It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose.

This is part 2 of my five part relationship series. These are opinions NOT expert advice.


If you want to read the others, you can read them at the following links:
1. It’s About What’s Most Important
2. It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose
3. It’s About What You Got Across Not What You Think You Said or Did
4. It’s About Infinite Possibilities Not Minimum Requirements
5. It’s About Whatever It Takes


A Little More on Value
I’ve written quite a bit on a variety of topics with only the concept of VALUE tying all of them together. One thing I noticed, based on the feedback I get with each post, is that people seem to respond most to the ones about family and relationships. It’s just more proof that deep down, whether consciously or unconsciously, relationships are what we value most.

Think about it, on their deathbed, no one ever wished they played more Playstation, or ate more burritos, or earned more money. What we regret are the relationships we should have paid more attention to, the thank yous and I love yous we should have said, the sons and daughters we should have parented, and the dreams we should have shared.

I guess that’s the important thing about marking your values clearly, because when you do you can head towards it, when you don’t two things usually happen: you never get what you want because you don’t know, or worse, you get what you think you’ve always wanted and realize that it wasn’t worth it. The words “worth” and “value” are very closely connected. What’s valuable will always be worth it.

Clarifications on Value
I got some comments that I found interesting enough to address here because some of you might have similar questions. Here goes:

1. This is a great article for guys – I don’t know about the article being “great”. It’s just my opinion, and again, from a non-expert. Second, I wrote this for both men and women. The whole value thing won’t work if one person values the other but is not valued as well. Someone’s bound to burnout or become a martyr or get hurt. That’s not a sustainable situation.

2. You can’t jump to conclusions – Just because someone’s too tired to drive doesn’t mean they don’t value you. Maybe they’re really just too tired. This is a very very valid point raised by none other than my mother. And she’s right about this. My example needs qualifying. If let’s say you’re in a relationship, and you know that someone’s too tired to drive you, because you value him or her you put them ahead and make them rest. In the same way, if he or she values you they’ll do their best to serve you. But the reality stays that people have their limits, emotionally and even physically, but when you have two people valuing each other they adjust without feeling unvalued because they’re secure that the other holds them as most important even when they’re limitations become apparent. Having said that, a pattern of mistreatment is obvious proof that someone doesn’t value you or you don’t value someone.

3. All nice and sweet but people are humans and make mistakes. How can you say that making a mistake in a relationship means that person doesn’t value the person – This is a great point! No one can say they’ve never hurt anyone – especially me. Hurting someone doesn’t mean you don’t value that person, it only means that on that specific moment, whatever you were doing was more important. For example, when I say something tactless, which I do a lot, it just means that airing my opinion is more important to me than the feelings of someone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t value that person, just not as much as I should at that moment.

The problem is when the pattern of our life is one that takes the truly valuable things for granted. Some might argue that values are relative, and they’d be correct to an extent, but at the very least we should know what’s personally important to us, and live a life that moves towards that.

What about our mistakes? No one’s perfect. We will all make mistakes. What hope do we have?

I remember my dad explaining a critical component of relationships; it’s what reconciles us and allows us to enjoy the benefits of a valued relationship despite the reality that we are flawed and will make mistakes. That component is forgiveness. I’ve realized that forgiveness is more than just getting a clean slate. Forgiveness is another chance to enjoy that which you really value – and if you take this new chance for granted don’t be surprised if someday you’ll lose it, maybe even completely.

The simple point of the whole value thing is this:

KNOW AND DEFINE WHAT YOU VALUE. LIVE A LIFE THAT REFLECTS WHAT YOU VALUE. AND WHEN YOU MAKE A MISTAKE, CORRECT AND GO BACK – IF IT’S NOT TOO LATE.

