Deep Breathing

Your enthusiasm is not what you can squeeze out by your will-power. While sometimes it is, but mostly the other way around. Your enthusiasm is that which can give you an incredible will-power, not vice versa. And if so, where does your enthusiasm come from? Sometimes it comes from your ego (the desire to get the external approvals) and sometimes from your recognition of what is truly called for. The latter is what we signify literally as "Calling." It is not that you call for yourself but that someone else calls for you in your mind or consciousness. That is why; it is also called "inner voice." And the true inner voice is different from what we call inner chatting. Actually one of the most difficult things is how we can recognize the true inner voice in our contemplation and differentiate from the false one. Because of our consciousness, unlike other animals, we tend to think too much when we do something. Like our decision, when we decide to make any action, w...

While revising the world of The Alchemist , the following sentence impressed me: "When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision." Reflecting on this sentence, I just wonder how many times I have ever decided in my life. Of course we can say that it is countless. Life is a collection of countless decisions from tiny ones to something really crucial determinations for your path. As for tiny ones, you have to make numerous decisions every morning when you wake up something like what kind of breakfast you should have; whether or not you should have breakfast; whether you should pay an electric bill today or tomorrow. It seems that such tiny decision does not affect your life at all. But who knows? If you change the place (restaurant or cafeteria) for your breakfast, then you might meet someone who will be your life time partner. Or, the worst tragic case -- you...

It is said that when you love your neighbors and when your love is really true or the love of Agape, you do not expect anything from them in return. Such true and ideal love is always the form of "giving" rather than "receiving" or "expecting." In the same way, both appreciating and understanding should be the form of active not passive. This means that if you know the value of appreciation and understanding, what you have to do or what you are required to do is appreciating and understanding your neighbors, but not expecting to be appreciated or understood by them. It is a kind of divine requirement; hence, it seems that following and practicing such requirement or principle rigidly is quite difficult or else one of the hardest challenges that our ego has encountered. Moreover, we can say that to follow and practice this principle, our ego or egoistic separate self becomes one of the annoying obstacles. Indeed, because of our ego, we cannot simply foc...

Had dinner with friends of mine and watched movie – its title is " I, Robot ." Though it looks like one of the computer graphic action based Hollywood movies at once and it does actually, the story seems profound on which you can have a certain philosophical reflection. It is because the story itself is based on the same title of the famous science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov . This is the story about robots. In the near future (2035) the company named USR (US Robots) can have produced the robots that can work for us. They can do almost all of human manual works more effectively and more obediently based on the three laws of robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. ...

Yesterday for the first time I have missed the entry since the start of this Blog Diary. Although I am not perfectionist, it is not really nice to see one day has been skipped in the daily continuation of the journal entries. The reason why I missed yesterday's entry is simple. I watched the show in CCP and went home very late at night. I had received a few free tickets from a friend of mine and his friend; she is the member of the folkloric dance group called ROFG. This name stands for Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group . Mr. Obusan is one of the famous choreographers in the Philippines who have focused on the Philippine traditional dances. The name of show was Mystique Asia by ROFG. In this show the representative folkloric dances in each country throughout Asia have been assembled and synthesized so as to transform the combination of them into a kind of multicultural mixture of Asian taste. What Mr. Obusan used to do was the field research to find out and collect the folklor...

Today I stayed in the office for a whole day to make up for my absence yesterday. I was on leave because of the presentation . After office hours I was going to work out in the gym. But perhaps I was so tired; while resting at home around 6 p.m. I had slept almost for two hours. It was supposed to be at most thirty minutes only. In this kind of nap usually you tend to have some dream. I also had one interesting dream. Hence, after such a long nap, though I have been refreshed, I did not go to the gym, but stayed here to turn on my computer to write this. By the way, have you ever experienced such feeling that while your life has been constantly changing, you tend to think or believe that things and people in your hometown will never change? If you have stayed in the city or some foreign country being away from your hometown, I think, you can easily agree what I am talking about. Although you believe that things and people in your hometown never change, the truth is that everyth...

This afternoon I have finally conducted the CMMI presentation for one of the Japanese software development companies here in the Philippines. I think it was quite successful and Mr. V was also quite satisfied with my performance. We are happy that the audiences have surely appreciated the presentation. Our given time was two hours from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. I started the presentation at 1 p.m. and could finish it at 2:45 p.m. and had questions and answers for 15 minutes. In terms of "time management" it was almost perfect. And I think I was able to say almost everything I should deliver the audiences with 37 slides of the power point presentation. Does it sound a bit arrogant? If so, please forgive me. Right now I am just satisfied and happy with my own performance. It is sometimes nice that you praise what you could have done successfully. That gives you a confidence that can positively energize your further improvement unless you have been satisfied with your status quo. ...

