It’s been a roller coaster ride from childishness to maturity and fatherhood. I’ve had good successes and disappointing failures. Many of these have affected acquaintances, friends and family. Life is such that you fall down, get up and continue where you left off. Regardless of the gains and pitfalls, life is still good – and I am luckier than many in the world who have a lot less and suffer more.

I love technology, having started my work interests in the field of computers when display monitors was a roll of paper, the keyboard looked and felt like a typewriter, and saving your files meant punching holes on a long roll of paper. Today, we have the means to telecommute and sit in coffee shops while we surf the world wide web. That’s the span of my experience and love of technology.

I enjoyed the challenges and education of the workplace, and the constant movements between organizational people who muster strategies and instructions on what best to do to achieve the ideal profit. I love collaboration and coordination, managing projects, creating new and better ways to do things, daydreaming of ambitious programs that will better a small part of the business or the larger picture. From staff to supervision, management to directing. At one point, I was a one-man department where I prided myself to be able to gain access and support from people belonging to other teams and departments, and succeed in delivering my expected results. Recently, I ventured into entrepreneurship and learned many lessons on how “not” to do things.

I envision a good lifestyle, from fashion to good living standards and the eccentricities of the upper social network that I can share erstwhile to my wife and children. Of course, it’s still a vision that needs to be fulfilled. Though money is not something you bring to your grave or after-life, it is a means to provide others a better life than what you had.

I love having idols in life and business machinations. The movers and the shakers who takes your breath away when their experiences are shared and their knowledge exchanged with you. I continue to add more idols in my life as I continue meeting, experiencing and adapting the best traits I learn from these idols. It’s even much better if your idol is your personal friend or acquaintance – the experience is more livid.

But, life goes on and life is good. God still continues to be part of my being and the way I deliver myself to others. I have been a devout Catholic since childbirth and even if I opened up to be introduced to other types of faiths, I still came back to my Catholic upbringing; and I am very proud of that. I love God as I love people around me, even if others do not understand and misunderstand my love. As humans, it is very important to continue loving others so that we can say, “life is good!”

Now, it’s time to share. Inspired freedom to share my experiences, my ideals, my thoughts, my ideas and my hopes. I once read a book whose title was “Hope Is Not A Method.” True. Don’t make it a method but continue to hope for the best and plot the method to which you could achieve your aspirations in life. And I “hope” I will succeed in my words that it may be able to help you in you path in life, where “life is good!”

Joy and I were met by Oscar, a gregarious fellow with a husky voice who loved to quip jokes. I followed Joy and we sat down on a table where I met another member, Art. In my conversation with Art, I found out he was a former SGV guy whose professional career focused on Finance, the last being the CFO of telephone company PT&T. He’s now semi-retired as he dabbles on consulting and brokering deals.

After a while, the women were asked to separate from the men to start each of their own session where Joy transferred to the adjacent area. Joy said sometimes everyone is grouped together rather than separated. It kind of reminded me about the single Opus Dei session I agreed to attend in behalf of another friend, Trixie. The “center” I was invited to go to was a place only for men only – no women. We attended mass where the songs were sung in Latin and went to the second floor of the building where a group discussion was to be held.

Going back to the BCBP breakfast event, it was very Catholic; I liked it because despite my inquisitive mind wandering to other faiths and religion, I am still a very proud Roman Catholic. The men sang from a hymn book which I tried to follow. An opening prayer was done by Dindo with mention of me and Adam as “first-timers” to the breakfast session.

Teddy was the “sharer” of the morning. He introduced himself as a member of BCBP for already five years but belonging to another chapter down south of Makati City. His story was both sad and truimphant, mostly on the personal side. At one instance, he had to stop because emotions just overwhelmed him as he read from his prepared script with a few ad libs here and there. While listening to him, I was already inside my head thinking when God will grant me the time where things in my life will simply line up and make things happy for everyone, especially my kids.

After Teddy spoke, Dindo introduced another person for some announcements; afterwhich, a closing prayer was done and the closing hymn was sung.

During the session, I also recalled my days as an active member of the “Couples for Christ” group in Richmond, BC, together with my wife. I enjoyed the camaraderie and prayer sessions we had through the year-and-a-half I was in Richmond. I also recalled playing and singing for the choir of the Canadian Martyrs Catholic Church, also in Richmond.

I believe I enjoyed myself and liked the group. They are warm and friendly, and not intimidating as others would be all over you being a first-time member. It is a group of faithful Catholics that have “business” as a common interest yet want to strengthen their relationship with God. Their mission, as I read the one-pager pamphlet on the breakfast table, says:

The BCBP is a body of Christian men and women whose upbringing, education, training and current life situation have placed them in the midst of the marketplace. Theirs, therefore, is a special calling that motivates them to apply their talents and resources on the ordinary as well as out of the ordinary events and situations in their workplace.

Oscar told me that the next session will be on June 13, this time to be held at a restaurant in Serendra inside The Fort. I think I will be attending their breakfast sessions in the months to come.