Overflow

As I write this, yet another typhoon is hitting my country, the Philippines. This I believe is the 4th to hit us this year. Every year we can expect our cities to overflow with flood water. It is wise for us Filipinos to expect these super typhoons and to prepare for them. This is much easier said than done of course. It is easier said than done NOT because of the massive time, money, and energy required to truly build sustainable solutions.

It is easier said than done because we lack the massive discipline, sacrifice, and selflessness to commit our  time, money, and energy to building sustainable solutions.

It’s the same with our personal needs and desires. The thing holding us back is our lack of discipline to wisely invest our time, money, and energy – and the excuse in our head that we’re always missing something, and so prevented from succeeding.

You see, everything has a cost. Progress has a cost. Growth has a cost. Success has a cost. The food we eat has a cost. The clothes we wear, where we stay, our toilet paper, our roads, our electricity, our water, our entertainment, every-single-thing costs time, money, and energy.

And our time, money, and energy are finite, meaning, they’re limited.

And because they’re limited, if our time, money, and energy go to certain things, they’re used up, and cannot go to other things.

– You have a dream? Wisely commit time, money, and energy to it and you’ll see your dream come true.

– You have a need? Wisely commit time, money, and energy to it and you’ll see your dream come true.

– You see someone else’s need? Wisely commit time, money, and energy to it and you’ll truly be a blessing.

– Have a goal? Wisely commit time, money, and energy to it and you’ll achieve it.

In this next series, I’ll be talking about things I’ve learned that have helped me grow little by little, starting with time, money, and energy. It’s my goal that by introducing these ideas to you they will somehow serve you well in achieving your dreams.

More than that, more than just your dreams, it’s my prayer that my readers will overflow, that you will match the excellence of your lives with the excellence of your love. This is seen in how your life blesses others – not tickles others, not distracts others, not encourages others to feel better about their mediocrity – but blesses others, makes their lives truly better.

You eat three meals a day, who are you feeding?

You have benefitted from the generosity of others, who are you giving to?

You have been encouraged, who are you encouraging?

You have been served, who are you serving?

Life is not about reaching a point of no worries, no concerns, of all comfort, and amassing things. So stop being impressed by these.

Instead, Overflow.

It is with the overflow of our lives, our actions and reactions, our expressions and repetitions, our creations and inventions, do we make the world a better or worse place for others and ourselves. It is with our overflows, the fruit born from seeds planted in our hearts, do we bless or curse those around us. 

This is what it means to overflow: to guard the soil of your soul and plant the best seeds – for this is what you’ll reap more of. After this, to cultivate the very best of you and unleash this very best on the world like a creative flood, unlike the typhoons, a healing flood, that blesses all it reaches. 

It’s time to apply our ability to suffer long to our disciplines. No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful as Proverbs says.

Maybe if we take the finest parts of Filipinos, as fine as the finest in any human race, and apply them daily, we will not only have the “privilege of bearing the burden of the strongest typhoon ever recorded” but also have the privilege of seeing the 4,000,000 home backlog erased, the millions of people living in poverty uplifted, the huge equality gap lessened, as well as improvements in all our other issues.

Our lives need not be known for our disastrous floods when we can be loved for our overflows.