Carlo Borja: Personal

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2018 is almost over.

Everyone's preparing for Christmas and the holiday season.

Buying gifts, Christmas parties, reunions, etc.

One of the things I like to do personally is to list the things that I am grateful for.

I feel like it is a great way to evaluate how great the year has been.

So here it goes. These are the things I am grateful for.

1. I am grateful for family

My family has always been there for me. They support me with whatever I want to do. And, I can always count on them.

Being grateful for having them in my life also makes me realize how blessed I am. My family is complete. A lot of people wish their family is.

2. I got engaged this year!

Today is finally the year I decided to take a leap forward with my life. Everybody has been asking me when I would propose to my girlfriend.

This year the proposal happened.

Next year, we're getting married. It's going to be a new chapter and challenge for both our lives. But, we're excited.

3. I enjoy the work I am doing

I have been working remotely since 2009. I've been working in the same company for over 9 years.

That is for a good reason.

I continually grow and learn new stuff. They provide me with opportunities to become better.

This year, we also got to go to Bali, Indonesia because we just launched the largest remote work conference in the world!

4. My spiritual family keeps me grounded

My church family is my extended family. I've come to know the Lord and I grew as a better person because of the spiritual family I grew up with.

This year was a lot of changes. But, God has been so great and by His grace the church has continued to grow.

5. Our house has been completed

Getting a house built is one of the biggest projects of my life.

It has been a financial drain. But, now it is actually completed.

What used to be something impossible is now standing and just waiting for us to make it a home.

There still are so many things I could thank God for.

I can't list all of them or else this is going to be a really long list post!

But, those 5 things above are the best ones that happened to me this year.

These are the things that just by looking back, makes me sigh and thank God for His goodness and faithfulness in my life.

How about you?

What are you thankful for this year?

Nope. It is not my birthday.

And no, I am definitely not 30 years old yet.

I am still 28 as of this writing. But, I feel like I could categorize myself in this "age of 30" range.

I do not know if it is just me. But, I feel like there is too much pressure when you are in this time of your life.

I am at that point where I am working my way up to my career. Work has been really great. But, there is that pressure to do your best.

There's also the partnership stage in life. I am really happy with my girlfriend and relationship right now. But, people pressure you to get married and even have kids.

Then, there's the financial part of things. I am paying my bills. I have a few loans. I gotta pay for the car, the house, my own stuff and a lot more.

Add to that the fact that I think about my future quite a lot. You know, just trying to prepare ahead and make sure we have a good life later on.

All of these things just run through my mind quite a lot lately.

It's a lot of pressure and is a source of stress. But, thank God it is still manageable.

Is anyone else at this stage in life too?

I think we all need to support each other to survive.

Whenever I am down, feeling stressed or tired, aside from getting some rest I turn to food.

My ultimate comfort food by the way is pizza.

New York's Finest pizza from Yellow Cab to be exact.

This week was just one of those days where I definitely needed this.

I just felt like there's too much going on and my mind just can't get a break.

So, we grabbed that whole pizza tonight.

It was definitely... comforting.

My friends call it stress eating and warned me about unhealthy eating.

But, guess what? Times like these, I just don't care.

Eat away, self. You definitely need it.

Tomorrow's going to be another weekend packed with things to do.

I was totally offline for the last 2 days.

No wifi, no data, no signal.

The photo above is the only one I took during that time.

Before you go wondering if I just went to the woods with my girlfriend, it's not what you are thinking -- although we kind of really did.

I had a 2-day retreat with family and church mates.

We do this annually during the holy week but this time it was kind of special.

The unexpected happened

I brought all my gadgets with me. From computer, to phone, pocket wifi, powerbank and more. You name it.

The usual workaholic always thinks of work wherever I am.

But, when we arrived at the venue I looked at my phone and boom -- signal is out.

There was a bit of panic going on in my mind because I had planned to answer emails during break time. So many work left. I felt like I could just do them while on vacation.

I actually survived

Even with that panic going on in my mind, I still decided to just enjoy every single activity which I really did.

24 hours have passed, then 48.

I've never sent a single text message, I've never made or received a call, I never opened social media sites for updates.

So, it turned out that I actually survived.

Takeaway

Even though I started the retreat with panic, I ended it feeling refreshed.

That retreat was exactly just what I needed to be reminded that life doesn't revolve online (I literally live and work online).

To more days like this.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle

In my daily quiet time as I sat down and thought of how I could make my life better, this famous quote just jumped right at me again.

It is a great reminder that excellence is something I should strive for. It is something I should repeatedly do. It is something I will choose to practice everyday.

People want to achieve excellence and perfection.

But, not a lot of people are willing to go through the pain of getting better every single day.

