Interviews, Checklists, & Cool Ideas You'll Love

As someone who enjoyed cleaning our house in my younger days, I found myself repeatedly frustrated by how quickly it would become messy again. In these moments of exasperation, my mother offered a simple, yet life-altering piece of advice: “Just look away.” At first, it seemed like an invitation to ignore the problem, but it was much more than that. It was a lesson in choosing where to focus my energy. My mother further explained that getting too fixated on keeping the house tidy while there’s six of us living in the same abode would only bring me undue stress. ...

One morning on a solo journey to Manila, my father found himself on a typical bus from our province, overflowing with passengers. Among the crowd, he noticed a woman, roughly my age, struggling to maintain her balance. In a spontaneous act of kindness, he offered his seat to her, a simple gesture that later imparted a significant lesson to me about the power of goodwill. That same day he recounted this story to me explaining his hope that if I were ever in a similar situation, a kind stranger would extend the same courtesy to me. My father wasn’t a ...

Growing up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood, the concept of ‘better’ seemed distant—a luxury beyond reach. My father, though far from a snob himself, understood something crucial about breaking the cycle of hardship. “If you want to change your life,” he’d insist, “spend time with those who can lead you to a better place.” This wasn’t about shunning those around me; it was about aspiring for more. He believed in the power of influence—that by surrounding myself with intelligent, ambitious people, their traits would rub off on me. I remember playing in the dusty streets with the local kids, their laughter ...