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Sunday, September 17, 2023
Today's Weather, 4 A.M. | Sept. 17, 2023
Faith always works wonders
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By Fr. Roy Cimagala
Chaplain
Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise (CITE)
Talamban, Cebu City
Email: roycimagala@gmail.com
INDEED! That gospel episode where a centurion begged Christ to cure his dying slave (cfr. Lk 7,1-10) simply shows us that with a strong faith like that of the centurion, miracles can happen.
“Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof,” was the response of the centurion when Christ said he was going to his house. “Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed,” he continued. It was this manifestation of the centurion’s great faith that Christ immediately did what was requested. The slave got cured at that instant.
We need to understand that since our life is meant to be a life with God, a life in the Spirit which is a supernatural life more than just a natural life, our Christian faith has to be taken care of, nourished and developed to full maturity.
We need to be more aware of this duty and develop the appropriate attitude and skill to carry out this responsibility effectively. We have to go beyond mere good intentions or being merely theoretical in order to be truly practical and be vitally engaged with this obligation.
Faith is a tremendous gift from God who starts to share with us what he has, what he knows about himself and about ourselves. It gives us the global picture of reality, covering both the temporal and the eternal, the material and the spiritual, the natural and supernatural dimensions of our life.
It is what gives permanent value to our passing concerns, the ultimate, constant and unifying standard to all the variables of our life. The perishable things of life can attain an imperishable quality when infused with faith. What is merely earthly and mundane can have a sanctifying effect when done with faith.
By its very dynamics, it prepares us for a life of charity which is how our life ought to be. It is also nourished and is the effect of charity, indicating to us that faith is organically united to charity, the very essence of God in whose image and likeness we are.
Besides, given the character of journeying of our earthly life, faith is also what nourishes our hope, that principle that enables us to move on before all kinds of possible situations and predicaments we can encounter in our life. It gives us the reason, the basis, and the vital impulses of our hope.
Especially these days when many people are confused, if not lost, in the complex drama of life, faith is what would give us the proper light to guide us as we navigate the waters of life.
Faith contains the medicine and the remedy to all our spiritual inadequacies and illnesses. It is what is required for miracles to happen, as attested many times in the Gospel.
When one has faith, even if it is just little, we can see the marvels of God taking place all around everyday. That one perseveres in prayer, or decides to confess his sins after a long period of sinfulness, or a husband being faithful to his wife in spite of the strong temptations, etc., these are miracles too.
They are miracles because these situations often defy human logic and worldly wisdom. But then again, they can only be acknowledged if one has faith. Faith enables us to see beyond appearances and the reality painted only by human and worldly values.
It is faith that lets us enter into the spiritual and supernatural world. It brings us to share in God’s wisdom and power. Remember those stirring words of Christ: “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Remove from there, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.” ((Mt 17,20)
'PARALYSIS' IN BUSINESS
Analysis paralysis occurs when a decision-maker overthinks or overanalyzes a situation, halting the ability to move forward with action. This inevitably slows down progress as they spend more time than they need trying to reach a decision. This paralysis causes delays that negatively affect business outcomes.
Sometimes referred to as “choice paralysis,” analysis paralysis causes you to have an intense, emotional reaction when faced with making a decision. While it's not a medical diagnosis, it's a symptom often tied to mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.
Analysis paralysis is a colloquial phrase used to describe the feeling of being unable to make a decision due to overthinking a problem. This often happens when you’re dealing with too many variables and continually researching solutions, instead of taking action and making a decision.
The root cause of analysis paralysis? Anxiety. Making a decision is hard—what if you make the wrong decision? This kind of thinking causes analysis paralysis. That’s because our brain’s goal is to make the right choice every time, even if there’s not actually a perfect solution. Indecisiveness can be a symptom of impostor syndrome—if you feel like you need to be a perfectionist at work, making a major decision can send you into analysis paralysis.
A doctor would explain the term paralysis as "loss of power of movement or sensation". Are you doing business? Do you feel paralyzed sometimes?
People-pleasing involves a desire to make people happy at any cost, at times even at the cost of our own happiness.
When we are expected to make a decision that might impact others, especially those we love or care about, the weight of our choice can feel particularly heavy.
Follow-ups seem to become the new national character. Indifferent people in our surroundings let us feel like that daily. Indifference seems to become one of the vagaries in today's society. Of course, the exception proves the rule!
We try to get an appointment, but -let me call it- "the other side" seems to be very busy sending text messages and letting me wait. We really don't want to encroach on other people's time, but we mostly get the same answer: Please try again tomorrow.
Many times I just try to hold my breath while observing certain employees, who should be in the service of the people, instead of reading a magazine, doing private talks over the phone, (again) doing (important?) text messages, and getting down-right cheeky, if we start another follow-up. Suddenly we learn, "that the boss is out of town"... . GRABE!
How many good ideas and highly appreciated business deals had gone with the wind because of uncomprehending, unsympathetic and unappreciated everyday deals between my fellow creatures and me? Honestly, sometimes I also experienced a "terrible loss of power of movement or sensation" while observing lost chances.