Having thought of that, I am reminded that the best way to approach this thought is to just continue to do the things that I am passionate about -- in the best way that I can.

I should strive to do good work every single day. Excellence for my life then is a pursuit and not a destination.

So today I declare that I want to be excellent. No excuses.

The picture above may be misleading.

It may not accurately describe what I meant in the title. But, it has a relation. So, please bear with me.

Let me describe the picture first.

Took it on the 6th of October, 2017. It was World Teacher's Day so I spent dinner with my lovely girlfriend who also happens to be a teacher.

I could not be any more proud of what she is doing. When you have a partner who is a teacher, you would know all the hard work they do. This may seem too exaggerated -- but I feel like they are changing the world one student at a time.

Oh gosh. Part of me really wants to be an educator.

Anyway, going back to my title.

The picture above also significantly marks the first time I had a serious toothache. And, like everything you experience for the first time you have to document it. So, I'm blogging it right now.

That night, I felt something tingling on my right molar. It slowly developed into a toothache.

2 days after that, it was already painful. But, being the pain tolerant guy that I am I just endured it.

On the third day (a Monday), I can still endure the pain but it is already going into my head. I cannot wrap my head around my work anymore. I cannot even open my mouth.

It was insane. My emotions were a mix of irritation, pain and excitement (yes, really).

It's a new thing for me so being excited may be normal in this situation I guess? Not saying I would want this to happen again though.

Anyway, like everyone's recommendation I took the number one pain reliever: a mefenamic acid.

It only took an hour and a half for the meds to work.

And boy, it worked like magic. Toothache was gone.

It's been like 12 hours since I took the meds and I'm not experiencing any pain anymore.

I even had the time to blog the whole experience right now. Yes, I am this excited. It even feels weird.

So yeah, that's it. I'm already 28 and I just experienced that feeling they say where there's nothing quite like the pain of a toothache.

Here's to hoping it won't come back anytime soon.

And oh, in case you're wondering -- i think it's a wisdom tooth.

I always keep myself occupied even on weekends.

That doesn't mean I am always "working" though. As much as possible, I'd like to clear my weekends of work stuff.

I still do a lot of things on Saturdays and Sundays. I just like to keep them non-work related.

Here are some of them:

Friday nights are always date nights. My girlfriend is also workaholic like me. But, we block off our Friday nights to spend time together.
I audit my finances. I am crazy over budgeting and tracking down every single peso that I spend and receive. I spend the weekend to audit everything and see how I could "improve" my spending habits.
I volunteer at church. I am actively involved at our church's youth ministry. I spend probably half of the weekend for this.
I schedule the week ahead. I fire up my Calendar and plot dates and appointments for the next week.
I do groceries.
I watch a movie even though I usually can't finish it. Sometimes, it's just one episode of any Netflix show that is on my list.
I read a book or go through blog articles on my reading list.

The list goes on and on.

As usual, weekends seem so short because there are a ton of things that we can do outside of work.

The important thing is to keep that work and life balance.

So, come join me in my "No Work Weekends" crusade --- even though I technically checked some important work emails earlier. Tee hee.

When life goes on full throttle and everything seems to be on full speed, it could be really hard to catch up.

Things could be scary, risky and even uncertain.

It is in these moments that you have to sit back and reflect on your current life.

Are you still on track?

Should you continue your momentum? Or, do you need to adjust?

So many decisions have to be made.

But, one of the most important yet the most difficult decision is sacrifice.

There are things you need to sacrifice and even let go of.

When life hits you hard, you would see how there are things you currently have that you might not need anymore.

There could be things you would want to give up just to achieve a certain goal.

It was never this way before. But, priorities change.

You are not the same person anymore.

You are on to the next chapter.

These sacrifices have to be made.

The good thing is they are temporary. And, soon all the sacrifices would turn out to be for your own good.

So, in these crossroads just hang on.

Things will get better.

Peanut butter is my favorite sandwich spread.

It's the ultimate food symbol for my break time.

And, today I got some of that time.

The past few days have literally been moments of intense focus. I've never been this determined and hardworking in my entire life.

I could attribute that to my ever changing priorities. Now I got bills to pay and a future to prepare for.

I have to hustle my way through it.

However, today I got to spend some good break time.

My Internet connection has been acting up lately and I can't do any proper work.

That's why I got to spend some time for myself including writing this one for the blog.

I'm just thankful for these brief moments of relaxation. It's something I might not get that often nowadays.

Right after our Sunday church service and ministry duties, we went out for coffee and had some good chat.

I actually enjoy these post church service fellowship meetings.

It could also be that I just love talking to people.

Hearing about other people's lives, interests, joys and failures really help widen my perspective about life in general.

