Have you ever been to Market Basket in Damosa? Isn’t it a beautiful place? I was able to appreciate its beauty when I waited for my pangga one day to come off from work. She works in a call center company that’s located near Market Basket. While I waited for her, I surveyed the place. I spent my time mostly just sitting down in the food court area. Majority of the tenants are food vendors. Some are retail stores. I saw a hardware store and a convenience store. There were also several fastfood outlets.

The interior of the place is very colorful. The dining chairs give the place a lively look with their bright colors. There were balloons of several shapes and sizes and fabric of various colors adorning the ceiling. Even the floors are nice to look at; again, bright colors were part of its design. There was a giant TV screen in the food court area, so people watched TV while they ate. There were huge electric fans at each side of the interior; at the same time it also blew mist so that the temperature was kept cool. Ever seen one of those electric fans?

I sat there for a couple of hours maybe and I thought how easy it would be to put up such a place. All you need is capital! Even if you’re not an architect, as long as you have capital, you can simply hire people who can design buildings; then you construct the buildings, find people who knows how to landscape, and voila!, you can then market the place, select your tenants, and earn passive income!

Do I sound realistic?

I’m not an architect, so I absolutely have no idea about buildings. I’m not an accountant, so I absolutely have no idea about the financial aspect of such a great project. But I have a strong desire to learn. I think learning will be easy as long as you are greatly motivated.

But that is still far, far, far, far from what I am presently capable of doing… LOL. For now I’ll start with small deals, like duplexes or 4-door apartments, etc. Once I have sufficient experience and excess money (In ten, twenty years’ time, perhaps), I’ll get into bigger deals like commercial complexes.

Wow!

If only I can do that as quickly and as easily in real life… lol…

The concept is really easy to understand. What’s needed is just to increase one’s financial I.Q. continuously, invest in real assets, and work hard at it (persist, learn from your mistakes)… Voila! The secret to getting rich.

But the PC version of the game can get too predictable… Maybe you can appreciate the actual board game more.

Here’s a great idea: To make the game more relevant, how about changing the currency into peso?

I haven’t yet started packing my bags, though. That’s the hard part. I’ll be bringing along a large, pink mattress, that my baby left here in Cebu. Imagine, I’ll be tagging it along as I line up to deposit my baggage in the airport… Do you suppose people will look at me and find it funny? I’ve never seen anyone bring along a mattress in an airport before.

I’ll be leaving very, very early…

But I won’t feel like I’m travelling at all. What’s an hour? That’s only like commuting from Minglanilla to the City. (I still can’t believe, after having done this 7 times already, that I’ll be crossing Mindanao for only an hour!).

Real travel, for me, consists in taking hours of bus rides to far-flung places; crossing islands with a small pumpboat, fastcraft, or a huge ship; waking up before the sun rises, and watching the break of dawn from a window of a Ceres liner. It’s smelling the fesh air of the mountains, the rice fields, the sea… It’s feeling the contour of the land and experiencing the solemnity of the ocean…

Pero sige na lang, I need to be with my baby the soonest possible time…  

Pinay, there’s no limit to your capabilities. If you can overcome such a gargantuan challenge as Mt. Everest, you can overcome all the other Mt. Everests in your life! No problem or obstacle is too big for you rise above to reach your dreams…

 I haven’t played the actual board game yet. I wish to play it with other folks in the future (Here in Cebu there are people who meet occasionally to play the game, but not on a regular schedule). The nice thing about the CD is you can play it alone.

My plan is actually to acquire one property before this year ends. Then next year two more properties, and so on every year for the next 10 years. My ideas about how I’m going to do that is still a bit hazy right now, but as I make progress I will learn and increase my skills. When I become familiar with the process my Pangga and I will try it out in Davao.

I also plan to invest in a mutual fund before I turn 26. I don’t know yet, though, which MF company is best for me.

Well, it is my dream to read at least one book a month. I’ll start with that. Maybe I’ll make progress in the long run and read three books a month, and then three books a week! Hah! But, in my opinion, it is not really the number of books that one reads that matters. It is the quality of books you choose to read, at your own pace. 

So I’ll start with at least one book a month, and also at least one audiobook or audio lecture on the same month.

I also want to improve my writing. I’m not a writer, I wasn’t born to become a writer. I simply want to write better, more clearly, more decently; to achieve the minimum level of literacy. So I have this blog to practice that skill.

Nola

SHE sits on the front row at her classes at Fort Hays State University. She is described by her classmates as “witty, charming and down-to-earth.”

There were those who doubted if this white-haired farmer could finish what she set out to do. But on her final stretch to finishing up a general studies degree with an emphasis on history, Nola never once doubted that she could not do what she had set her mind to.

An invaluable source of oral history, what sets this diminutive woman of 5-foot-2 apart from the rest of the graduates this year is not just her indomitable spirit to finish what she started 35 years ago. When Nola Ochs graduates on May 12, she will, at 95, become the oldest person in the world to be awarded a college degree.

Yes, you read it right—95.

Widowed in 1972, Nola is proud of her family: three sons, 13 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren. She lost a fourth son in 1995.

What does Nola Ochs provide us? Not just invaluable accounts of the 1930s but the priceless lesson that there shouldn’t be a prescriptive period for our dreams—that for as long as we live with hope in our hearts, there is no such thing as an impossible dream.

We give up too easily. We seek excuses for what we say we can no longer do. Our first excuse is advancing age. But while our age may advance, so should our goals to do something of significance.

When our knees go, why should our dreams follow? Why should our capacity to dream be pegged on our capacity to run uphill? Our capacity to dream should be pegged on our capacity to think and believe uphill.

She likes to be called Nola—not Mrs. Ochs, perhaps to reinforce her belief that for as long as she has her mind and health, age is just a number.

If we could, for one moment, be on the same page as Nola, we could quite possibly discover that Nola speaks a trite but inviolable truth. Limits do exist only in our minds. We don’t need the extravagance of fountain-of-youth products; we need the extravagance of hope, faith and love to allow us to live our lives, whether at 30 or 90, with passion and purpose.

If a 95-year old lady can travel 100 miles from her home to live in a one-bedroom apartment to live her dreams, there is no reason why a 45-year old cannot find the courage to walk the road less traveled to follow her heart.

Completely undaunted by the number that signifies her age, Nola, after graduation, plans to apply at a cruise ship to be a storyteller. And you say you’re too old to learn how to use a computer? Nola knows how to use a computer. Doesn’t Nola just put us all to shame?

Age is just a number.

xxx

You are never too old to pursue your dreams!

Naa siya sa Channel 44 (Sky Cable).

(I’ve read Bo Sanchez’s latest book, 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich, and I simply loved it! Daghan practical suggestions on how, and why, to become rich, truly rich, meaning materially as well as spiritually wealthy. Dili man evil ang kwarta, di ba? It can be used for evil, yes, but it can, and should, also be used as an instrument to do good. So my dream is to become a millionnaire someday hehehe… The more wealthy you are, the more people you can help. The next book I’m going to read is Think Rich, Pinoy! by Larry Gamboa.)