I never know where things are going at times. I crave excitement, the new, and the unfamiliar.  Life has been good and steady, but I want some fast action.

I want faster changes. I want something dramatic.

I might go 180 and quit my job and get into teaching.   I am learning that time and money is not an excuse to not do what you want right now.  I fear I will live a life of regret.

I love kids and I love mentoring people.  I love connecting with people.

I hate looking at part numbers, CBOMs, AVL, and coordinating projects.  

I believe in life you need to make enough money to sustain ur passions or just work in your field of passion and say fawk it.

I want more of life.  I need to live more.  I don't live enough.  The days are getting ripped out of my hands.

I dont have coffee with enough people. I dont spend enough time with family.  I dont read enough books. I dont relax and enjoy the moment enough. I dont sit in His presence enough.  I am focusing too much on getting the things of the world, I am forgetting to enjoy the things I have.

I wish we all lived genuine lives.  I wish we would inspire one another.  I wish I would be the man I was meant to be. Today. 

You think you know someone and they surprise you. 

Can you imagine a girl like this...

write words like this...

"I think the moment of clarity came to me when I woke up from a deep slumber, recalling no dreams but only fragments of what had transpired the night before. And instead of feeling fresh and rejuvenated, I felt regret and humiliated at the person I'd become, for no longer was my will in control of my vices. And for all the advices I'd doled out to the various people of my past about maintaining focus, I couldn't even focus my pupils to recall the faces of last night, the numbers on my cell or how in the hell I'd even gotten home.

And that's a damn shame, when you wake up and you can't recall your lifelong dream, and it seems like it's been forever and a day since you believed in something more than a retail store, or felt something more than alcohol as it pours down your esophagus. And you wonder if there is a difference between you and a mummy in a sarcophagus because all that's left is just a vessel that contains nothing more than stories of the past and no vision of the future."

She is one of those girls in there.  I hid her identity hopefully.  She might kick my ass for stealing photos off her fb, but oh well haha.  I have known this girl for about 4 years, I think, off and on.  Partied with her like no other, but I never really got to know her.  I have been chatting with her a bit recently because she is pretty witty.  I enjoy a girl with some wit.  We exchanged some words for the night and she shared me her blog and I was blown away.   This whole time she had all this depth and I thought she was like every other girl in San Jose.   I won't put all the blame on me since she fails to show more than the party girl side. 

People have depth. Everyone does.  You just gotta dig sometimes. 

I wonder how it feels to be in your wedding photo and know you have looked better.  

I am pretty insecure about my looks and I wonder if people compare themselves especially on days where there pictures are almost immortalized.  

I would hit the gym like crazy if I knew I was about to get married.   But I think I worry about things that dont matter.  

As long as they love each other, they say. As long as they are happy, they say.   

I read into things too much. It may be my downfall one day.  I got 250+ Fb happy birthday wishes.  I got 30+ fan signs and the majority of all the people I love came out to San Jose for a quick dinner at Santana Row.

With this, I still look back at some of the friends I lost along the way.   A majority of my high school friends didn't wish me happy bday.  These were the people I thought I would be friends forever but we have drifted very far apart.  And a lot of my closest Christian friends from college didn't wish me happy birthday.  
I do not know why.   But I guess there is that stage in between the people you see every day and complete strangers.  People that use to be close in your life but now are a bit distant.  Somehow people just drift away.

Weddings are coming.  And by the buttloads.  It honestly is the second wave of weddings.  Approaching 26 now, a whole 'nother set of my friends are getting married.  Not everyone is invited to each wedding.  People that you thought was close friends arent so close anymore.  I know money is tight, seating is limited,  and if you invite this person do you have to invite this other person situation, but I am keeping track.  

To me, saying I am not inviting you to my wedding is simultaneous as saying as I move into my next stage of my life, I don't think I want you there or I don't think you will play a significant part.  

But this is normal.  Relationships cant always stay the same.  People grow.  People change.  

And some things in the pasts aren't worth looking for.  And some relationships in the past were better in your memories than they actually were.  

Thank you for all the fansigns and birthday wishes.   I am finally hitting my quarter life crisis. I am a year late.  Asking myself, where do I go from here and who should I take with me?    

Xanga, thank you for all the love and support over the years.   Some of you have impacted my life more than you know.  
May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.

PS. Feel Free to send me a fansign and I will edit the post and add you. 

Some memories never leave you.  I do not know why.  I will always remember the dog that chased me in elementary and the time I asked my 5 year elementary crush to be my girlfriend and she said no.   Maybe these are powerful memories.

In college, my first girlfriend and I were together for 2 years 2 months and 24 days.   I remember this because I thought that was pretty cool and I wish I broke up with her 2 days earlier so it would be 22 days.   When the relationship is sinking, you care more about silly things like this than the outcome of your soon to be dead friendship.  

She taught me a lot like most girls that I cross path with.  I was the first guy she introduced to her mother.   Her father passed away while she was in middle school to pancreatic cancer. 

