Year end inventory of my dreams

Four years ago, I had an inventory of my Dreams List and four items remained on the list. This post will supercede whatever were left in my list and covers the last 10 years, whether they were included in my Dreams List or not:

1. To have a smaller laptop - this was fulfilled because I had a job requiring me to travel a lot with a laptop so I was forced to buy one, and has been very useful since then.

2. To go back to Singapore - fulfilled because of a network marketing company which later became a scam putting my investment to waste. It was one third of a million pesos but the experiences I achieved I just realized now, were priceless, like attending a training where almost all Asian countries were represented making me experience each of the country that was represented, and knowing more about Singaporeans and why their country is progressive. Last but not least, I learned why a network marketing company should be chosen because of its products, not because of the marketing plan.

3. To win in Lotto - I guess that is everyone's dream, because more dreams will be fulfilled, but I realize I don't have to wait for this to happen to achieve most of my dreams.

4. To go to U.S.A. for my special child's therapies and special education program - I now have other reasons to go to the United States because I'm not getting any younger. My special child has a great program in Resources for the Blind now, though she still needs more therapies which we can't afford yet, so my dream for winning the Lotto has an important part in pursuing all those therapies, whether in U.S.A. or domestically.

5. To own a "Dream Mattress" - pertains to a therapeutic mattress, the fulfillment of which came at the right time because the "Dream Mattress" of Tiens was replaced with a new model with photon light (Tiens Photon Bio-energy Mattress).

5. To be a therapist - should pertain to therapist using acupoints or "acupoint practitioner". I guess I'm contented being an acupoint practitioner dedicated to my family members since my time is not enough even for just the acupoint therapy of my special child alone.

6. To have a wellness center - my sister already has a wellness center so my dream now is focused on her center's success. Perhaps I can just be a consultant if my time will allow.

7. For my special child's seizures to disappear - this is my most important dream at the moment, and right now, because we don't notice any seizures manifested by my special child, we might need to undergo her to EEG again since her last was more than a year and a half already. Thanks to Breuss massage done only recently if it was how the seizures disappeared, coupled with supplements from Tiens that are good for the brain like super calcium with lecithin, zinc (from zinc lactate), and for oxygen uptake in the brain and other organs, Tiens Beneficial (organic Vitamin C from Jiaogulan or Gynostemma Pentaphyllum and beta-carotene from carrot plus green tea) and Tiens Cordyceps.

8. To wean my special child from synthetic medicines for seizures - this will come next if her EEG results will not show seizures. That means I can replace her medicines with alternative therapies which include the Breuss massage, acupoint therapy and the supplements I earlier mentioned.

9. For my special child to walk normally - when my child's seizures disappear, I guess this can also be realized, but might require her to wear braces on her legs.

10. To have an iPad for the blind for my special child - like my dream for a therapeutic mattress, I wish this will come at the right time, when the technology of
iPad for the blind has greatly improved.

Angels Brought Me Here

If you've been good to your family and friends, angels will bring you to places more beautiful than your dreams.

Sung by Novo Concertante Manila
Photo by Bobby de los Santos

It’s been a long and winding journey
But I’m finally here tonight
Picking up the pieces and walking back into the light

Into the sunset of your glory
Where my heart and future lies
There’s nothing like that feelin’
When I look into your eyes

My dreams came true
When I found you, I found you, my miracle

If you could see what I see
You’re the answer to my prayers
And if you could feel the tenderness I feel
You would know, it would be clear
That angels brought me here

Standing here before you
Feels like we’ve been born again
Every breath is your love
Every heart beat speaks your name

Staying at Home

Can a dream be fulfilled by just staying at home? In the past, that was impossible, unless you are some Albert Einstein or a composer! But in this era where communication can be done in no time, wherever you are, what really matters is the presence of an internet connection and of course a computer, nothing more.

I'm glad I have access to these blessings while caring for a special child at home. At first I would tell people I cannot do this and that because I have to stay home, but when I tell them, "but I can do more when I'm at home because I can research this and that", and they would agree.

I am now focused on pursuing my dreams while staying at home. When the time comes I am not at home but somewhere out of town or the country and bringing along my special child and husband, that only means I have accomplished whatever is needed to be done to fulfill my dreams while staying at home.

She started a joke

Today, September 29, is my friend's birthday and my former classmates and I paid her a visit. We were the best of friends in high school but we did not graduate together because at that early age she knew how to dream big and had to work in a place where she could be a scholar till she graduates in college.

The next thing I knew, she already owns a school nearby. We could be the best of friends like before, but we both became too busy, I with my work and she with her school where her success was phenomenal.

