If you will have all the time and money in the world, what would you do? That question popped up when I attended a small group talk about a private franchising business last night. The first thing I thought about was to travel the world. Aside from that, I wanted to be a philanthropist and help out the children with special needs who are less fortunate through teaching. But I also want to get trained in this area. I also wanted to attend classes and be mentored in photography, writing, making music, art, or dance. The sad part was I never got to seriously do one of those in three years since I started working.

Don't get me wrong. I do love work. Teaching kids and seeing them learn something from me is a reward that is irreplaceable by fancy or material things. Making a small difference in their lives is a gift that I would never trade off for anything. But I also feel that work becomes tiring when you are deeply involved in it, day in and day out, and you are slowly losing parts of yourself. I do not want that to happen. In fact, I have been trying to savor myself from zoning out.

One way of savoring myself is through traveling. People say I travel a lot. I do it because it keeps me sane and sends me back to a different kind of happy state that I would never get from work. This does not mean that my work does not make me happy. It does! There is just an unexplainable difference that only those people who have a big heart for travel know and understand.

Another way to savor myself is to take photos and edit them. Even though I have not attended photography and photo-editing classes yet, I never stopped taking photos and learning based on my experiences. I still search and learn from other photographers online and in person. I also try to learn from the worldwide source of all information, the Internet. This humble hobby is related to my love for travel. Because if I plan and see the world, I need to capture it in good photos in order to easily return to the experience whenever I like. However, I admire what Sean O'Connell said in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty:

"If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it."

Staying in the moment is a perfect way to capture a picture. The photographer's eyes become the camera. And the moment becomes a part of the photographer's life.

Writing reminds me of who I am. Whenever I finished a poem, an essay, a paper for school, or a simply a blog entry like this one, I get really happy. Holding a finished work of writing keeps me excited even though I know it will get criticized or it will never be read. I actually do not mind showing my true self in writing. It is actually where people will get to know the real me.

Music elavates a part of myself. Whether it is music from an mp3 player, a car radio, a live musician with a band, or simply music from nature, listening to music completes a part of who I am. Singing it like owning the lyrics, playing keys on the piano, dancing to a tune, whether beautifully or amateurishly gives a sudden burst of energy. It defines the moment. Like if a caption is to a photo, a song is to a life event. A song becomes a part of the soundtrack of my life and it helps me not to lose myself to the world.

Reading also reminds me that there is fantasy, a world apart from our own. But they can be representations of the real world where we live in such as characters in novels that we can relate to. As much as reading brings me to fantasy, it also guides me back to reality. Due to this, I become more hopeful and my dreams become bigger.

The presence of people I value and care about the most also keeps me from losing myself. They are always there to remind me who I was, who I am, and who I can be. They fill in the blanks about myself that I have forgotten or have never realized. I am very grateful for the people who are still sticking with me and have stood the test of time. I do hope each one of us always have people like them in our lives.