As 911 approaches this coming Monday, I remember that we were unwillingly dragged into a war like "Pearl Harbor". Our Commander-in-Chief George Bush should declare all public servants who died or survived as war veterans; and that they and their families deserve all the honor, benefits and privileges like any other war veteran has. 

What is the Cause of Cancer? The real estate selling business is a very competitive (sometimes cutthroat) business. It is no wonder why it attracts a lot of people who have an insiduous and deep sense of insecurity about money. I had many agents who in the past would have no hesitation of breaking our long, problem-free business relationship because they were enticed by a higher-commission offer by other brokers even as I try to nearly matched the other brokers' offers. I know them well enough that they are well-off and therefore find it very unusual that they should be concerned more about this commission matter in exchange for a problem-free relationship with a broker. From these and other experiences, I learned for myself that how I treat others sometimes reflects a lot on how I treat myself. I learned that my unusual way of treating myself is related to my way of setting unusually unhealthy priorities. It took me quite a while to change that and hope that it doesn't come back. Incidentally, 4 of these agents who had this insecurity in the highest degree had bouts of cancer and one died. Could a bad mental habit be related to having cancer?

WHAT IS THE CAUSE OF FEAR? I think I finally realized WHY I never got to finish several projects that I have started. First, I DOUBTED myself that I did not prepare or educate myself enough to do them. This lack of confidence and/or competence created in me a kind of FEAR that I might not be able to do a PERFECT JOB(EGO-INDUCED), so my pride would just prevent me from finishing it.

Women are more powerful than men. In my 25 years of practice as a real estate agent, I found out that in most married couples, the husband had more irrational objections in buying which I interpret as a form of weakness . This hesitation or indecision is probably brought about by pride-being afraid to make a mistake and that he will be blamed later on.

KNOWLEDGE IS NOT THE SAME AS KNOWING?! The English vocabulary has a lot of limitations which are sometimes the cause of our pitfalls. I was trying to do some carpentry the other day using mostly a hammer when I hit my thumb and thankfully I wasn't hurt. The manual of instructions for using a hammer, I am sure, doesn't say: concentrate on the "nail", otherwise you might hit your "nail"(what an old and obsolete language English is!). I am sure my confidence after "trying" is always higher than when I only read the manual.
After graduating from college, I immediately got a job at a bank as a "settling clerk" which is the English word (to stroke one's ego) for "messenger boy". At this job, I knew everything about balancing total amounts of checks that a branch received and gave out; and make various book entries to reconcile with head office at day's end.
But I was always being reprimanded because college did not teach me that the boss who is also the owner is ALWAYS right. She would order me to buy her food for lunch or bring her back some personal package from the head office which I purposely forgot doing because I hated doing them. College did not teach me that I have to help the supervisor with his work (which is not part of my work) otherwise he would hide one or two of my incoming checks which will leave me looking for them for hours and delay my going home.
I also learned in college that when I then become the Boss, I only have to order around my people. Now that I am the boss, why is it that I still put out the garbage(otherwise I would stink) from the office? What I learned is not exactly the same as what I know.

DISCIPLINE STYLES. I must have 30 ways of diciplining my children and employees. It could have worked better if I only took the patience to explain what was the latest style. Some relatives even hated me for my Hitler-styles. Some former employees who became abusive because of my softy, democratic style that I had to FIRE them are now my competitors; and have become very successful because they left saying in their mind : " I'll show you!" When I think about this, I give myself a nice warm smile and hope that their ego didn't take these too personally . One thing is for sure, I did not take any of them personally. I did these because I truly loved them and did these only to people that I liked. I NEVER COULD HAVE DONE these
to strangers!!!

PRIDE AND SUICIDE ARE INSEPARABLE. i had a few acquaintances who had committed actual and literal (unknowingly, through bad habits) suicide. All of them, without exception were very nice human beings. All of them had the common belief that everything in their life and other people's lives were centered on them. Their fat intellects made them truly believe that there was nothing more meaningful beyond themselves and that their happiness ONLY depended on themselves. Finally, they thought that to end the unhappiness was to put an end to the self.
i DON'T have to prove my point by citing statistics that show higher incidences occured in the intellectual or highly educated groups and less in the physical/manual type of individuals. From these stats we can say that pride is just a fictitious creature of the intellect. By the way, the intellect is far from what we commonly think as THE MIND. The intellect is just a small physical fragment of the BRAIN which I think is NOT even WHERE most of the MIND is. If you think you have or are developing this problem, please be humble enough to ask for confidential help.

$1 MILLION REWARD TO THE WINNER WHO CAN EXPLAIN THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION. I used to cook lunch for my construction workers specially for those who looked malnourished and I noticed that these same people were the easiest to abuse me by stealing my tools, late, absent, bad work, etc. Is this the same reason why Judas betrayed Jesus because HE washed his dirty, ugly, disgusting,gangrenous feet?

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER. When I was young, I was proud enough that I was ALWAYS disobeying my parents on those seemingly small, inconsequential things. Little did I know later on that this HABIT OF DISOBEYING was the culprit in totally MESSING ME UP; and it took me about 30 years to UNMESS myself up. The ten commandments should be re-titled "The Ten Highly Recommended Suggestions to a Painless Way of Living". I thought that the commandments were just a way of pleasing God. Now I am wiser to know that God is everything and don't need to be pleased by earthlings like me; He has got everything so that these 10 advices were really meant for the benefit of human beings.

How do I talk to myself? Last Sunday I got a ticket for speeding. I now look back at around that time that I was speeding what was in my mind and how I was communicating it to myself. I analyzed it this way : I was about to show some houses to a customer when I realized that I did not have my lockbox key. I looked for it in vain. Now I was telling myself that I WILL BE LATE!! My next move was to borrow Patrick's lockbox who I estimated was 20 minutes away. All the time I was telling myself: YOU ARE LATE!!! (IT WAS ALREADY 3:00 PM which was our appointed time with the customer). That incessant self-talk of 'YOU ARE LATE' MADE ME SPEED AND GET THE TICKET. All of these was in addition to all the stress that I was already putting on myself. Next time I will try very hard to catch myself talking to me like so.