Our high school reunion could bring us closer again, both of us initially active during meetings. She had very good sense of humor so anybody could easily make her laugh during those meetings, and there was a time she told me I really made her laugh. I was glad to hear that, but I was touched more when she issued a check to me to buy a comb gadget that will prevent the recurrence of stroke of our high school class President. The amount was almost double the cost of the gadget so we were also able to buy him supplements to cleanse his blood vessels, like Resveratrol (Tiens Vigour Rousing).

The last time I saw her was during one of our meetings in April last year in her school. She invited me to come with her in a classroom to meet some of her adult students. They were finalizing their schedules for review classes. One student had to leave earlier so asked permission to do so and hugged my friend. My friend jokingly said, "anyone who hugs me passes the exams (government exams)". So after the meeting, the adult students formed a line and hugged her while she was almost laughing. I was smiling as I watched, it was just a joke from her, but the whole scene was so touching.

That was my last memory of her because her biggest joke was to be invisible after that. It was only last month when I learned she had passed away. She had Stage 4 breast cancer so chemotherapy was not an option. Perhaps she just wanted to be happy with her family during her remaining months, not to be pitied by the people around her. Perhaps she doesn't want to see people crying. Those were the real reasons why she became invisible. How could I have forgotten who you are, my friend?

I wonder how my friend became very successful. Perhaps it all started with a joke and when she was starting to prosper she wanted to surprise everyone so she worked harder.

Three Dreams in One day

Have you ever fulfilled three dreams in one day? Perhaps yes, if you break down a big dream into its components. In my case, I didn't have to do that because they were truly three dreams, the first two were what a mother have always dreamed of.

Usually, a common dream among mothers of a female toddler is for her child to become a “flower girl” in a wedding. When that toddler becomes an adult, a mother would dream for her grown-up child to be a bride someday. My eldest daughter had been a flower girl a number of times and then a bridesmaid also, and my dream for her to be a bride came true.

My special child is blind and has cerebral palsy so I have totally different big dreams for her: to be seizure free and be able to walk and talk. Until it came across my mind that she can still be a “flower girl”, but only during her older sister's wedding though that wouldn't be a requirement for my older daughter. When I learned my daughter and her groom-to-be chose not to include children to march during their wedding, I found that unusual but also unique. And then it dawned on me that it could be an opportunity for my special child to be a flower girl since she couldn't march but could ride her big stroller that would be pushed by an adult. I made her stroller look like a nice carriage decorated with some flowers, and my dream for her came true.

The third dream was a very simple one, for me to wear a dress for goddesses someday. When I was looking for a gown for a bride's mother, I saw some photos of gowns for bridesmaids called “Venus” style gowns, so I requested for a similar design. The finished product turned out to be my dream gown!

The Schedule Board

My special child was classified under the "vocational" class at Resources for the Blind (RBI), since it was the first time we enrolled her in a school for the disabled, specifically for visually impaired children.

Her first day of classes was beyond my expectation because of the "mature" approach to training blind children. What I meant by that was I think the children were immediately introduced to a mature and responsible lifestyle by immediately introducing the "schedule board" and follow the scheduled activities.

In my mind, I was saying if only we were taught the same way when we started in school, dreaming big would be easier as we grow up because of the discipline in time we got used to.

I made another version of the schedule board that my special child can follow at home. It has dividers to separate one task from another and task symbols like spoons for snack time, cassette tape for music time, and I used as symbol for massage or leisure time the actual comb gadget I use on my special child. In school, the schedule usually starts with "circle time" with other children, followed in any order by art time, snack time, leisure time, music time, and ended with a quiet time then bye-bye time. When one task is finished, we sing the "finished" song and ask the child to put the symbol in a "finished tray" at the right of the board.

At the start of the class, the child would already know the schedule since she has to review the whole schedule board by touching the symbols in the right order they will be performed. Isn't that awesome?

How time flies, how some people fly

I wonder who notices more how time flies so fast, is it the one who had accomplished many within a short period of time, or is it the one who accomplished nothing within that same period of time? Most of the time I belong to the latter, and I beg for more time so I could still accomplish something.

During the Business Building Seminar for TIENS members in the Philippines last May 26, I saw new faces. I was amazed that some of the new faces belonged to a distributor level higher than mine. As a 6-star distributor, that meant my network had a gross sales of more than 18,000USD. A 7-star would mean his or her network had a gross sales of more than 60,000USD, and I’ve seen new faces that have accomplished that, maybe for just a year.

One of those new faces who is now a 7-star shared her secret in one word: FOCUS. Focus in one company, and focus on learning, sharing and selling its products. That means organizing your schedules so that you can perform all the activities associated with focusing to that company and the products.