4. I wish my boyfriend thought this way – when I was writing this, I wasn’t thinking about how I wish my partner would be like. I was writing this as a reminder to myself to be the type of person who knows who and what he values, and to be the type of person who enjoys the privilege of cultivating the valuable things in his life. I didn’t write this for people to use as a standard to compare their partners to, I wrote this as a guide for myself. I can’t say that everyday of my life is faultlessly value-based. A lot of it, maybe even most of it right now, isn’t. But I have a guide, and slowly but surely, in time, I’ll be deciding more based on what’s really valuable to me and not have as many regrets. Sometimes when I read your email I wonder if you’re talking about someone else and sending it to me by accident. I’m not a great guy that knows these things. I’m, like a work in progress, discovering things as we go along, and trying to make something out of the limited time we have on Earth.

And this leads me to the next portion of this series, and again I have to warn you that this is MY OPINION.

Off Your High Horse
Many times we have this picture of this dream relationship where everything works and is perfect, where everything is fair. I love him, he loves me. I’ll do anything for her, she’ll do anything for me. I write her, she writes me back. It’s perfect…

…until she forgets to text back right away after you sent her a sweet message. Or until you’ve bent over backwards and he’s sleeping on the couch. Or even until he gets fat after you get married, while you work hard to stay slim. Until these things happen, and you’re left asking yourself, what the heck is this???

For me, at least historically, when things get too complicated, that’s the time to press the EJECT button.

But I guess this all starts when we stop thinking about what’s most important TO us and we start thinking about what’s most important FOR us. We start thinking about what we deserve. We start having one of the most dangerous sicknesses you can catch – entitlement.

Entitlement is a dangerous case to have. No one owes us anything – not even the people we’re in relationship with. Sometimes we think guys have to be like this, girls have to be like that, and the truth is they don’t. No one has to give you flowers or cook you dinner. No one has to court you or make it easy for you to court him or her. No one has to do any of that, and you’re not entitled to any of that.

Some of you are asking, “I’m not?”

Nope.

“Then what am I entitled to?”

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

But before you throw stones at me read on. (Besides my hair will soften the impact anyway.)


Here You Go
Love is a gift, not a trade. It isn’t bartered or earned. It is given, and in the case of true love, given completely. Sometimes we forget this, and we start saying things like, “If you truly loved me you would or wouldn’t…”.

You can complete the sentence.

When you give a gift you prepare it and make it special but you don’t expect anything in return. How ridiculous would it be for a kid to attend a party, give his gift, and go feel cheated when all he gets in return is a goodie bag?

“I gave you a Nerf Gun and you gave me lollipops!”

But we’re like that sometimes, always expecting a fair trade. “I did this. You didn’t” “You don’t deserve me!” “I don’t deserve you!” Tit for tat, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth is not the recipe of love but of feuds.

So what can I expect then?

Nothing. Nothing but the privilege to love unconditionally, to say “Here you go. You have everything.”

“That sucks, David.”

Why do you think I’m not married?


It’s About Who You Choose
Of course it doesn’t really suck. I’m exaggerating. We do get something, and it’s not necessarily what we think we deserve. We get whom we choose. This is why we need to choose well. This is why we don’t just jump in. This is why counting the cost is important, and there is a cost.

I liked this girl once, and looking back she really was cool, but I remember my dad telling me, (after asking me how I planned to feed her!), “David, no matter how pretty she is she’s going to take a crap someday.” My dad has a way of saying things. I guess this was his way of telling me no one’s perfect, don’t go blind, see things as they are.

Of course choosing well can mean different things to different people but here are two things I think are important:

1. Shared values – Do you agree on what the most important non-negotiable things are?
2. Shared love – Do you even like each other? Do you both put each other first?

For some funny reason we’re back to the questions “What’s most important?” and “Who is most important?” Trying to make sense of this, I’ve realized whom we choose reflects what’s important to us. We’re attracted to what’s important to us. So know for sure what’s important to you and choose well. As I said in another blog “everything costs something but not everything is priced right”. Choose the one you value most, know the cost, and pay it in full no matter how expensive. As I also said in another, “But you can never go wrong with the priceless things. They’ll always be a steal.”

