Savor the Coffee

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit the conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups- porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite, telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the alumni had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all of the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.

While it normal for you to want only the best for yourselves that is the source of your problems and stress. Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee.
In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups...and then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; your job, money, and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life. The type of cup one has does not define, nor change the quality of Life a person lives. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us."

God makes the coffee, man chooses the cups. The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

Forwarded to my email. I find it nice and meaningful, so i thought of sharing it... Enjoy!!!

Lessons in Life (2)

"Kung hindi mo mahal and isang tao, wag ka nang magpakita ng motibo para mahalin ka nya..""Lahat naman ng tao sumeseryoso pag tinamaan ng pagmamahal. Yun nga lang, hindi lahat matibay para sa temptasyon."

"Gamitin ang puso para alagaan ang taong malapit sayo. Gamitin ang utak para alagaan ang sarili mo." "Huwag mong bitawan ang bagay na hindi mo kayang makitang hawak ng iba." "Huwag mong hawakan kung alam mong bibitawan mo lang." "Huwag na huwag ka hahawak kapag alam mong may hawak ka na."

"Parang elevator lang yan eh, bakit mo pagsisiksikan ung sarili mo kung walang pwesto para sayo. Eh meron naman hagdan, ayaw mo lang pansinin." "Kung maghihintay ka nang lalandi sayo, walang mangyayari sa buhay mo.. Dapat lumandi ka din." "Pag may mahal ka at ayaw sayo, hayaan mo. Malay mo sa mga susunod na araw ayaw mo na din sa kanya, naunahan ka lang." "Hiwalayan na kung di ka na masaya.

Walang gamot sa tanga kundi pagkukusa." "Pag hindi ka mahal ng mahal mo wag ka magreklamo. Kasi may mga tao rin na di mo mahal pero mahal ka.. Kaya quits lang."

"Bakit ba ayaw matulog ng mga bata sa tanghali? alam ba nilang pag natuto silang umibig e hindi na sila makakatulog kahit gusto nila?"Hindi lungkot o takot ang mahirap sa pag-iisa kundi ang pagtanggap na sa bilyon-bilyong tao sa mundo, wala man lang nakipaglaban upang makasama ka." "Kung nagmahal ka ng taong di dapat at nasaktan ka, wag mong sisihin ang puso mo. Tumitibok lang yan para mag-supply ng dugo sa katawan mo. Ngayon, kung magaling ka sa anatomy at ang sisisihin mo naman ay ang hypothalamus mo na kumokontrol ng emotions mo, mali ka pa rin! Bakit? Utang na loob! Wag mong isisi sa body organs mo ang mga sama ng loob mo sa buhay! Tandaan mo: magiging masaya ka lang kung matututo kang tanggapin na hindi ang puso, utak, atay o bituka mo ang may kasalanan sa lahat ng nangyari sayo, kundi IKAW mismo!"

Today is my birthday. Why do I feel so sad?

Today I made 28 something. I am so sad. "Not because of my age because with age comes wisdom" but because it was just another day. Nobody made me feel special today. I needed to write my feelings out and really did not have a question but I know I have to ask one so, here goes. How many people have felt this way on their birthday? (got this from a post 6 months ago... just thought i felt the same way...)

Mine is worst, for the past 2 years, i've been celebrating my birthday away from home... i almost forgot how it was having a birthday party at home with friends and love ones...

Happy Birthday to myself....

The truth about us...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1950's, 60' s, 70's and early 80's !! (I'm one of them hehehehe i was born Oct. 1980 hehehe)

First, some of us survived being born to mothers who did not have an OB-Gyne and drank San Miguel Beer while they carried us.

While pregnant, they took cold or cough medicine, ate isaw,and didn't worry about diabetes.

Then after all that trauma, our baby cribs were made of hard wood covered with lead-based paints, pati na yung walker natin, matigas na kahoy din at walapang gulong.

We had no soft cushy cribs that play music, no disposable diapers (lampin lang), and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, no kneepads , sometimes wala pang preno yung bisikleta.