If you notice yourself overanalyzing important decisions or spending a substantial amount of time worrying about making the wrong choice, these strategies can help you move forward, take action, and make better decisions.
Set yourself a deadline to make a decision. If you have no timeline for when a decision needs to be made, you can spend a large amount of time waffling back and forth between different options, and ultimately never making a decision. The best course of action? Set yourself a deadline or a specific time frame for when the decision needs to be made.
Narrow down your options early. If you have an overwhelming amount of options, get rid of some right away. Figure out what you want your expected outcome of this decision to be, and then eliminate any options that don’t fit the qualifications of that outcome.
Practice making decisions quickly. Impulsivity isn’t always a bad thing. If you are constantly plagued by analysis paralysis, practice making small decisions fast. The inconsequential things like deciding where to eat dinner or what path you take to get to work will help you be more decisive when you’re making bigger decisions.
Use a framework for your decision making process: Believe it or not, there is a whole framework for the decision making process. Following a step-by-step guide can help take away some of the cognitive heavy work that’s required to make a big decision.
If you find yourself in a state of analysis paralysis, it is important to understand that there are steps you can take to slow that process down or stop it altogether. The ruminating thoughts, confusion and worry might make it feel nearly impossible but we can have a sense of agency in these moments.
Allow yourself to become an observer of your thoughts and be honest if it feels like you are ruminating on the same thoughts over and over.
Rigid thinking, people-pleasing, and fear can lead to our inability to make a clear decision. Remind yourself that it is OK to be flexible and imperfect.
Oftentimes, our fear of a poor outcome can feel heavy and permanent and it is often not the case.
When we are fearful of a potential outcome it is usually because we are afraid we won't be able to recover, that we won't be able to navigate the path well if things become painful.
What feels dangerous to us is often simply uncomfortable. Remind yourself of times when you have handled moments of challenge, stress and discomfort and bring that into your view of self as you navigate the decision ahead of you.
Much of what can lead to analysis paralysis is reaching for information, perspective, and the opinion of others.
Make an intentional choice to stop asking people what they think or what they might do. It is likely that you have the information you need, along with life experience and insight, to know what the next best choice would be.
Analysis paralysis often involves looking out into the future to anticipate the outcomes of our choices.
In doing this, we are trying to avoid or minimize experiencing pain but the reality is we often can't predict outcomes. Allow yourself to be present and take the next best step.
Making smaller, more immediate choices at the moment can allow us to pivot and adjust as necessary without the pressure to have all of the answers.
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Email: doringklaus@gmail.com or follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn or X (former Twitter) or visit www.germanexpatinthephilippines.blogspot.com or www.klausdoringsclassicalmusic.blogspot.com .
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Hefty price spikes at the gas pumps next week
Sep 16, 2023 07:42 AM
AT A GLANCE
As noted by industry experts, the unabated rally in prices were not just due to lingering supply pressure on the production cuts and export curbs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ally-producers (collectively known as OPEC+) – primarily the impositions of Saudi Arabia and Russia; but also renewed forecasts of reinforced demand for China.
With successive cost spikes already running on its 11th week, the consumers’ drive to the gasoline stations will mimic another episode akin to squeezing blood from stone as petroleum prices will incur hefty increases next week, based on the calculation of the oil companies.
According to the industry players, the price of gasoline will go up by P1.70 to P2.10 per liter; while diesel prices will surge by P2.20 to P2.60 per liter.
Kerosene, which is the other commodity in the triumvirate of weekly price adjustments, will also rise significantly by P2.00 to P2.40 per liter, as estimated by the oil firms.
The new wave of price hikes will be implemented on Tuesday (September 19); and it will be anchored on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), an index of traded fuel commodities in the Asian region which has been adopted by players in the deregulated Philippine downstream oil industry as reference on their weekly price adjustments.
Prior to this round of price hikes, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE) has shown that cost movements since the start of the year already logged aggregate upticks of P15.50 per liter for gasoline; P11.10 per liter for diesel; and P7.94 per liter for kerosene products.
According to global experts, the unabated rally in prices were not just due to lingering supply pressure on the production cuts and export curbs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ally-producers (collectively known as OPEC+) – primarily the impositions of Saudi Arabia and Russia; but also renewed forecasts of reinforced demand for China.
Market watchers noted that both the manufacturing as well as retail sales in China have been logging favorable data, and that sparked off sentiments in oil markets of probable supply tightening in the weeks and months ahead.
As of Friday (September 15) trading, international benchmark Brent crude drastically climbed above $93 per barrel, and that has been re-igniting fears of $100 per barrel oil swamping oil markets in the remainder of the year. That was a remarkable jump from last week’s $89 per barrel level.
Further, the OPEC has reiterated projections of oil demand growth for 2024 – and that is seen reaching the scale of 2.25 million barrels per day, to be propelled by faster economic recovery in many major economies of the world.
The foreseen acceleration in demand will provide counterweight to the lingering dilemmas of some countries on rising interest rates and inflationary impacts on their basic costs of goods and services.
In the Philippines, the din of protests in the streets still circles around the niggling bid of the public transport sector for fare hikes as they face continued financial distress from weekly price upswings at the pumps.