Lamentations 3:21 - 27

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;

26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.

It's About What's Most Important

Pastor Paolo Punzalan recently mentioned me on his blog on relationships. I don't know why he suggested me as having insight on this (maybe because my views are entertainingly controversial), but I've been getting some questions regarding relationships on my email, Facebook, and formspring. So to answer all your questions more efficiently here are my thoughts on how to make a relationship work. I do have to make it clear from the start that I'm really no expert on this, so don't go taking this as expert opinion. This is MY opinion on a subject I am historically known to be NOT very good at. But I'm learning, and over the next few weeks I'll be posting 5 lessons I've learned so far:


1. It’s About What’s Most Important
2. It’s Not About What You Think You Deserve. It’s About Who You Choose
3. It’s About What You Got Across Not What You Think You Said or Did
4. It’s About Infinite Possibilities Not Minimum Requirements
5. It’s About Whatever It Takes


Ok, here we go...


It's About What's Most Important?
Of course I had to stick in the word VALUE at the very top, because relationships are about what's most important to you or what's valuable to you. A lady from the microfinance group I'm a  part of emailed me the other day asking about some life decisions. I told her to ask herself, "What's most important to me?" and to order clearly the hierarchy of importance in her life. Because what we value affects our decision making. When something is important to us we naturally try to bring ourselves closer. When something is NOT valuable to us we naturally stay away or forget something even exists. It's like the kid who can't remember his subjects but can remember the stats of his sports heroes. It's not a question of memory. It's a question of value.

In a relationship, you need to be able to say that, after God, she's the most valuable thing to you, and your decision-making, and your execution of your decisions (your actions) should show it. My dad always encouraged my brothers and I to make the big decision, because the smaller decisions become easy when you make the big decision. He used to say that it's easy to choose what to wear to work when you've already chosen to actually go to work. In the same way, many people find it hard to do the little things for the person they're supposed to love simply because they've never made a conscious decision to set her aside as most important.

If we're impatient with someone it only means we value our impatience more than we value the person. If we're angry at someone it only means we value our anger more than that person. If we'd rather sleep than drive for our wives or girlfriends it only means that we value how tired we are or our convenience more than them. This is hard to accept but it's true. When I am misbehaving towards someone, I can give every reason I think is valid, but the bottom line is I value my reasons more than that person. Because IF the person is MOST valuable, than she should be MORE valuable than my reasons no matter how valid they are. Again it's hard to accept, even for me. But when I think about the reasons why my dates never went past a few months the answer is the same, while I always try to make a positive contribution in the lives of others, at that moment, what was most important was... drumroll... ME.


Are You Ready?
I remember once being asked at a talk (why I get asked to talk on relationships is a mystery to me), "How do you know if you're ready for a relationship?" And I answered:

When you're ready to put her before you. When you're ready to put her needs before your needs, her wants before your wants, her dreams before yours, her comfort before yours, her feelings before yours, her convenience before yours. When you're ready to lay your life down that's when you know you're ready.

Of course I followed this up with, "And that's how I know I'm absolutely NOT ready."


Insecure Value
Sometimes I come across people who are so insecure about where they stand in a relationship and I realize it's because they themselves and / or their partners have never settled in their hearts that the other is most important. When what's most important isn't decided on, everything becomes negotiable. I can go out and get drunk because he offended me. I can text others since we're not cheating anyway. I can gossip to my friends because he's a butt. All of a sudden we can negotiate in our mind to do the things that will hurt the person because we have never really set them aside as valuable - meaning even their value is negotiable - they're only valuable as long as they do as we like. I'm so grateful our Father is not like that. Because, while I have decided on my values, sometimes I find myself negotiating and rationalizing my mistakes. But our Father, He doesn't negotiate our value. He has marked us as important to Him even when we fall short, and that is why His love never fails. God's love doesn't change with our roller coaster of a life. It actually reminds me of Shakespeare's very famous Sonnet 116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Love never alters. It doesn't bend. It is an ever-fixed mark that is never shaken. When that's the love you enjoy you'll be secure.