Everyone is different and we all have unique stories to tell.

I don't mind listening to all of them.

In an effort to keep things personal, Jollibee has decided to stamp on personalized messages to everyone who will order food via drive thru.

Messages like "Enjoy the chickenjoy," "Bee happy," "Drive safely" and more. Some are handwritten notes and some are just pre-made printed cards like that.

I like this.

Simple gestures like this make me enjoy the whole buying experience.

Good job, Jollibee.

The picture above sums up our date tonight. It was taken inside a private movie house.

It may look like a bad night in the picture but it really wasn't.

Me and my girlfriend were both really tired tonight.

We both have our own careers. We worked the whole week. We both got a busy schedule. And, we only have Friday night to relax and chill.

However, this week was pretty intense and was filled with so much work. Our bodies were just dead tired when Friday night came.

But, that didn't matter.

We both could have skipped date night. We could have just crashed our beds and slept at home after a really busy week.

But, we didn't.

We decided to still spend time for each other because we know that moments matter.

Tonight was just another one to add to the thousand of moments and memories we have already created together.

I guess that's how we managed to stay happy together after all these years.

By the way, we had some good nachos too!

Nachos!

A photo posted by Carlo Borja (@carloborja) on Jun 17, 2016 at 12:30pm PDT

As of this writing, I just finished my second day at the gym.

Yes, I have finally decided to work out and be mindful of my health. Having a great body is another reason though *wink*.

Since I am a newbie in all of these work out stuff, all you gym rats probably know how sore my muscles are at the moment. Every part of my body is aching. I feel like my body is so mad at me. It’s punching and punishing me for finally deciding to work out.

I had a really tough time earlier. The exercises were harder than yesterday. Thoughts of giving up were already in my mind. What have I gotten myself into?

But then, I remembered “No pain, no gain."

Experiencing all of these pain is part of the process. If I focus on the goal of being physically fit, it motivates me more to do whatever it takes to get there. Even if that means having to sweat a lot and getting all my muscles sore.

Indeed, achieving the good things in life will require hard work. If you want to be rich, successful and great, it will be tough. The road to that path will never be easy. There will be pain. A lot of it. If you are not willing to go through that, then there absolutely is no ‘gain’ towards the end.

Continue to strive for what you love to do. Focus on your goals. Look at the bigger picture. Continue working hard. Your hard work will surely pay off someday. And, when that time comes you will remember all the pain that you went through today and say “It was all worth it!"

Screw you sore muscles. I’ll continue working out till you hurt no more!

In one of his sermons, Pastor Brian Houston once said that “You know you are getting older when the things you want are the things that money cannot buy."

I just had an awesome birthday weekend. At 25 years old, I may not be that old but the things I already want and wish for are the things that money cannot buy.

This year, I never desired to receive any material gift. I just wanted happiness. That genuine and satisfying state of happiness we all desire for. And, I got to experience that.

I spent my Friday at a very relaxing place with my girlfriend and her family. It was a very much needed break from work and I got to breathe fresh air.

When I went home on Saturday, I was greeted by a surprise from the CFCI Youth family.

These kind of moments are priceless. The joy and gladness in my heart is overflowing right now. I feel so special and loved.

My short birthday weekend definitely made me realize that the things that money cannot buy are the ones that are worth asking for.

I am definitely not getting any younger. But, I could confidently say that God has made me contented with whatever He has given me right now.

Cheers to more years of happiness!

It's Christmas season here in the Philippines and Starbucks is back with its limited edition planners. People are on a frenzy collecting stickers from their Starbucks drinks just to get that planner.

I am one of those people. I am an avid coffee drinker as some of you may know.

However, as I was reading Fitz Villafuerte's blog on "Why Pinoys Spend So Much To Get The Starbucks Planner That They’ll Never Use Anyway," I learned of the Latte Factor and how it is actually affecting me in a way.

The Latte Factor is a term popularized by David Bach which symbolizes the high cost of small, periodic spending. For instance, you spend 150 pesos for a coffee in Starbucks. That may seem like an average expense. But, if you drink coffee at Starbucks once a week then you are actually spending 7,800 pesos for coffee every year!

Isn't that shocking? That is a lot of money for coffee. And, I am guilty of this.

If you come to think about that, that money could have gone elsewhere. Maybe into a savings account or better yet into a good investment. And now you are still wondering why it is so hard to save money? The latte factor might be the culprit.

When I reviewed my expenses, I guess I definitely would need to cut down on some things which are not really that necessary.

For instance, right now I am actually thinking twice if I would still continue my Spotify subscription. That actually costs me around 130 pesos per month. The "music lover" in me is definitely against canceling it. But, 1,560 pesos per year is already a good amount of money to save.

