Experience Bank: Live Now, Secure Your Future

Live your life. Deposit the experiences to your Bank. Withdraw them any time you need to draw the lessons or feelings that can fuel your passion. Gain interest by making good use of your experiences.

Live!

Invest now.

Secure the future—not only yours, but even your descendants’.

Imagine yourself in a deathbed. Cruel idea? Not really. It might even save you from thousands of regrets. If you would look back on how you lived your life, would you smile or frown?

Now snap back to reality.

Establish your own bank! Your own bank of experiences, where you deposit your lessons learned, failures, your dreams, your successes, what have you.

 

In your own Experience Bank, be your own CEO. Be your own teller; your own ATM; and even your own security guard.

Start monitoring your activities, your life transactions. In this way you’ll be in auto-active mode. Because you don’t want to be zero or in the red, yourself will naturally make activities that will propel you to progress instead of getting stuck at where you are now.

Have you tried playing a game on your phone or on the internet and you just suddenly get hooked on it because you want to beat the best score? Same thing could work if you will consciously monitor your life transactions.

Closing your eyes and recall the week that was. Would you want to see a dark blank image or hear a story on repeat each week? Of course not!

Start by refreshing your heart and mind buttons. Just like in real banks, you also have to "know your customer" or the KYC policy. Ask yourself what you want to achieve in life (finish this course, invest in that business, travel to this continent, earn that much…name it!). Then plot your personalized map or timetable on how and when you will get them. Be realistic in setting your goals and timelines, and be deliberate with your actions—short-term, medium-term, and long-term action plans.

Go out of your nook! See the world. Learn from people from various walks of life. Visit places. Have a taste of different cultures and subcultures.

Your experiences and your observations will inspire you in ways you do not expect and many useful ideas will just pop out of nowhere. If you will constantly move and progress, all these fruitful activities—simple and complex alike—will snowball and incur interest that will make you a million-dollar worth person without spending even a tenth of it.

If you have no money to finance any activity, it’s okay! If you don't have a college degree, it’s alright! In your own Experience Bank, your own CEO doesn’t care. You can still become a client, an investor.

Even if you don’t have money or don’t have a diploma, the world is so big and limitless, it can offer you wide array of opportunities to fulfill your goal. You just have to be determined to achieve your goal and be purposeful with your actions. Look around you, do you know Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, or any drop out or rags-to-riches in your place? Learn from them.

You see, your imaginations, your experiences, and your generosity can grow your worth. By doing something, you only gain, you never lose any.

I cannot tell how you must live your life. You are your own boss, your own captain. You are your own CEO remember? But what I can tell you with certainty and confidence is, you can be victorious! You can be worth more than a million!

Just have a goal. Own it. Do something about it constantly.

Your experiences are priceless and cannot be stolen from you. They can even gain interest by putting them to good use and sharing them with your kids, who can learn from them, or even try or improve them, and pass them on to their kids to further improve them.

Live your life. Deposit your experiences to your Bank. Withdraw them any time you need to draw the lessons or the feelings you had that can fuel your passion. Gain interest by making good use of your experiences.

If you are the CEO, you have the say on how to grow your Experience Bank; remember, you are also the security guard who has the duty to control what may be deposited and at what given time; what may be withdrawn and when; and who may come with you in the bank.

To launch your bank, get your pen and paper.

       1. Make a Gratitude Notebook

Divide the page in halves lengthwise. On the left column, write the “Things I Am Thankful For” (at least 10 things that happened during that day). On the right column, write the “Things I Am Thankful For (yes, same time, but these are the things that you claim to happen and you feel that is happening already. Attract them, think of them, and your body will naturally respond to get them). Do this daily to reinforce them.

       2. Make a Timetable/Map to get to your goals

By writing down your goals or dreams, you have a clear picture of where you are now and you can devise ways on how to get to your goal on a specific date. There may be many ways in skinning a cat, but be specific about your goals and timings. This timetable/map will serve as your guide, as your compass, in knowing where you are as you progress towards your goals or dreams.