Someday There'll Be Treasure
Someday, I'm going to type her name on this blog, and like a white flag waving, that will signal my fall. When that day comes I have to surrender and say, "You're most important now." There will be times when I won't get my way, but that's ok, she's most important. There will be days when I won't understand, but I'll have to trust, because she's most important. There will be days when I'll get mad (maybe a lot of days with my impatience), but I'll have to swallow my pride, prepare a peace offering, and apologize to the one who is most important to me. Just typing this is making me dizzy, but then I realize I won't have to worry, because I'll be what's most important to her, and as the Bible says: perfect love casts out all fear.

Brothers Bonifacio - The Beautiful End

Things Change
Change is the process of becoming different. And life has changed for the Brothers Bonifacio, incredibly so the past few years. Gone are the care-free and care-less days of a wonderful childhood that had the stability of great parents in love, the entertainment of being in between a sarcastic genius older brother and an insane yet prophetic younger one, the convenience of having your best friends around you and next door, and the simplicity of not wanting anything more than time to play GI Joes and LEGO.

But, as I said, things changed.

My parents are still very much in love, but the stability of my life and my brothers’ lives will depend more on our own actions and decisions now as we grow into independence.

This is most obvious to me when I go out to eat.

When I was younger, without looking at prices, I always managed to choose the most expensive thing available. I can’t explain how. It was pure talent. I would walk into a cloth shop, know nothing about cloth, choose a pattern I like, and lo and behold, the heaviest price tag. We would walk into art shops and my parents would marvel at how everything I liked was way way way beyond our budget – our budget for several years. And this talent was most often displayed in restaurants.

These days the figures to the right have more of a say on what I order, simply because this time I’m paying and can’t afford to ignore the math.

Fair Females and Un-Fair Expectations
Another sign of the changing times is how we’ve complicated our lives with females.

While my brothers never really sought membership in my “female-haters” club, they weren’t exactly the biggest fans of the gentler gender. But even at a young age my dad tried to teach us the importance of choosing the right partner:

Pop: Guys. We have something important to talk about. Someday, when you get married, half of everything you own will belong to your wife. Meaning, half your GI JOEs, half your LEGO, and half of all your toys.

And the answers were telling:

Joe: I’ll just make sure that I marry someone I really really love, that way I won’t mind sharing everything with her.

Joseph was ridiculously good sometimes. We were kids when he said this. Imagine. Josh and I had to grow up next to the crown prince of virtue. I didn’t even like the thought of females touching my GI JOEs. There was this one time when the daughter of a family friend came over to play. I gave her Jinx, the female ninja GI JOE to play with. (I didn’t like Jinx anyway.) Then, as can be expected when a female gets involved, things got complex:

Ina: David, before your GI JOEs fight, we have to get married.
Me: What??? Are you nuts??? GI JOEs don’t get married.
Ina: Of course they do. Everyone gets married.
Me: NO!!! You’re a weirdo!
Ina: If you won’t marry me then give me another GI JOE I can marry.
Me: No way!!! None of my guys want to marry you!
Ina: How am I supposed to get married when you won’t give me anyone to marry?

I wouldn’t budge. I was the leader of my JOEs and I wasn’t about to sacrifice any of them on the marriage alter. But neither would she. She HAD to get married. Finally, we settled on Jinx marrying a purple Koosh Ball. And it all worked out well in the end. They lived happily ever after playing in their corner, while I went on to save the world with Hawk and Flint. I’m pretty sure Jinx and the Koosh would have had ugly kids.

I loved my GI JOEs, and that’s why when answering my dad’s little talk on marriage I said, “Forget it. I’m not getting married.”

But the best answer came from Joshua, “You won’t? I’m going to marry a billionaire.” He always was a smart guy.