As children, we would ride in hot un-airconditioned buses with wooden seats(yung JD bus na pula), or cars with no airconditioning & no seat belts (ngayon lahat may aircon na)

Riding on the back of a carabao on a breezy summer day was considered a treat.(ngayon hindi na nakakakita ng kalabaw ang mga bata)

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle purchased from 711 ( minsan straight from the faucet or poso)

We shared one soft drink bottle with four of our friends, and NO ONE actually died from this. Or contacted hepatitis.

We ate rice with star margarine, drank raw eggs straight from the shell, and dranksofdrinks with real sugar in it (hindi diet coke), but we weren't sick or overweightkasi nga......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, and get back when the streetlights came on.Sarap mag patintero,tumbang preso , habulan at taguan.

No one was able to reach us all day ( di uso ang cellphone , walang beepers ). And yes, we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our woodentrolleys (yung bearing ang gulong) or plywood slides out of scraps and then ride down thestreet , only to find out we forgot the brakes! After hitting the sidewalk or falling into a canal (seweage channel) a few times, we learned to solve the problem ourselves with our bare & dirty hands.

We did not havePlaystations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 100 channels on cable, no DVD movies, no surround stereo, no IPOD's, no cellphones, no computers, no Internet, no chat rooms, and no Friendsters. ....... ...WE HAD REAL FRIENDS and we went outside to actually talk and play with them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no stupid lawsuits from these accidents.The only rubbing we get is from our friends with the words..masakit ba ? pero pag galit yung kalaro mo,,,,ang sasabihin sa iyo..beh buti nga !

We played marbles (jolens) in the dirt , washed our hands just a little and ate dirty ice cream & fish balls. we were not afraid of getting germs in our stomachs.

We had to live with homemade guns " gawa sa kahoy, tinali ng rubberband , sumpit , tirador at kung ano ano pa na puedeng makasakitan. .pero masaya pa rin ang lahat.

We made up games with sticks ( syatong ), and cans ( tumbang preso )and although we were told they were dangerous, wala naman tayong binulag o napatay.paminsan minsan may nabubukulan lang.

We walked, rode bikes, or took tricycles to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them to jump out the window!

Mini basketball teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't pass had to learn to deal with the disappointment.Wala yang mga childhood depression at damaged self esteem ek-ek na yan. Ang pikon, talo.

Ang magulang ay nandoon lang para tignan kung ayos lang ang mga bata, hindi para makialam at makipag-away sa ibang parents.

That generation of ours has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, creative thinkers and successful professionals ever!

-> From a friends' Bulletin Post @ Friendster... wala lang, just wanna share sa mga na BELONG hehehe

Insomia or Sleep Disorders

The perception or complaint of inadequate or poor-quality sleep because of one or more of the following: difficulty falling asleep; waking up frequently during the night with difficulty returning to sleep; waking up too early in the morning; or unrefreshing sleep. Insomnia is not defined by the number of hours of sleep a person gets or how long it takes to fall asleep. Individuals vary normally in their need for, and their satisfaction with, sleep. Insomnia may cause problems during the day, such as tiredness, a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating, and irritability. "From MedicineNet.Com"

are you experiencing sleep disorder? it sucks right? hhaayy It's happening to me again...

Why?

Why do i need to suffer from the ineptitude of others?

Moments in Life...

There are moments in life when you miss someone
so much that you just want to pick them from
your dreams and hug them for real!

When the door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often times we look so long at the
closed door that we don't see the one,
which has been opened for us.

Don't go for looks; they can deceive.
Don't go for wealth; even that fades away.
Go for someone who makes you smile,
because it takes only a smile to
make a dark day seem bright.
Find the one that makes your heart smile.
Dream what you want to dream;
go where you want to go;
be what you want to be,
because you have only one life
and one chance to do all the things
you want to do.

May you have enough happiness
to make you sweet,
enough trials to make you strong,
enough sorrow to keep you human and
enough hope to make you happy.