       3. Keep a mini notebook with you

This will serve as your bankbook. Whenever  you learn something, observe something, realize something, write it down. In time you will need them. This bankbook will keep a record of your experiences, so don’t hesitate to write down both the “ouch!” and the “wow!”, and the “no!” and the “yes!”.

After mapping out your investment schedule, just keep on moving whatever your mood is. Do not worry about your future… just live where you are, your future starts now. Invest there, grow from here.

“…your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” ~ Matthew 6:32-34

“Fortune favors the bold.” ~ Virgil

Tiny, flickering light deep inside

Sometimes I feel so happy, other times anxious. One moment I feel on top, the next moment I feel at the rock bottom. One day I feel pumped up, the following I feel my lazy bones lock me up in my chair.

Being ordinary humans, we change moods and standpoints from time to time.

I say 'ordinary' because people with special gifts and those who have practiced meditation for decades are able to control their states of mind and emotions.

I'm wondering if these people, like the monks, still experience mood swings... And if they do, how do they manage it. I'm also marvel on the stuff usually occupy their minds. Hmmmh...

Whether one is a monk, a priest, a pastor, an imam, or a simple street vendor, he is still human who needs to improve everyday and experience every emotion there is for him to master even more himself—turning anger into a good opportunity to train patience; turning anxiety into a good time to nurture faith and trust; making happiness a strong platform to heal oneself and others; etc.

Aside from our surging emotions, we also have varying temperaments and intuitions. Like one moment you feel inspired, the next you feel discouraged or lazy.

Whatever the situation or concern or mood is, we can always transform and elevate our circumstances by letting the feeling seep in, but not too long, then assess it simultaneously as you already start moving and working on what you must do at hand—feel good and perky; or finish a task.

As you work out your situation, whether it’s now clear to you why such things happen or you already forget that you are assessing, you will just be surprised that you are already feeling better or half done with your task.

The important thing is you are dynamic, you are moving towards your goal—dragging yourself or sliding smoothly—because your progress, no matter how small it is, will fuel and inspire you to keep going, as God blesses even more those whose hearts are sincerely desiring to improve and create good things.

However, don't confuse movement from progress.

Thus, it is necessary to know ourselves better by tapping our every emotion so we precisely know if we are making any progress or it's just another movement. Through this, we will be able to know how we can better motivate ourselves especially in times when there's no one by our side to stir us up—except the person who is wearing the very same shoes you are wearing.

More so, our humility to come before God and ask for His grace to improve us does so much to rekindle our passion and discover our gifts. One day we will just be surprised how His power enables us to accomplish things we never thought we know and can do.

Our passion to improve and accomplish something starts with ourselves, with that tiny, flickering fire deep within our hearts.

This passion, no matter how flickering it gets, when we commit to do our best and ask for God's provision and guidance, grows into a brilliant light…that you can no longer keep it because it keeps on glaring and passing through every hole or ooportunity… No matter how many walls try to block it's glow, it will unflinchingly find it's way out the other shafts.

This light or passion must be kept burning no matter what the season is, for with God's warm love, even though the light flickers, it will keep blazing that you have no other choice but to pass it on, spread it, until it lights the whole community, another community, and eventually, hopefully, the world.

You'll be one day surprised by how great the breadth and brightness of the once tiny light (the lazy bone and mood swinger that you are) has become. Make sure you don't let anything or anyone put out the light that God has ignited in your heart.

No matter how big and bright you become, remain humble and grateful to Him who faithfully provides you what you sought and asked for. For anyone who humbles himself is being raised by God to the sky.

Just have faith in Him, come, and ask... He will sustain you so the world can see His glory through the simple, ordinary, and humble persons like us.

One day, when you already master yourself and you know how to go about your fluctuating fervor, no matter how strong the wind blows, the light in your heart will keep on burning—to provide your own light and perhaps to other people as well.