My brothers have since found best friends from the enemy camp. I’m sticking to my limited treaties.

Yesterday my dad asked me before church, “David, of all your girl-friends, which one do you think would make the best wife for you?” I told him it was something I didn’t really think about, and that when I did think about it, there wasn’t really a problem with the females, it’s really more me that has work to do. He replied, “I’m asking you a simple hypothetical question and you’re not answering it. So who?”

And this section stops here.

The Beautiful End
I can’t tell you when exactly things changed, when our childhood ended and my brothers and I were required to become men. Like everyone's favorite, Mr. Darcy said, “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.” But I can tell you this:

God blesses us with beautiful surprises from the most normal and unexpected of places. And sometimes He does the opposite, taking away and bringing things to a close. But I’ve realized that the beginning and the end are two parts of the same blessing: one part to usher in the joy, and the other, to teach us to value what was.

I guess like the law of conservation of matter and of energy, things don’t really disappear, they just change to something else, dissipating to other things, hopefully better things. When you see endings this way, you realize that the end is never really game over, but the start of something new. Like the death of a seed is necessary for a plant to bloom, the end opens up new things, new opportunities, and new experiences.

And what turns every end, every close, every heartbreak, every loss, and every finish beautiful? The love, forgiveness, and redemption, and hope found in grace – God’s grace that turns any experience into a catapult to bring you to where He wants to take you.

And so this post, and the Bonifacio Brothers series, ends the only way it ever could – with a new beginning.


Series:
1. The Beautiful Interruptions
2. The Beautiful Strangers
3. The Beautiful End

Couldn't Sleep Again

Is there a brighter fire?
Guided by flickering lights
Walking on a slippery slope

Is there a clearer day?
Fighting on towards a prize
Holding on to only hope

4 Turnaround Lessons

I've spent most of the day looking at financial statements. One of the things I'm doing now is working on the turnaround of Issho Genki Interntional, the producers and distributors of the most trusted brand of Squalene (which is currently a small yet growing category). We're not completely out of the woods yet, but this last quarter is looking very positive for Issho Genki. We have improved enough to make me a little more comfortable with writing about the lessons we have learned from our mistakes. There are actually a lot of lessons I would like to share but I'll start with these four.


What Do You Love?
Squalene is a natural antioxidant which protects and enhances the body's cells. I've been taking the thing for about 15 years now and love the stuff. So aside from the challenge and necessity, loving the product was an attraction to me. I'm not really a salesman. I can't sell anyone anything. What I am is a highly contagious sick man. When I fall sick in love with something I'm going to infect you with it if you hang around me long enough.

Turn Around Lesson #1: Work on something you're passionate about. Turnarounds have a lot of baggage that can distract and discourage you. Working on something you're passionate about helps keep you motivated. While need is a great motivator, never underestimate someone who is madly in love.


Go Treasure Hunting
Issho Genki used to be a very popular supplement brand but dropped out of people's consciousness when management was not able to transition well into retail outlets. It's a classic case of a business that did well, overspent, didn't change relevantly, and descended. The good part though is there was a lot to work with such as the brand recall due to its, at the time I took over, 13 year existence, historically large distributor base, high-quality manufacturing base in Japan, and existing distribution relationships with Mercury Drug, Watsons, Dyna, and other retailers and customers. The most important thing the company had though was some really trustworthy and hardworking people that made the chance of a turnaround possible.

Turn Around Lesson #2: Look for the pieces of value. These are things you'll be able to work with and build on. What are the assets? (Of course depreciate accurately!) How much cash? (This is your blood. Even if people owe you, you run out of cash, you're dead.) Can you use your assets to generate cash? (Either through sales or as collateral) In our case, we didn't have any hard assets aside from a very nebulous concept of brand goodwill. We had no way of accurately measuring this so working with that was a step of faith. We also didn't have a lot of cash. We had a third of what we needed to survive month 1. (That month was very stressful for me!) But what we did have other than the brand were good people who made the sales happen and extended payables and stretched and stretched. Good people are always a great asset.