Oh well. Now that 2014 is about to end, maybe it is time to reconsider my priorities. It's time I save up (or invest) for the future and not just waste my money on things that I really would not need. Maybe you should too.

Thank you Sir Fitz for your financial wisdom. It is something we all need.

And oh by the way... I just got my Starbucks Planner for this year. I've been racking up on stickers before I've known The Latte Factor. So yeah. Next year might be a different story. :)

My girlfriend loves planners anyway. She can put this to good use.

(Image Source: photographyblogger.net)

They say that writing your thoughts down is a great exercise. It could help you reflect and become more organized. It is even therapeutic for some!

Knowing that, I would definitely love to write a blog post every single day of my life. You know, just to write about a lot of mundane things in life.

The problem is I just can't seem to fit it in my daily schedule.

I wish I had the time to write down my thoughts. Like this one. I really love it when I get to do it. What happened to doing what I love?

I guess there are just some things in life that even though you love doing them, they just get buried down your priority list.

It's sad that writing gets buried down by some of my other important priorities. I know it doesn't have to be. But, for now there seems to be nothing I could do about it yet.

Maybe I just need more motivation to write. Or, maybe I need a better time management? Refocus my priorities?

I don't know.

If you have a better suggestion, let me know.

When you hear about investments, what usually comes to mind? Money? Stocks? Business?

Well, they all certainly are investments. But, there is one investment I recently made that is quite different from them. It's an investment for myself.

I just bought a new pair of eyeglasses.

In case you don't know, I have astigmatism. Only my doctor can explain what that really means and what that does to my eyes (LOL). All I know is I am nearsighted and I hate that slight blur with my vision.

I've been wearing glasses for around 5 years now. But, this is the first one to have a plastic frame. It's not your usual plastic frame though. It's really light at 6 grams and you can bend and stress it. Plus, it's quite fashionable compared to my old one. *wink*

This investment took quite a significant amount of my savings. But, I guess it's worth it.

My eyes are definitely important to me. I even got this one with multi-coated lenses to protect my eyes from the stress of looking at computer screens for 15 hours a day.

Bottom line, I am really happy with the investment I made for myself.

How about you? Do you invest in yourself?

I just renewed my domain name subscription for another year.

I have been blogging since 2007. But, it was only in 2012 that I decided to get my own domain name. Thus, carloborja.com was born.

In case you'd like to know, Namecheap was my registrar of choice. It's affordable and pretty easy to setup. I never had any major problems since then.

This blog has always been a 'personal' blog. I never once thought of monetizing it or using it as a source of income.

I registered the domain name to have my own personal space on the Internet. This may be just a small space. But, these are my thoughts, observations, reviews and ideas. And, they're pretty important to me.

Today, I'm celebrating 2 years of that personal online space. Nothing will change. If you have been following this blog, continue to expect a glimpse of my own personal life and random thoughts.

If you do have comments and suggestions for this blog, please don't hesitate to put it in the comments section below. Or, you can email me directly.

Thank you! Cheers to more years of blogging.

Photo Credit: "Anwaar via Compfight cc

At least at one point in our lives we all experienced bad things that turned out to be good in the end. These are what we call blessings in disguise.

We cannot really understand their importance and value right at the moment. But, if we connect the dots later on we will understand that everything just happened at the right place and the right time -- whether they were negative and positive ones.

I believe life is in itself the biggest blessing that we have and it is also in disguise.

Life does have a negative ring to most of us. Life is bad. Life sucks. It sucks to be alive. We barely get by through life.

You might be going through a very difficult situation right now. You are probably experiencing life at its worst. Don't worry. The disguise is temporary.

Believe me. It gets better and better every single day that you hold on and have hope.

Life is a blessing. Enjoy it.

Tonight was a series of unfortunate events.

My girlfriend experienced a serious headache. I had to accompany her to her house to make sure she gets home safe. She is definitely stressed out and needed that rest.

As I was about to go home, there was a commotion in the streets. A group of young rugged men were trying to catch a thief who stole something from a nearby warehouse. It was a dangerous and quite alarming scene.

On the way home, I witnessed a vehicular accident. Two motorcycles crashed head on. It was a serious accident. Both motorcycles were totaled and wrecked.

That's a lot of stuff to witness in one night. It made me think that it is really a dangerous world out there.

I just thank God I am home, though also stressed but safe.

Take care, everyone.

I'm Carlo Borja

Education

Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan

Experience

Head of Online Marketing

Marketing Staff

Youth Pastor

SEO and Online Marketing Consultant

Community Manager

My Skills

SEO

Content Marketing

Leadership

Organization and Management

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Outreach and Link Building

Content Marketing

General Virtual Assistance

Pastoral Work

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