Take a different kind of vacation
April 13, 2003 | 12:00am
So where is it going to be this time? Where are you headed this summer vacation? To some sandy tropical beach, up a cool pine-scented mountain, to a marimba swaying Mediterranean getaway or the lusty isles of Greece? Do you feel like it is time to splurge till you submerge in a summer sale city (hopefully not Hong Kong where the SARS scare signal is still hoisted!), undergo a cultural reawakening at the grand museums in London, Paris and Rome, risk your life savings at the gambling casinos in Deauville, Monaco or Las Vegas, rediscover the cleaned-up New York streets, or chill out in a snow-blanketed ski resort?
Like migrant birds in flight, every summer, man leaves his usual habitat for a cooler, more fun, and excitingly happening place. Almost by instinct, we seek to be where we could shake free the worries and tensions of daily existence. For most Filipinos, the Lenten Season is the summer vacation. In Europe and the US, they fly out of their nests in August.
Thanks to the uncertainty of these war-torn times, the terror of suicide bombings, and the almost prohibitive cost of traveling, more people are opting to stay close to where they live. But whether you are heading out or just staying home, you can maximize your summer vacation by making it more fun, creative, and even profitable. Here are some ideas on what to do:
• Do something creative. Paint that masterpiece, start that novel you’ve long wanted to write, compose that song humming in your mind. Get a nice notebook and start sketching your dream couture designs. Use your hands to create a major sculptural breakthrough. Let your creative juices flow, and have something beautiful and concrete to show.
• Do something really spiritual. Enhance your soul by reading the Bible, the Koran, and other spiritually uplifting books. Sit on your favorite armchair with a tall, cool glass of iced tea and a Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Iyanla Vanzant, or Phil McGraw book. Rekindle your spirit by re-connecting to it. Get into the spiritual (remember, I did not say religious!) chariot by engaging in a highly motivating and inspiring activity.
• Enroll in a class or seminar. Make time for your personal growth and improvement. Learn how to cook, sing, dance, make candles, arrange flowers the Ikebana way, or take yoga for your health and relaxation. Take lessons on how to be more beautiful, how to muster self-confidence, develop your speech power, and exude social graces. Learn how to direct or produce a film, how to speak a foreign language or better yet, how to reinvent yourself.
• Drop in on you. Fill the room with fragrant flowers, light up an aromatic candle, turn the lights down low, and put on a soft, relaxing CD. Sink into a cool, relaxing bubble bath and concentrate on the secret wonders of your body. Concentrate on the sensuous tingle of the water on your skin; breathe in the delicious freshness of the air around you. Seek your balance, center yourself, and praise the universe for the glorious feeling of being alive. Slip into your most luscious lingerie or underwear or just relax in your birthday suit. Glide around with no cares the whole day but make sure that all the curtains are drawn!
• Finish those things you’ve started. We are all great starters but bad finishers. Check out those things you have begun and put a close to or end them. Finish that book you’ve read halfway; fully restore that chair you’ve started last summer. Put together that photo album for everybody to see and glue that beautiful antique vase broken by your cat. Better yet, end that disastrous, claustrophobic, unrewarding relationship that has been killing you for years!
• Organize your things. While the whole town or city is away, you can now truly concentrate on organizing, filing and storing your personal belongings that are in a hopeless state of disarray. Get voluminous boxes, neatly arrange your things inside, and write down an inventory for every box. Tape on the box a list of the contents for easy identification and access.
• Plan the rest of the year. Review the New Year pledges you made last January. Update and write down your resolutions. Make a list of dreams you want to achieve for each month till December – one list exclusively for yourself, and another for your loved ones. And make a teary letter to yourself promising to make good your resolutions this time.
• Detox your body. You’ve been eating much too much, and worse, you’ve been smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. Now is the time to detoxify your poor body. Clean up your bronchial pipes by cutting down on your smoking; squeeze out all the cholesterol trapped in your arteries by going on a real fast. Try the Beverly Hills diet of three weeks on nothing but fresh fruits and water. You’ll surely end up losing your unwanted pounds and looking as slim as Ally McBeal!
• Volunteer or join a community project. Help out a charity group; teach kids how to draw, paint or swim. Start a clean-up campaign in your community and get everyone into the habit of putting litter into trashcans. Organize a fundraising dance to finance a house for stray cats or unwed mothers. If you are jobless, be a candy-striper at a doctor’s clinic or hospital. When they get used to you helping out, you might even be offered a permanent job!
• Assess and plan your finances. Write down your assets and liabilities and compute your net worth. Are you on target with your money goals and dreams? Is it time to set new targets and rework your financial strategies? Learn how to make more money. Most importantly, write down your million-dollar moneymaking ideas! Why not set up a back- or front-yard business? Yup, selling lemonade or frozen daiquiris isn’t bad for a start!
• Analyze and find ways to improve your personal relationships. Ask yourself, "What can my partner and I do to improve our relationship? What things can we do to improve our family life? How can we make our children more disciplined, involved and loving?" Unless you look for the problems and define them, you’ll never be able to solve them. Communication is the key. Prevention is the best solution for a breakdown in relationship.
• Do nothing. Yes, do nothing. Simply nothing. Stop the confusing cacophony of the hurried earth and listen to pure silence. Enjoy the blissful sound of silence echoing silence. As you listen to nothing, let your soul do the talking. Allow it to speak to you. Listen to its pleas, its dreams, its longings. It is by quieting the mind that we find great truths and revelations!