Cut the Fat
When I walked into my corner office on the 25th floor of a nice commercial building in one of Metro Manila's business districts I had the following thoughts in sequence:

1. Wow. This is cool.
2. This is really big. Too big.
3. This must be expensive.
4. This has to go.

One problem businesses have as they go along is that they take on too much fat. That's actually like us humans. Hehe. We take on so much unwanted baggage that weigh and slow us down, or worse, choke our organs which kills us. We had to do a lot of cost cutting in Issho Genki, more than a third of our operating expenses. This also meant there were contracts we could not renew, people we could not hire, perks we could not enjoy, and rewards that had to be differed. Of course not everyone was happy - including me. But you have to do what you have to do.

Turn Around Lesson #3: Cut the fat. Look in the mirror and see where everything is starting to sag and cut those parts out. (I'm in no way suggesting liposuction. I'm talking figuratively.) While Lesson #1 is to work on something you're passionate about, don't mistake the fat for the purpose. Fat are the unnecessary things or parts or even functions we've accumulated that no longer effectively contribute to your purpose or bottom-line. So to cut the fat you should have a well-defined purpose for your organization. I see this so many times in business and even non-profits where everyone wants to do everything, so there are so many people accumulating fat, and no one can recognize what's fat anymore because there is no clearly defined purpose. So define the purpose based on what's important to you (values) and what doesn't fit is fat. Cut that. Some people can afford to go on a diet. We couldn't. We had to have surgery. So we did just that.

Who's Your Daddy?

I was 23 years old when I took over a company that was closing down. When I look back I really had no idea what I was doing. They say that sometimes not knowing is actually better so that you don't know what to be afraid of. I don't know if that's true. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was really scared. More people would have seen it if my repertoire of facial expressions was more than just a smirk, but in my gut I was really really scared. I was scared because I knew that I didn't have what it takes to make this work, and this is what led me to what I consider my life's greatest lesson: Run to God.

Turn Around Lesson #4: This isn't from the business books, but it's really from my life manual: run to God and wait on Him. There were days when I would go to the office at 6am just to pray for a miracle. That somehow something would happen that day and we would live to fight another day. I would walk around our empty office and say "Father, please help Beth with the finances. Please help Guada with administration. Help Lolit with logisitcs." I would pray for everyone and everything, and guess what? Most of what I prayed for didn't happen. Hehe. But better things came along. Life lessons instead of quick profits. Humility instead of promotions. Contentment instead of abundance. Peace beyond understanding. These, along with the knowledge that my Father is watching over me, fixing my mistakes, redeeming my wrongs, forgiving my sins, and surely preparing a place for me, these are my profits.  

Money is useful, but these experiences, they're priceless.

And life is not being able to afford the numbers on the price tags. Life is about enjoying the priceless things.

...By the way, sales are up and expenses are down. That's always a good sign.

Mercy

While reading the Bible today on Bible Gateway, they have useful reading plans. I kept hearing the word "mercy" ringing in my head. "Mercy, mercy, mercy". Mercy is an important concept. Without it we would all get what we deserve, and if you're like me, full of thoughts and actions that deserve punishment, then we wouldn't last very long. But with mercy we're all still here, and more, with mercy we can still participate and experience the fullness of life.

So I looked the word up on my favorite etymology dictionary and saw this: "God's forgiveness of His creatures'offenses."


I think it's incredible to have a word so important to our existence so closely knit to God's character. Forgiveness is another powerful term. To forgive is to "give up the desire or power to punish". Why an all-knowing God will give up His desire to punish and why an all-powerful God will lay down his ability to do the same is beyond me.

I'm just very very grateful.

Contributions

Tired hands
Massaging glycerine
Make life sweet

Scariest Halloween Ever!

Opened Facebook to see this on the news feed...

Look who's in a relationship...