When I was about to leave the office after lunch, the one thing reminded me -- the nameplate competition. There was the note from HR to tell us that we can submit your own creative, handcraft nameplate and if your nameplate is creative with minimum cost, then you might get a certain modest reward. That is lovely. I had no idea as to what kind of nameplate I can make, but when I was gazing at the monitor of my computer, one good idea had inspired me. There was the logo appeared in the frame of the monitor – IBM. This is called eight-bar IBM logo. Then, I just had thought that if I try to change "I" into "T" and "B" into "O" then IBM becomes TOM. This is a kind of silly idea, but suddenly I felt like making my nameplate by using the eight-bar IBM log font. I got a piece of paper where the eight-bar IBM logo was printed and enlarged it by the photocopier. The size of the nameplate should be around 7 x 2 inches; I enlarged until the letters c...

We had the final meeting for the CMMI presentation this evening. Using the revised power point slides we did a sort of rehearsal – how I could smoothly put some Japanese explanations on the English materials and how I can make things clearer by adding the additional explanations and anecdotes, etc. Since Mr. V does not understand Japanese, I still used English on the part that I was supposed to use Japanese. The point was to check if we can cover the given time of the presentation, and can give the audiences the sufficient, satisfactory information. I hope our rehearsal can be helpful for the Wednesday's presentation. As reviewing the materials, I felt that CMMI was really the model that focuses on processes. It is the process improvement management. It is the framework that can tell us how we can improve the processes and what the ideal level of the process management can be. As I said before (See this page ), by focusing on the process rather than the technology and the peopl...

Went to Starbucks after lunch to read the book about CMMI entitled CMMI in 24 Hours . But before starting this relatively boring manual, I picked up another book, which is a paperback I just bought yesterday. It is the latest novel by Paulo Coelho , the title is Eleven Minutes . When I was in Powerbooks (one of the largest bookstores in the Philippines) – this is one of my favorite routes and places to spend my time alone aside from Starbucks, I saw the piles of this newly released paperback that were displayed nearby the entrance. Since he is one of my favorites writers, I did not hesitate to pick it up. Also one of the phrases on the cover said, "Prose full of poetry and beautiful images... This book will make his readers dream." I agree. When I opened the book, it had started the quotation of the Bible, Luke 7: 37-47 and the unknown prayer that contained the paradoxical phrases like "I am the prostitute and the saint; I am the wife and the virgin; I am the moth...

Had meeting again for CMMI. This is actually the continuation of the meeting last Thursday. Since we do have only less than a week for the presentation, the more intensive discussion is necessary with Mr. V. We met each other in Starbucks nearby my place (actually it is also nearby his place; we are neighbors). This is the place I met Mr. O last week and discussed Spiral Dynamics from the point of view of Community Development (See " Life Conditions "). Today I am here to discuss CMMI.   Together with ISO, both CMMI and SD are also the important frameworks to assess the organizational maturity. Somehow recently I have been involved with these kinds of assessment tools. It is an interesting coincidence. Of course we can say that there is no such thing as coincidence and everything and everyone are connected and have the reason to be happened, revealed and being there.   The main agenda for the meeting is how to modify our presentation materials. For, what is available ...

Last night after the office hours I had meeting with Mr. V. According to him, the CMMI presentation for the Japanese software company will be pushed through. While I heard it might be postponed, the company has finally decided to have the presentation on the original date, July 21. We have only less than one week for the preparation.   My role is to conduct the presentation (generic introduction) of CMMI in Japanese based on the English materials (mainly the power point slides) for the executives in that software company. This company has been in the Philippines for several years and mainly conducting the software development with Filipino employees. As explained yesterday (See " Outsourcing "), this is also one of the IT companies that tries to utilize the Filipino human resources. And now to acquire the more legitimate status, they are considering the CMMI assessment.   This company is not exactly using BPO; however, considering the fact that their company revenue h...

Had meeting with the Japanese client this morning. This is the Japanese telecommunication company and has the branch office here in the Philippines to support the Philippine telecommunication company. The meeting was to discuss the possibility if this Japanese company can find some outsourcing services that can handle the whole branch operation on behalf. Of course we are one of the candidates. The reason why they are looking for the outsourcing service is cost cutting. Not only this telecommunication company, but also many Japanese firms have their branches here in the Philippines. Some have their factories here to utilize the cheaper labor resources. And from the Philippine point of view, accepting such foreign investments is also beneficial especially for generating the employment. It is mutually beneficial as far as the socio-economical development is concerned. At least in this point the foreign investment in the Philippines is ideal, although this is derived from the socio-ec...

For the further reflection on the Big Three ( Beauty, Goodness and Truth ), it is indispensable to talk about death. Again if we explain somewhat metaphysically, death is related to the Birth of Consciousness and the Birth of Time. For, when we were able to have the concept of time, the so-called linear continuation from the past to the present to the future has been recognized or perceived. As I explained in " Life Conditions ," this concept is derived from our agricultural skill that the fruits we have now are the result of our past seeding and the fruit we will have in the future is the result of our present seeding. If we have our sense of temporal continuation, then we cannot avoid thinking of the beginning and the end. Existentially speaking (micro level), your beginning is the time when you could have your consciousness -- when you start thinking of yourself in your mind. It is just shortly (several years) after your birth. In the terms of Spiral Dynamics (Micro) i...