Tuesday, April 11, 2017

blessed is he who reads...

Reposted...just some reflections for the Holy Week...

Got quite overwhelmed by the voluminous work and readings I had to deal with. Sometimes I feel more like "frazzing", got this word from TIME magazine’s article which means "frantic, ineffective multitasking, typically with the delusion that you are getting a lot done. The quality of the work, however, is poor". Grace under pressure…:-) whatever… still need to get going and BE HAPPY!!!

In the month of January I became a book geek, I was flooded by reading materials which were more than I could handle. How do you expect to read more than a thousand pages and understand and appreciate the content of it especially if you know that you are getting pressured just merely looking at the thickness of it? Well, really need to read them because those were really essential matter (work-related, what else)!

I am not a bookworm actually I read only when it is necessary, and I only read those books that will not take so much of my time. I remember those times when friends would lend me their bestsellers, I would start a chapter or two then jump to the end of the story. But, I am really impressed with people who love to read thick paperbacks and find them really admiring (how I wish I was gifted with the same patience). I remember one time when I shared an elevator ride with Sen. Enrile (he had an office at the same building as ours, some years ago) he was holding a book, actually he was not only holding it, he was reading it (I guess that is just how great minds came to be). I asked myself “would there be a time in my life when I also need to do that, reading while on the go, even in the elevator?” I think this is it, with all those RAs, PDs, SRS, FS, S&P etc. that I need to be aware of, I really need to find time to read wherever and whatever situation I am in, and I guess my habit of skip reading would not do, have to read every pages of them. If that does not qualify me to be a bookworm, I don’t know the meaning of the word anymore! My friend was teasing me when she saw me reading saying that it doesn’t look more like me, I guess I have to accept the fact that it already becomes my destiny.

Gosh, never thought I could muster enough time to read but I was able to snatch some from my precious moment to have an interesting read, too. I was able to take a peek at “The Food Bible”, the one I started reading last October. Actually, I read it in random, i.e. whatever topic that interests me. BTW, I really bought this book because middle of last year, I was alarmed that whenever I wake up in the morning I always have this puffy eyes which I suspected that it was something connected to my eating habits or the foods that I eat. To my surprise, the doctor that I visited could not give me concrete explanation, or at least refer me to a specialist who could give me the answer to my problem as to why I was experiencing such abnormal occurrence dropping the topic as something trivial which the doctor only said that I could have cried the previous night that’s why I woke up with puffy eyes. I could have advised her to change career and be a soothsayer instead :-) .

Buying this book was worthy indeed because I have learned that there really was a connection between my eating habits and puffy eyes and I was able to go to a specialist and correct the problem before anything gets out of hand. Another reason that I bought this book was because I really wanted to gain weight (just one of my new year’s resolutions). I was this thin girl all my life, so for a change I decided that I want to gain weight this year. Surprisingly I was able to do it with success. From a very thin 87 lbs frame I gained almost 20 lbs in eight weeks. I also followed a food regimen that’s written under the “food for weight control” section of the book. Of course I got to follow a healthy eating diet because I do not want to end up too tubby for my hubby. I just need to attain an ideal weight, keep diseases at bay and make this thin thing a part of the past. I intend to buy some more of this book to be given to those people who I think will need it.  You can get your own copy at

 

Going back to reading, the reading marathon carried on until this month, that is one of the problems when you’re not getting any younger and you have to cope into a corporate world, so much is expected of you and you need to know an array of different ideas or else expect yourself to lag behind those people who knows more, I observe that missed opportunities happen because of not having sufficient knowledge. However, there were downside effects for those times that I need to spend with work (reading), I missed some opportunities and lost social interaction, missed two or three occasions with friends, failed to make it to family gatherings, broken promises with colleagues which I really feel guilty and apologetic šŸ˜ SORRY GUYS, hope to make up to all of you next time.

I still got a lot of reading to do, but somehow, I have this guilt feeling that compared to the amount of time I spent with those technical writings, republic acts and so on which were essential for career advancement I overlooked reading the gospel which is far more essential for life improvement. So while I was writing this blog, I stopped for a while, looked for a passage in the bible that tells about the “significance” of reading trying to look for justification in what I was doing. At the book of Revelation I found “Blessed is he who reads…”which sparked a striking notion of myself as being “blessed” as everyone else who has this penchant [either as innate or only because of necessity] for reading. I said to myself, maybe it is right to conclude that with reading comes knowledge, with knowledge comes opportunities and with opportunities comes success and blessings but when I finished reading the passage I sensed that there was far deeper meaning in it than I thought.

"Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3).


I hope that no matter how busy we are, whatever activities we are involve in right now, whether we love reading or not, we still have time to learn the gospel for it is far more important to life and it is one great reading with a promise. God Bless Us All!!!



Originally posted last 03 February 2006

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