I am excited to tell everyone that I will be in the City of Pines on April 28 to conduct my "Money, Money! Secret Principles of Money & Prosperity" show-seminar at the Benguet Room of the Baguio Country Club from 2-6 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Baguio under the dynamic leadership of club president Dr. Chris Peralta and the Baguio Country Club. For tickets, please call Mr. Ben Cid at (074) 442-5382 and for reservations, call 0920-4053233. Tickets are available at the gate.
Have a great summer vacation, everyone, and see you all in Baguio City!
I’d love to hear from you! E-mail DeroSeminar@yahoo.com or text/call +63920-4053233. Should you wish to forward this article, please acknowledge The Philippine Star and the author. Reprinting, recording or publishing this article in any form requires copyright permission from the author.
Like migrant birds in flight, every summer, man leaves his usual habitat for a cooler, more fun, and excitingly happening place. Almost by instinct, we seek to be where we could shake free the worries and tensions of daily existence. For most Filipinos, the Lenten Season is the summer vacation. In Europe and the US, they fly out of their nests in August.
Thanks to the uncertainty of these war-torn times, the terror of suicide bombings, and the almost prohibitive cost of traveling, more people are opting to stay close to where they live. But whether you are heading out or just staying home, you can maximize your summer vacation by making it more fun, creative, and even profitable. Here are some ideas on what to do:
• Do something creative. Paint that masterpiece, start that novel you’ve long wanted to write, compose that song humming in your mind. Get a nice notebook and start sketching your dream couture designs. Use your hands to create a major sculptural breakthrough. Let your creative juices flow, and have something beautiful and concrete to show.
• Do something really spiritual. Enhance your soul by reading the Bible, the Koran, and other spiritually uplifting books. Sit on your favorite armchair with a tall, cool glass of iced tea and a Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Iyanla Vanzant, or Phil McGraw book. Rekindle your spirit by re-connecting to it. Get into the spiritual (remember, I did not say religious!) chariot by engaging in a highly motivating and inspiring activity.
• Enroll in a class or seminar. Make time for your personal growth and improvement. Learn how to cook, sing, dance, make candles, arrange flowers the Ikebana way, or take yoga for your health and relaxation. Take lessons on how to be more beautiful, how to muster self-confidence, develop your speech power, and exude social graces. Learn how to direct or produce a film, how to speak a foreign language or better yet, how to reinvent yourself.
• Drop in on you. Fill the room with fragrant flowers, light up an aromatic candle, turn the lights down low, and put on a soft, relaxing CD. Sink into a cool, relaxing bubble bath and concentrate on the secret wonders of your body. Concentrate on the sensuous tingle of the water on your skin; breathe in the delicious freshness of the air around you. Seek your balance, center yourself, and praise the universe for the glorious feeling of being alive. Slip into your most luscious lingerie or underwear or just relax in your birthday suit. Glide around with no cares the whole day but make sure that all the curtains are drawn!
• Finish those things you’ve started. We are all great starters but bad finishers. Check out those things you have begun and put a close to or end them. Finish that book you’ve read halfway; fully restore that chair you’ve started last summer. Put together that photo album for everybody to see and glue that beautiful antique vase broken by your cat. Better yet, end that disastrous, claustrophobic, unrewarding relationship that has been killing you for years!
• Organize your things. While the whole town or city is away, you can now truly concentrate on organizing, filing and storing your personal belongings that are in a hopeless state of disarray. Get voluminous boxes, neatly arrange your things inside, and write down an inventory for every box. Tape on the box a list of the contents for easy identification and access.
• Plan the rest of the year. Review the New Year pledges you made last January. Update and write down your resolutions. Make a list of dreams you want to achieve for each month till December – one list exclusively for yourself, and another for your loved ones. And make a teary letter to yourself promising to make good your resolutions this time.
• Detox your body. You’ve been eating much too much, and worse, you’ve been smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish. Now is the time to detoxify your poor body. Clean up your bronchial pipes by cutting down on your smoking; squeeze out all the cholesterol trapped in your arteries by going on a real fast. Try the Beverly Hills diet of three weeks on nothing but fresh fruits and water. You’ll surely end up losing your unwanted pounds and looking as slim as Ally McBeal!
• Volunteer or join a community project. Help out a charity group; teach kids how to draw, paint or swim. Start a clean-up campaign in your community and get everyone into the habit of putting litter into trashcans. Organize a fundraising dance to finance a house for stray cats or unwed mothers. If you are jobless, be a candy-striper at a doctor’s clinic or hospital. When they get used to you helping out, you might even be offered a permanent job!
• Assess and plan your finances. Write down your assets and liabilities and compute your net worth. Are you on target with your money goals and dreams? Is it time to set new targets and rework your financial strategies? Learn how to make more money. Most importantly, write down your million-dollar moneymaking ideas! Why not set up a back- or front-yard business? Yup, selling lemonade or frozen daiquiris isn’t bad for a start!
• Analyze and find ways to improve your personal relationships. Ask yourself, "What can my partner and I do to improve our relationship? What things can we do to improve our family life? How can we make our children more disciplined, involved and loving?" Unless you look for the problems and define them, you’ll never be able to solve them. Communication is the key. Prevention is the best solution for a breakdown in relationship.
• Do nothing. Yes, do nothing. Simply nothing. Stop the confusing cacophony of the hurried earth and listen to pure silence. Enjoy the blissful sound of silence echoing silence. As you listen to nothing, let your soul do the talking. Allow it to speak to you. Listen to its pleas, its dreams, its longings. It is by quieting the mind that we find great truths and revelations!
Baguio City, Here I Come! |
Have a great summer vacation, everyone, and see you all in Baguio City!
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