Wouldn’t it be nice to just stay at home and watch a movie on a 47 inch LED TV. Sittting on chaise lounge chairs with your family. Eating hot wings and fries while the kids dig into the ice cream?

Sometimes I ask myself, what happened to my dream?

So what do you do when your dream dies? Do you sit down and cry? Or do you get up and take another try?
These were the exact words from a friend of mine. These words made me realize, it is not too late. I still have a shot on my dreams.

I have always been obedient to my parents even as a child. The taught me to study hard, get good grades, get a college degree so that in the future you will be able to work in a big company. And I did. I am actually working in a big company. And most of the times, I am figuring out why I am working? Am I working to live? Or am I living to work. Sometimes we forget to realize our real goals in life. When our circle of reality cannot fit our cirle of dreams, we tend to settle. Settle for a car, settle for a life of quiet desperation. Living from paycheck to paycheck.

This time, I’ll do something different.

While watching TV, I saw this shampoo commercial wherein one of the line of the actress there is this, “You know what my mom always told me… look your best always, you’ll never know who you’ll run into….”

Well guess what? You should want to look your best not only because you might run into someone you know (e.g. the apple of your eye), but also because your appearance affects the way you think and how others reacts to you. You see, based from one of the best books I have recently been re-reading (The Magic of Thinking Big)…

”Your appearance talks to you and it talks to others. Whenever someone looks at you, make certain it says, ‘Here is a person who has self respect. He’s important. Treat him that way.’”

Especially in this era wherein you pretty much have everything and anything customized, you do not have any excuse for not being able to look your best. Even the “I’m vertically challenged. I can’t find any clothes that fit me.” is no longer an excuse. With all the stores out there, it’s guaranteed you will be able to find a gorgeous plus size party dress that is flattering to your built.

Moreover, when you LOOK your best, you will THINK and ACT your best. This helps you start your day right. So before you go out of your house tomorrow, check yourself in the mirror and ask yourself this, “Am I looking at my best today?”

Information Technology has a very large demand for talents nowadays. This is the reason why more students choose IT as their course in college. Earlier, I was at a career development seminar. I was invited by a friend of mine to be a speaker and share some of my thoughts in the IT world. In the question-and-answer part of the talk, one of the students asked me if IT is the best course to choose over the other courses.

I answered, IT is perhaps the worst course to get for college. Based from my personal experience, IT is all about automation and enhancement. In any field, may it be accounting, engineering, medicine, and even advertising, IT is just there to make things easier. To be a successful in IT, one must be able to be familiar with the field. For instance, if you are creating an application for a bank, you must understand the requirements. To add to my answer, I believe that IT should be taken as a post-graduate course rather than a college course.

Personally, I took marketing as my college course. I just learned how to create web applications after I graduated. That is, after taking an information technology degree on top of my work. I was able to easily create applications suitable to marketing because of my expertise in the field. I know some IT graduates have their insights too. This is only my opinion anyhow.

I once came across a book entitled the Underachiever’s Manifesto. It was a book that parodied the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. In it, the author talks about how to be satisfied with not really trying so hard or giving it “a hundred and ten percent”.

Although I highly doubt the book was meant to be taken seriously by anyone, I found that in some ways a lot of it made sense. Some people can work their whole lives for that certificate, or that medal, or those baseball trophies. And then, one day, it all comes crashing down by something as trivial as a dog crossing the road that causes one car to swerve into yours, crippling you for life. There are people that study so hard for exams only for the person next to them to score higher because all he had to do was bring a cheat sheet. Sometimes, you can’t help but ask yourself, is what I’m trying to achieve really worth all this effort?

Last month, my boss surprised me with an unexpected promotion. He said, the reason for this is my exemplary performance at work and my dedication to please the clients. I was not aware that my biggest client emailed my boss, recommending that I get a promotion. I was so glad because I am having financial trouble right now.

Of course, with any promotion comes a salary increase. My gross pay went up 40% and I was very happy at first. However, when I got my salary yesterday, I realized that my tax went up as well. Depressed, I realized that as long as I remain an employee, I will remain in this financial crisis.

So now I am looking for a small business opportunity for additional income. I haven’t started any business before so I will use this business to learn. The only problem now is, what kind of  business to get into.

As I was eating pancakes this morning, my sister and I discussed random things like how to set your priorities, good music, and cheap insurance quotes. This is one of the things that I enjoy doing the most, I guess you could call it one of my simple pleasures.

We talk about the most amazing things during breakfast, and I sure do learn a lot from her. She gives just the best advice for anything.

In exchange for her sound advice, I usually give her good songs to listen to, as I have a wide collection of those and I know which ones are good for a certain mood and feel.

Like what the old saying goes, it’s better to learn from the experience (or mistakes) of others, rather than to commit them your own.

I’d like to disagree though, some of us wouldn’t ever really learn until we experience it ourselves. Being so thick headed is quite normal, as we are human, after all.

I recently met up with my sister Anne’s boss last Saturday. He was seeking help on how to do online insurance advertising in our local market. I thought he’s one of those bosses who’s archaic or ignoramus about internet marketing. So I was quite relaxed when I went there – I didn’t do much preparation. Besides, it was the initial meeting, so I figured it’d be more of introduction, company background, and goal setting.

I was stunned at first, then horrified, then unexpectedly became impressed when he started asking me questions about internet marketing and probing for strategies very proficiently. He’s the most brilliant online and offline marketer I’ve personally met in this lifetime. In fact, I was so impressed I proposed that I’ll throw in some good ideas for free, in return for being his padawan. I hope he says yes. *crossfingers*