Quality of life and ways of being

11.20.11, a special Sunday, marked the wedding day of my sister. It also marked the 6th birthday of my twin nieces. 

Because I chose to not work during this period, my life learnings got accelerated (my finances were at a standstill during this period, but that is another story).

My father-side relatives from HK came over a few days before and left a few days after, to witness the special occasion, assist in the preparations, and just be with our family.  Some came over for 3 days (Sat-Mon), some 4 (Sat-Tue), and some 7 days (Thu-Wed). Interacting and conversing with them led me to reassess which aspects of our lives, our household, and myself work and which do not.  It was like taking classes about life.  They were our teachers.

In Nov. 2004, I joined a weeklong leadership seminar program where I declared that my legacy to the world is "to improve of quality of my life and of the people around me".  Now who are "the people around me"? They are my immediate family members - my mom and my siblings. What is "quality of life"?  It's a better way of living.  It's about living at the optimum condition, environment, with people I like and love, or choose to like or love. There are so many things that we have been tolerating at home, in the family business, and in how we do things.  Because they ain't totally broke, we ain't gonna fix them! But these systems, things, people have been dragging us down and causing us to lose precious time and now it has to take an outside party to point out what we have missed.  I am grateful that they came over, that my sister's getting married triggered and will continue to trigger a lot of household improvements and transformation.

I shall list down my insights so that I may savor and reminisce them in the years to come:

1. Brushing up of Mandarin-speaking skills. - Since Mandarin was our primary common language of communication with my relatives, next to Fukien and English and we wanted to get our message across, we had to use that.   This forced us to re-awaken our rather dormant Mandarin speaking, listening, and comprehension skills, which was a good thing. Very good thing.

2. Marketing of raw ingredients (crabs, prawns, fish, pork ribs, lean meat, pig kidneys, corn starch, soy sauce, veggies). - I learned where to buy these items, how to check the quality, and how to haggle for a price.

3. Cooking and preparing dishes.

4. Choosing a life partner. - Look at a higher perspective.  See the bigger picture. There's no right or wrong, just varying perspectives.  The life partner candidate need not have similar preferences or likes are I do.  We just need to learn to respect each other's hobbies and interests, give space and provide encouragement.  Character and getting along are of utmost importance.  The partner must be forward-looking (has ambitions in life, knows how to plan for the future).  The strength of the husband covers for the weakness of the wife and vice versa.  Because of the differences, they got to appreciate each other for what they have in front of them.

5. Getting reacquainted with the Philippines, Metro Manila, the transportation and communication system, government policies, and the like. - Because of the inquisitive nature of my relatives, they would frequently (but not in an irritating manner) ask why this, why that, why not this, why not that?  This would trigger the thought process of me and my brother as we strive to produce an answer or give our best guess, or air out our personal opinions.  Note that we don't frequently do the latter.  We normally take things for granted.

6. Learning about certain family trivia / history.  For instance, the meaning of embossed characters by the wall posts at our grandparents' tombstones.

7. Awareness of equipment/appliances that are not working at optimum performance - e.g. TV at living room (color hue unstable, casting a greenish glow), gas stove with small fire at the burners, gas oven that is not connected to the gas supply (because computer items of my bro are sitting on stop of it).
* Cousin WY actually bought a brand new LED TV to replace the decade-long CRT TV as surprise gift for our family.  I was so surprised when I saw the delivery guy assemble a new unit in our living room.  When I learned where it came front, I was so touched that tears fell from my eyes.  That was how much they wanted to help improve the quality of our TV viewing.  They do not just talk and give feedback about what things do not work, what the possible solutions are -- they actually went ahead and took concrete steps to execute the solution.

8.  Being. - I learned what it's like to just be.  Because my finances are limited, my capability to treat them to fine dining or other luxurious, pampering activities were also limited.  The most I could offer was my time and skills -- driving my cousins, uncle and aunts to certain malls and shopping areas near and far, or sometimes go by foot to the nearby mall for buy grocery items for pasalubong.  I buy them cute gifts as souvenir.  I enjoyed the mini-conversations with my aunt and cousin while doing the seemingly mundane things -- such as while crossing the street, shopping for items in the supermarket, and enjoying halo-halo in a fastfood resto.

9. Health - Walk 10,000 steps everyday. Invest in a pedometer.  Get formal taichi lessons and the like at least once a day and practice on your own everyday.  Our roofdeck is a perfect venue for doing such exercises early in the morning because it is spacious and can afford us fresh air.  I was asked to value my health and not throw it away just because I had more "illnesses" and discomforts than most of my siblings or peers (to my knowledge).  Get a 2nd opinion.

10. Choice of household help. - Choose proactive ones.

11. Incentive (carrot and stick) - Carrot approach.  To encourage me to shed off my excess pounds, my uncle told me he will sponsor my trip to HK, all expenses paid, by March 2012.  So, I have from end of November to Feb. 2012 to achieve 130 lbs. from 145 lbs.  Smart of him.  I do miss going to HK.

12. Being a good citizen of the world, protecting our environment, loving Mother Nature. - At the cemetery, they would make it a point not to leave trash lying around.  When we used a giant banana leaf to partially cover the paper money being burned in the open area behind a grand uncle's tombstone and the leaf got burned in the process, the uncle and cousin made it a point to fan out the fire so that we don't start a forest fire.  

13. Proper etiquette and behavior. - To leave the manly works to the gentleman.

My uncle, aunt, and cousin taught us how to live life, how to be street-savvy, how to be cautious, how to protect ourselves, and how to be a good citizen.  They taught us the value of addressing our tolerations.  I had to study coaching to understand all these concepts.  They lived it.

Our quality of our family relationship and our knowledge on quality living were enriched because of our 1-week interaction with them and with the wedding preparations for my sister starting half a year ago.  I am eternally grateful for this experience. 

- written on 11.22.11