Desire for progress and focus on it! Remember that where your focus is, there your growth will be.

Just hours ago I felt lazy to write. I decided to hold the pen, even though it seemed 10 kilos for me. Now I'm done... No longer flickering, at the moment. More situations like this in time, I know, but I’m ready to kindle my own fire and ask for His boost.

Level Up and Roar

There are a lot of things—both pleasant and unpleasant—in life that escape our senses from being recognized as the actual answers to the ones we had long been yearning for.

Others are undeniably good (or sometimes sugar-coated bitter gourd) that we easily discern, or claim, them as the answers to our yearnings. Some have façade that are rather unfamiliar, gloomy, scary, and sometimes pain-inducing, that just by the mere sight of them we shiver.

Nonetheless, only when we have already gone through the frontage that we come to realize that inside there is an overflowing abundance of great things that are just part of the answers to our prayers—more wonderful things are yet to come. We just have to take some courageous steps forward to experience them—God doesn’t want us to just see them from afar, but to experience them and own them ourselves.

I wouldn’t appreciate the value of challenging moments—melancholic, scarcity, chaotic—if had easily thrown my hands up and go back to my comfort zone.

Because of those moments I now see things more beautifully; I have more patience to wait; I have more energy and reasons to inspire myself to keep going; I become happier; and I don’t easily get worried nor easily get mad.

Certainly life has become brighter and lighter for me.

In times of surrendering things, I wouldn’t realize the genuine and wonderful freedom I am entitled to have, which I enjoy right now, if I tied myself to a certain sugar-coated, glazed with honey and strawberry uninteresting routine. I could have blinded myself and regret my life years before I pass.

If I didn’t take bold steps forward perhaps until now I am stuck with round-about questions and deceptively see the putrid fantasy as the nirvana, when in fact it is just the distorted shadow of reality.

Life is much much more meaningful than my own fancy, than the life in the cave.

It’s a wonderful feeling for once in my life I have my own time and I don’t have to worry about someone or something else before the right time when I will forever be committed. It’s nice if I can responsibly freely do whatever I want to do which I could no longer enjoy when I grow old because it may no longer be inappropriate for my age. It’s wonderful to break free to give other people and other hobbies importance than just focusing my energy and time to one person or thing.

It’s beneficial to note that without the uncomfortable feeling induced by the unfamiliar façade, I wouldn’t be able to clearly see and optimize my ‘built-in healer’ [of emotional and physical infirmity] and to realize more fully the essence of ‘enjoying and loving ourselves in generous and humble manner first so when our happiness and love overflow we can reach and touch more and more people.

Now I see it better…

Good thing I wasn’t specific with my prayer that time, when I was still unripe and a cab asking God for happier life, more meaningful moments, and enjoyable youth. I wasn’t specific because I wasn’t sure if I was genuinely happy with where I was. Now, I have unlocked my life for and welcomed more loved ones.

The deepest fibers of my humanity have now been awakened to enjoy the reality, no matter how sour or spicy they get.

If I didn’t break free and didn’t take bold moves, I would certainly catch myself right now sitting on the corner still bargaining for more interesting and meaningful life—I mean the one which is anchored to His word and has limitations, for only when you know your boundaries that you can actually act in liberty.

When things are really not meant to be, the more you try to fix things, all the worse and complicated things get.

It’s amazing that God gives us a birth right to be constantly in molding process until we become who He intends us to be. No matter how painful the process is, He keeps on pouring us strength and wisdom. No matter how many times we turn our back from Him because of pain, He keeps on coming back to our heart just to give us our gift of eternal wonderful life.

Like a potter, God constantly moves and tosses things until we become the kind of person He shaped us to be and until we receive the ever-wonderful life He designed us to have.

It only takes a faith like a mustard seed that flourishes into a humongous tree of enlightenment and victory for us to enter into the paradise He prepared for us.

At last, like a cab turning into  lion I have transcended the hill of the unfamiliar feat and now roaring triumphantly on the peak of the mountain of victory.