Senate bill on mental health and well-being
Managing a health problem that can’t be ignored
Sep 16, 2023 00:03 AM
Quietly and without fanfare, the Senate passed on third and final reading last Sept. 11 Senate Bill No. 2200, or the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act.
The measure was initially filed by Sen. Cristopher Go and principally sponsored by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian. Both senators said the Senate’s approval of the bill would provide a new lease in life for the Filipino youth suffering from mental health challenges.
“This is not just a piece of legislation; it is a lifeline for our young learners in the face of a mental health crisis that cannot be ignored,” said Go, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health.
The Senate's green light on this bill could not have been more timely, as it was done a day after the observance of the World Suicide Prevention Day, which is Sept. 10.
The bill aims to establish a Mental Health and Well-Being Center in both public and private K-12 schools. It also supports the Department of Education’s (DepEd) learning recovery plan and creates new permanent positions for guidance counselor and guidance associate.
Mental health disorders are the least understood among diseases. A mental illness is a physical illness of the brain that causes disturbances in thinking behavior, energy or emotion, making it difficult to cope with the ordinary demands of life. People tend to attach negative stigma more on mental disorders than on regular non-communicable diseases, complicating the problems of treatment and prevention.
Medical research is starting to uncover the complicated causes of these diseases which can include genetics, brain chemistry, brain structure, trauma or having another medical condition, like heart disease.
Topping the list of mental conditions are anxiety disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, generalized anxiety and specific phobias. Included here are mood disorders such as depression and bipolar depression, schizophrenia and eating disorders.
Science and modern technology have succeeded in some measure to fight these illnesses, which if left untreated could lead to suicide, the ultimate existential question that ends it all.
Social upheavals and natural disasters such as the Mt. Pinatubo eruption and the Covid-19 pandemic can cause mental diseases to rise.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers mental illness as something that should concern all of humanity. Thus, the Senate made the right move in passing Senate Bill 2200.
The bill also proposes to raise the salary grades of guidance counselors, a move that will attract more qualified professionals to these positions.
It also mandates educational institutions to conduct an awareness campaign on mental health issues giving special emphasis to issues like suicide prevention, stress handling, mental health and nutrition, and guidance and counseling.
The WHO said there is no health or sustainable development without mental health, which is too important to be left to the professionals alone.
Mental health is everyone's business, and the Senate bill inching forward to becoming a law is an important step toward the goal of good health for all.
Is "Austrian" a language or a dialect?
The question is surprisingly easy to answer: Austrian is a language of its own – a standardized written language and one of several standard varieties of the German language. In many text programs such as Word, you can select Austrian as your document language. It also has it’s own IETF language tag: de-AT.
German as a whole is a so-called pluricentric language with several standard varieties. Thus, Swiss Standard (or High) German (not to be confused with Schwitzerdütsch) differs lexically and grammatically from both the Federal German variety codified for Germany and from Austrian Standard (or High) German. Likewise, Austrian Standard German shows differences to the other two.
For example, in written Swiss High German, the letter ß does not exist, and is replaced by ss. There are also numerous differences in written language in Austrian High German - including in the areas of word formation, conjugation, grammatical gender, spelling... These are taught in Austrian schools as correct written language .
There are also independent high-level language words that only appear in one of the three standard varieties.
Independent high-level Swiss words are called Helvetisms (parkieren vs. [ein]parken, Velo vs. Fahrrad), Austrian words Austriacisms (Trafik vs. Tabakladen, Erlagschein vs. Zahlschein) and federal German words Teutonisms (Grundschule vs. Volksschule [AT], Primarschule [CH], bohnern vs. wachsen [AT], blochen [CH]). There are of course many differences in the kitchen language (lamb's lettuce – D: Feldsalat, Ö: Vogerlsalat, CH: Nüsslisalat).
The differences in the standard varieties are therefore roughly equivalent to the differences in other multivariate languages such as English (American English, British English) or French (French in France and Canada, among others), Spanish, Portuguese…
As for the question of the dialect, Austrian isn’t one. Rather, there are a large number of dialects spoken in Austria, some of which even belong to different dialect groups (Alemannic, Central Bavarian, South Bavarian) and differ greatly from one another.
At best, there is an all-Austrian tonal coloration, which, to put it simply, may sound a little softer than German German, especially with regard to the pronunciation of consonants. But that is independent of the codified differences in written and spoken high-level language.
The Austrian language is a recognized official language in Austria, South Tyrol and in all EU bodies. It is also a recognized minority or ethnic group language in Italy, Hungary and Slovakia.
(Swiss German is also the standard language in Liechtenstein.)
In fact, the interpreters and translators of the EU had to be retrained for the German language when Austria joined the Union. Not least because there are clear differences in Austrian official German opposite federal German expressions (Bürgermeister = Oberbürgermeister, Klubobmann = Fraktionsvorsitzender, Angelobung = Vereidigung, in Evidenz halten = vormerken).
So, should Switzerland (or Liechtenstein) ever join the EU, further follow-up training would probably be necessary.
Friday, September 15, 2023
Inquirer Sportsletter September 15, 2023
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