50 Shades of Brave

Also known as: Pondering bravery

Yes, the title of this post is a corny play on the title of a book I will never read. But it sounded fitting for this entry, so let me use it.

Yesterday, some friends and I watched Disney and Pixar’s latest animated movie, Brave. I’ve been wanting to watch the movie for the longest time now since I’m pretty much a an of anything Pixar. I really liked the movie — it was a bit different from the other Pixar movies I’ve watched, but I enjoyed it a lot for the accent and the kick-ass lead girl (love her hair!) and the jokes. The movie tugged at the heartstrings too, as expected…but (unfortunately?) not in a way I expected it when I went in the cinema.

I hope this isn’t spoilery, but I guess I was kind of looking for a different kind of brave in the movie. You know, courage. The things that make us tough, the things that helps us face our fear. In Filipino, tapang. Those things.

And now that that got me thinking: what exactly constitutes bravery?

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Expectations

Also known as: That thing that ruins our relationships. At least, I think it does.

What are your expectations?

Oh come on, you probably thought of this too. ;) (Image from we heart it)

This question often comes up whenever I attend trainings at work, or whenever there are big meetings with people I don’t know. Shortly after the introduction part, everyone is asked to give an expectation for the session, so the facilitator or teacher would have an idea on what others want to get before they leave the class or go out the door. With all the trainings and the classes I attended, I should be used to that already, right?

May I be totally, absolutely honest?

I hate setting expectations.

Mostly it’s because I normally don’t set expectations, or I just don’t think about it much. I mean, in classes or trainings like that, everyone has the same expectation: to learn. So hearing that several times can get quite boring, you know? Plus, I feel like it’s putting a certain pressure on someone when you set expectations and that just makes things…well, weird and awkward when you don’t get it.

Oh wait. I don’t think I’m talking about the trainings anymore.
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Playing for Keeps

Also known as: A quest for clarity

Last Saturday was another book discussion day for me with my awesome friends from my awesome book club. It was another awesome day (I use this adjective a lot, I know), and I’ll talk about it in the book blog. One of our activities in that discussion was to pick song verses that describe a specific moment in our past, be it good or bad. It was a hard thing to do, since I have so many songs that were really more like life anthems, but after a lot of thinking, I finally chose a song and submitted it before I chickened out. I remember thinking, It’s going to be a bit hard explaining this, and I thought of writing a blog entry about it before Saturday came, but I just didn’t have enough time.

Well, I didn’t really have a hard time explaining it after all, because as cheesy as it may sound, I took it all from the heart. I’ve always believed that for difficult situations and sharings, you just really have to be honest and say it all from the heart and people will see that effort and it will be okay. And I guess it pays when you pray about these things, too.

Anyway, my chosen song was one of Switchfoot‘s old songs: Playing for Keeps. Specifically, it’s these lines:

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