I have very few memories of my ex-gfs in my brain.  The mind tends to forget the events as you unwrap all the emotions that came with that person.  

One night though she told me about her father.  He was a very jolly man and very happy.  And while he was in the hospital he would call home from time to time when the family wasn't visiting and she told me that she would be online all day.  I don't know if you kids remember but back in the day when you were online via AOL with 56k, the phone line would be used as well.  You couldn't be online and use the house phone at the same time and not everyone had cell phones back then.  

She said this is one of her most selfish moments of her life and she wish she would have waited by the phone for his call instead of go online.  I couldn't imagine being a father dying in a hospital and only to call home to a busy signal.   This memory and story has always stuck with me and I have not figured out why.  It came back to me recently when I was driving.  

Sometimes in life things are too hard to deal with that we run away from the truth.   I hope I am never put in situations like this, but if I do I hope I heed her lesson.    

I have been with my current company for over a year and half now.  That is a long time.  There are 4 buildings on my campus and I went over to building 3 for a customer meeting on some project today. 

The engineering guys were there and I had met them a year ago when I was first touring all the sites for training.  

At the end of the meeting, he told me I was different.  A year ago I was working out a lot with Nick and so I thought he noticed how I got a bit fat.  Hahah. But he said my demeanor has changed.   

We talked about it a bit and he said when I was new I was more excited and talked a lot faster.  Now my pace is slow and I give time to take things in.  

I was so happy afterwards.  I have changed.  When you are young, you run off when people tell you to do some thing.  Now, I take the time to ask them what are the results they want from the directions so I am clear with the objective. I then let them know what I will do and then I repeat their directions back so we are in alignment.  

I am not as green anymore.  I am not as young.  I feel it too.  Turning 26 in 11 days.   Time flies.   

When people around you make a difference, it harasses your laziness.  It doesn't have to be a difference in the world, but it could simply be a difference in themselves.   We hear stories everyday of people losing weight, getting their new job,  or learning a new skill or language.  But these people must be extraordinary.  Those people are not me. They don't know about the situations I have at home or the neighborhood I grew up in or how hard it is to go to school while having a part time job to support the family. THOSE PEOPLE aren't me!

And then it happens,  someone from your own backyard from the same neighborhood and context is able to make it happen.  Your friend is able to lose weight and get that dream girl.  Or they are able to be the first in their family to graduate ON TIME and land a great job.   This is the moment where the mind does one thing.  It can either protect itself and say they got lucky or this can trigger their internal soul and awaken to complete the same feat.   And all this happens within a blink of an eye.  Within the moment of hearing the news, one has already set the trajectory of what their next week or months is going to look like.  They will either continue into their same old routine saying "it must be nice for them"  or they can be chiseling and paving their own destiny just like their friend. 

Everyone needs a hero.  You don't have to be Martin Luther King or some kind of celebrity.  Ordinary people doing the right thing no matter the circumstance.   I use to want to help the world by giving people a helping hand, but I have come to realize the best way to help people is to breakthrough and show them the way.

This is to you.  Wherever you may be.  You are almost there.  I know it hurts, but you are already hurting. You might as well get something from it.  Don't let this moment define you.  Let this be a defining moment.  We need you. The world needs you.  I need you.  Its not about you.  Its about the people back in your neighborhoods.  It is about the people in your city.   They need a story.  They need someone to look up to so they can make it out of their situation.   Don't give up.  You are almost there.  An extraordinary person is someone who consistently does the things ordinary people won't do.  One more step. One more day.  It doesn't get any easier. You just get better. Day by day your best is getting better.  

<3

All human experiences are relative.  One can only feel rich, after being poor. One can only be happy after knowing what it means to be sad.   People are fat only relative to skinny people.  It is our own perceptions of our experiences that create our happiness.

What reason does Harvard graduates have for being sad?  Or celebrities have to cheat on their beautiful model gfs on random girls?   It is the belief that what they have isnt valuable in the moment.  That they should be more or be somewhere they are not.  I tell myself this every so often when I get sad. " You are exactly where you need to be.   If you were meant to be anywhere else you would be there."   Things take time. 

We call this the Law of Process.  Over time we become better.  Over time we will become more. And over time will get more, but for now all we have is today.  What God has given us this day to take care of.  He has made us keepers of the things we have around us.  Take care of those things well and he will continue to give us more things to take care of.  

Our sense of worth is in our own hands.  I am happy in this moment. I am grateful the breath I took this morning. I am grateful for the friends I have. I am grateful for the bed I get to sleep in every night.   I am grateful to you.  All my readers.  There was a time where I blogged and blogged.  And I had no readers.  About 9 years ago.  You gotta be grateful of what you have. If you don't, you might even lose what you have in this moment.  You might drop your oil and miss the world at the same time.  

It is focusing on the two drops of oil in my spoon while enjoy the wonders of the world around me.  

The Alchemist Excerpt