The happiest of people don't necessarily
have the best of everything;
they just make the most of
everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always
be based on a forgotten past;
you can't go forward in life until
you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

When you were born, you were crying
and everyone around you was smiling.
Live your life so at the end,
you're the one who is smiling and everyone
around you is crying.

Don't Count the years-Count the memories...
Life is not measured by
the number of breaths we take;
but by the moments that take our breath away!

Lessons on Life...

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season,

and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring,
the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.


Moral:

Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.

Don't judge life by one difficult season.

Persevere through the difficult patches
and better times are sure to come some time or later...

What is our Purpose? God's Purpose... Rick Warren

Rick Warren (REMEMBER HE WROTE 'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren,

'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, 'which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the chu rch had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
God's Blessings on you today.

This one's for you

Grand Prize Winning Song/Grand Prize Winning Composer
7th Valentine Songwriting Competition
Feb. 11, 2001, Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium
Silliman University, Dumaguete City, 6200 Phils

Title: This One's For You
Composer: Harvey Dalmacio (special thanks to Vincent Carlo Palanas for the addons)
Interpreter: Nerisse Karen Kaye "Cacai" Pamaran
Arranged by: Ms. Gina Raakin
Finalist No: 7

This One's For You

Dreaming of you in the night
remembering you in my heart
it's the only thing i keep on asking myself
is it true love i feel inside?

Thinking of you everyday
wishing you here by my side
it's tomorrow i wish and hoping it will come true
please believe me when i say this one's for you

I'm still (i'm still) in love with you
I'l do (i'll) do anything for you
I'm still (i'm still) in love with you
I'll do, and this one's for you

Dreaming of you in the night
Wishing you're here by my side
I'm always hoping and praying
that you'll be back here someday
Coz what i'm feeling inside is just for you

I'm still (i'm still) in love with you
I'l do (i'll) do anything for you
I'm still (i'm still) in love with you
I'll do, and this one's for you

Bridge
Vocals with Backup
Chorus till end
Piano Instrument till end

My Compositions

The songs that i've posted are actually the songs that my band composed when we were still in High School...
Wow!!!!!! we call ourselves the Manipulate Zeitgeist
( mə-nĭp'yə-lāt' tstgst) or our explanation says:
MZ for us means "Work by Hand, Spirit of a teenager".

We play songs we originally compose, songs we arranged and songs we like to listen...
It's been more than a decade since the last note of the band was played.
Today, every member has its own life, has its own interest and passion.

The band have ended... but our music remain in the hearts of those who witnessed and heard us...
Our music are still playing in our hearts... ti'll forever.

To Roland Awit and Andre Maalat (My bandmates)
we maybe far from each other, but i still believe
that someday, one day or soon... Our music will
be played again...

-Harvs

Is it love?

How could we be so blind?
In this love we're feeling
How i wish that someday
we will be for each other

The time flew we came
to know each other better
You said sweet and inspiring words
that made me learn to like you

We talked on the phone
singing sweet love songs
dedicating and expressing
your love for me...

I keep on asking myself
Is it love that i'm feeling?
What is it in you?
that i have never found
In someone else...

Wishing Someday

I think of the days that sometimes she's here by my side
i just can't forget the smile she have that made me fall in love

When i say the glimpse of her eyes
killing my heart and changes my mind

I think i'm falling in love
with someone who touch my heart

I wish that someday
you feel the love that i'm feeling
and share the times together
I need you someday
I need your love for me
And never change until the end of time
Coz i'm wishing for... someday...
You will be mine

If you change the way

i thought you were changing
coz i can see it in your eyes
our love before and the dreams that you made me
the days we left behind, the things we did last time
but now i realize no more

if you change the way you feel inside
i don't want to hear you say goodbye
if you change the way somehow sometimes
my love will never end, always remember
the only words i'm asking from you
i love you...

you are the my everything
you are the only one
you made my heart so true
what was the reason why
the love we built it strong
tell me where did i go wrong
tell me girl, please tell me girl