DOES Buy Happiness">

Money can’t buy hap­pi­ness. Or can it? The Tier­ney­Lab blog from The New York Times recently con­ducted an infor­mal sur­vey. Based on Spent: Sex, Evo­lu­tion, and Con­sumer Behav­ior, a new book from Dr. Geof­frey Miller, read­ers were invited to:

List the ten most expen­sive things (prod­ucts, ser­vices or expe­ri­ences) that you have ever paid for (includ­ing houses, cars, uni­ver­sity degrees, mar­riage cer­e­monies, divorce set­tle­ments and taxes). Then, list the ten items that you have ever bought that gave you the most hap­pi­ness. Then you’re sup­posed to count how many items appear on both lists.

This was some­thing I gave as a homily years ago when I was still a Jesuit and my par­ents cel­e­brated their 25^th Wed­ding Anniver­sary. In a world where talk is cheap and com­mit­ments more and more tem­po­rary, some peo­ple do stay together despite every­thing. This is about my mom and my dad. And even if their anniver­sary is still in June, I would like to share this at this early part of the year, because it is a good reminder for us to be there for the long haul.

We had the mass in my favorite chapel in Sacred Heart Novi­tiate, the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion Chapel. It has one of the most beau­ti­ful stat­ues of Mary ever. I hope you could go to Sacred Heart Novi­tiate, in Novaliches, Que­zon City, Philip­pines, and pray in that cute lit­tle chapel and behold the beau­ti­ful Mary pray­ing with us and pray­ing for us as we start our jour­neys this year. May she be there for the long haul. And may we con­tinue to be pleas­antly sur­prised at the many things hap­pen­ing to us.

31 Things I Wish I Knew Earlier">

I orig­i­nally wrote this on my 30^th birth­day last year. I rewrote it and added one today because it’s my 31^st.

Allow me to share with you 30 31 Things I have learned in the past 30 31 years that I wish I knew ear­lier. It would have made life so much eas­ier, but then life is lived in stages and arrived at in phases, so all’s well that ends well. ;-)

2009 in Review">

2009 was a roller coaster year for me. There were dif­fi­cult moments. But there were also great moments as well.

This is a reprint of an arti­cle I wrote a year ago. It’s about love. And in this sea­son of love and hope, we pray for mag­na­nim­ity of heart.

The word mag­nan­i­mous, really comes from two words: magna (or great) and anima (or spirit). When we are mag­nan­i­mous, we are asked to have a great spirit: A spirit of love. A spirit that is so much greater than the things that may hap­pen to us. A spirit that is able to pause, and see things from a greater, longer per­spec­tive. A spirit that does not have to win all the time. A spirit that can allow pain, and not be destroyed, but rather, made even stronger by it.