Although I am not flying yet, I also would like to share my own advice: Choose the company where you intend to focus your time and effort, especially if it is a networking company. It should be a big company or a multinational company like TIENS, with a complete office with departments like HR, Accounting, Logistics, IT, Marketing and Training. It can have more departments but not less. Very important is it should not have a “binary” marketing plan because it will overpay especially if the networker is a seasoned one who knows how to play the game. I was a Systems Analyst so I was able to analyze how, after I thought I was mistakenly overpaid by a networking company based in Singapore, the leaders of which were eventually charged by the Singaporean government.

At the time I could focus on that one company, TIENS, that could have been my lone source of income, I was enticed to try to invest on a product from another company that has no branch here so I coordinated with a second party. I believed the product was so good, an alkaline water filtering system, the same product we had been using for years already. And TIENS didn’t have a similar product, the reason I was easily enticed because it doesn’t conflict with the products of TIENS. But all I can share now about that good and marketable product is my bad experience because the second party who I thought was a trustworthy person swindled me! What a waste of time, effort and money. Please learn from this experience so it will not happen to you! When it comes to expensive products to be marketed, deal with a big company, never with a freelance person!

Right now I have a very valid excuse for not focusing my activities on that one company TIENS, and that is because I am now focused on the education for blind children for my special child. I am praying hard though that there will come a time I could focus on both, and that they could harmoniously complement each other. One is a noble activity, the other one a company with quality health products that had helped a lot of people so I know that is possible. Why I pursued TIENS was a message I got from a missionary who was the speaker in the second seminar I’ve attended in TIENS or Tianshi Philippines: FOCUS ON HELPING OTHERS AND SUCCESS WILL FOLLOW!

When you stop dreaming

I stopped buying Lotto tickets because I stopped dreaming. But that is only for the meantime because I was bothered by what I thought could be a serious illness for the past 3 weeks. How I was cured was an overwhelming experience I published in my "Amusing Tips" blog and my thoughts are still focused on the said wonderful experience.

What is more satisfying than an instant feeling of wellness after being sick for three weeks? Sometimes one doesn't need to dream to attain something that seem too remote to happen in the immediate future. God will bring you there for another reason, and it could be a reason for you to help another person, not knowing it could be a blessing in disguise.

Uncertainties

I just said in my previous post that perhaps I can be a "wellness consultant", but I was really thinking of a very ambitious dream because instead of just TCM, I was envisioning a consultant who will know where to guide a person for his wellness, and that covers all, from "hilot" to mainstream medicine. I just realized I might be pertaining to "Superman".

So as far as that dream is concerned, there are lots of uncertainties. Issues have to be addressed one at a time and that can take years.

I am now back to my just one dream at the moment, for my special child to get the right education and therapies she needs. Even these are uncertain. But we have started whatever we can do, thanks for the tips given by the "Resources for the Blind" organization. Our special child can now drink water on her own, with control inspite of her cerebral palsy and blindness. She can already say "air" clearly, not just "er", whenever she hears an airplane pass by. Just a month ago, that possibility was uncertain.

Uncertainties are just for the present time because no one knows what can happen tomorrow, or even just a minute from now. It would be best to accept and embrace uncertainties. It is a way of affirming what actually is real.

Winning the Lotto

In this age of collective karma, what else is there to dream about? Of course those who are single can still dream of marrying, but in their married life should be more spiritual than material.

So why is the title of this post "Winning the Lotto" if I’m talking about spirituality in lieu of materialism? Maybe because it’s the only remaining item in my "Dreams List" that can possibly happen, and because I almost won last Saturday. All my numbers were in the winning number, but mine was separately spread in 3 entries, LOL!

Why do I need to win the Lotto then? I want to go to U.S.A. which I’ve never visited. Some closest relatives live there and there is a lot I can accomplish there, aside from getting the right therapeutic facilities like in an “Elk center”, for my special child. That is assuming I will get a student visa for her. I can still continue paying my own karmic accounts by being of service to the people there, whenever I have the time. I can be a "wellness consultant" teaching the holistic principles of TCM especially for my relatives. Some thought just popped out of my mind, and that can be a new dream related to that, so my next post should say something about it!

One dream

We tend to dream for a lot of things, most of them material things. But these material things are just temporary and will only make us dream for more or better material things.

Until I've encountered a message intended for me, to show everyone to true peace and happiness, and considered it to be my biggest dream. But on second thought, that shouldn't be just a dream but a direction to a way of living and I know everyone will agree. The ways and means to that direction seem hard to find or think about, but I know God will be there to make things happen.

I am therefore back to dreaming about one dream that seem hard to achieve: the right education and therapies for my special child without any cost, since I simply can't afford them. That was why I've thought about the possibility of going to U.S.A. to fulfill that, but even for air fare, I no longer have.

Gone are the days when I had enough money to fulfill most of my dreams, all of which were material things or means to make more money. But none among them brought me true peace and happiness.

Perhaps I should focus on that one dream for my special child. I'm sure fulfilling that dream will bring me true peace and happiness.