminated the pitch dark night and thunder shook my house. A tornado touched down 2 miles from my house.

There was one good thing about my situation. I was alone, my wife and four of my children are safe and sound in the Philippines and my eldest was at O’Hare working.

I was trapped in my own home. I grabbed my flashlight, some candles and I waited patiently as mother nature unleashed its fury on my house. My power did not go out and I still had internet access.

Unlike the storm in the morning where I had a choice whether to face it or avoid it, the storm that night held me hostage. I had no choice but to face it. So I did, and fortunately I survived and so did my home and my trees. Unfortunately, some people in my community weren’t so lucky. Some lost their homes and some were injured.

In life, we face and will face many storms. In some cases, we have a choice to avoid or to face our struggles. And in some occasions, we don’t have a choice but to stay and fight.

While we may face varying types and degrees of storms, the one thing that must remain constant is our preparedness. We must always be prepared to face any thing that comes our way.

If we are driving into life’s challeges, we must give ourselves choices. If we are caught and trapped into an obstacle, we must have a flashlight that will provide light in the midst of our darkest times; such was my case on Monday and such is the case now in my life. I have a storm that I must go through and I have a storm that holds me captive.

photo by ozguru

What is living a simple life? Is it freeing yourself from material things and wants? Or is it not adhering to social conventions? I don’t know about you, but I constantly struggle to live the so called the simple life. Maybe it’s my concept of what a simple life is that is the problem and not my efforts.

I admire people who have gained much knowledge, indulged on what modern life has to offer and then suddenly turn everything off and decide to live a life of simplicity. I, on the other hand, can never free myself from the trappings of the modern world and social conventions. Even if I didn’t have any children, I will still probably find some way to complicate my life.

This realization came to me during my recent two week hiatus in the Philippines. During this two weeks, I did a lot of traveling and talking to people. I’ve spoken to some Filipinos who live the very essence of simplicity. They grow their own food, build their own shelter, and perform simple commerce so that they can have some money to buy the things that they cannot make themselves.

While they seem content with their lives, they are also under-educated about the complicated world that they live in and because of this, they too are ignorant of the complex political and economic systems that run their towns, their schools, their electricity, and their running water. Sadly, because of their ignorance, they are often taken advantaged of or neglected by their scrupulous politicians and community leaders.

There are also some Filipinos who live a very simple life but not because they choose to do so, but because of poverty. Most of these hardworking people know about the modern life and understand the complexity and the dynamics of their society and the world. Interestingly, these same people are mostly aspiring to live a more complicated modern life where they can have a 9-5 job, have car payments, and 30 year mortgage. The majority of these people are miserable and they feel that the acquisition of money and status will free themselves for their misery.

I’m fortunate that I’m in a situation which is better than what I’ve described above. My life is far from being simple, in fact it is very complicated.

I have a huge family, debts, goals, dreams, family issues, students who I want to help, and so on and so forth. Am I miserable? NO! I can honestly say that in general I’m happy. I’m not happy everyday but in the whole scheme of things, I am happy with my complicated life.

Can I uncomplicate my life? I don’t think it’s possible. Since I have learned so much and continue to learn more about life, people, and the world, I have no chance in hell in living “a simple life.” Our complex world with it’s complex rules and conventions will not allow me to live simply. If I wish to continue to grow emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually, I have to continue to be engaged in our ever changing global community. Of course I can choose to live as a hermit for a year or two. But eventually, the world will suck me back in the fray. This is what I do. Through complex engagements, I evolve and as I evolve, everything around me becomes complicated.

By now you’ve probably figured out that when I speak of simplicity and complexity, I’m referring to something deeper than just materialism and superficial relationships. To really go the route of pure simplicity, you must strip your self from human relationships and interactions because emotional involvement is by nature complex.

You can certainly simplify the material aspects of your life but your relationships will continue to be complex no matter what you do. So instead of resisting, embrace it and find a way how to improve it. If you need a role model on how to do this, you can look to Mother Theresa as an example. She was the epitome of material simplicity but socially, emotionally, and intellectually, she lived a very complex life.

So I guess the questions is whether “A Simple Life” can only refer to the material aspects of our lives or can it be applied to our relationships? Wat Do You Say?

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