Life – Page 5

How To Diversify Your Life

Posted on February 17, 2017July 9, 2026 by savethesavages

I snagged this infographic from James Altucher’s Twitter. His writings have been resonating with me lately.

Hopefully this will remind me everyday to do something about it, if I really want to break free from my one source of income.

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate having a job doing what I do best; it’s been a stable and abundant life. It’s actually one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. But something keeps tugging at me, something keeps telling me I am meant for more. And when I am online, I am often drawn to writers & authors who talk about this kind of stuff.

And I can’t explain why.

I typed some of the Infographic for your reading enjoyment. I will come back and type out the rest.

How to Diversify Your Life by James Altucher

The only way to survive, to get off the floor, to build, to have ideas, to create businesses, to have flourishing relationships, is with diversification. And with the greatest invention since the wheel, the internet, it’s easier to do it now than ever before.

01 – Diversify Ideas
People ask me, “When I’m writing my 10 ideas for the day to build my idea muscle, should they all be business ideas, or around one sector?” No! Write ideas about anything you can. Then mate them. Make your brain supple and creative in every area.

02 – Creative Output
Everyone wants to create their “masterpiece”. But you can’t. All you can do is create. Then the world will decide what is a masterpiece. Thomas Edison has 1,093 patents but we remember him today for just one. The point: be prolific.

03 – Diversify The People You Meet
I’m shy. I like to stay home and not answer the phone. But I make myself schedule meetings with 3 or 4 new people each week. I go into the city and schedule them all back-to-back. I always want to be proactive about learning things from new people.

04 – Diversify Your Home
The American Dream dictates you have to own a house. As if your identity is tied up in the wood box you live in. But the world is an enormous and amazing place. Why not live in Airbnb’s and diversify your identity across exotic places around the globe?

05 – Diversify Your Platform
You can’t just blog. You can’t just be on Facebook or Twitter. You can’t just self-publish on Amazon. You have to be everywhere. Don’t wait for the mainstream media to pick you. Go to where the people are and make it happen.

06 – Diversify Your Thoughts
I spent too much of my life worrying about money and women. Meanwhile, there’s 100 billion other fun things to think about each day. Diversification of thoughts is the only way to slow life down, to let the thoughts simmer instead of boil.

07 – Diversify What You Read
Get 4 books: one about your career, one about your top interest or hobby (unrelated to your career), one thriller, and one book about spirituality or history. Read a little from each every day. Just 20 total pages a day equals 36 books a year.

08 – Diversify Your Health
List all of the unhealthy things you do. You don’t need to cut everything at once, but start one at a time. It’s painful to be 90 years old and know if you had done just a few things differently it wouldn’t hurt so much every time you went to the bathroom.

09 – Diversify The Way You Meet People
Adults think once you graduate college you have to go to bars to meet people. Not true. Put yourself in environments where you’re going to meet the kind of people you want to be around. Go to meetings, take classes, join groups, travel.

10 – Start More Than One Business
Start many businesses. Or jobs. Or careers. Start them at the same time. Eventually one will standout and flourish. This will be the one that will make you fabulously wealthy while having fun. But the only way to find it is to try many things.

Random Thoughts | Seven of Cups

Posted on February 13, 2017May 25, 2026 by savethesavages

Our thoughts / opinions about how we live life tend to change quickly, and a lot more often these days it seems.

For example, last year I swore I wanted to buy a house. I really wanted to do it, I was reading up on a bunch of stuff related to buying a house – the homebuying process, mortgages, costs, etc. I even had some money saved along with some other monies that came my way so somehow, it felt like I was in the perfect position to become an actual homeowner. My mom always used to insist that being a homeowner was the best thing you could do for yourself. Especially since my credit is excellent.

But then recently I’ve been reading more blogs about financial freedom and being free – free from debt, free from material attachments, free from the 9 to 5; learning to be happy with less stuff, saving your money and so now, perhaps I really don’t want to have a house.

Maybe I just want to live a simple life. I have told myself over and over that I aim to live a simple life, this has been my mantra for years now.

And yet other people will convince us that we want things, repeatedly over and over again until it finally becomes our own desire. Our friends and family members will try to do this, sometimes on purpose or unintentionally. They’re excited about something and so naturally they want you to experience it too. It never occurred to me until recently that maybe homeownership was and always has been my mom’s dream and she was passing it on to me. It really was never my dream…

On the other hand, I always want to buy more things and I always want to learn and acquire more knowledge. I spend my money on stuff I want – mostly books, crystals/gemstones, tattoos, classes, etc.

How do we free ourselves of wanting more stuff?

You don’t really. Bottom line is, if you enjoy it then go ahead and buy it. And if it means spending money to have enjoyment, then do so.

Just remember that we can’t take any of this stuff when we transition (most people call it ‘death’) to the afterlife or next dimension. We can’t even take our bodies, the same bodies that we obsess about so much.

So think about what is really important to you.

As I was thinking about what image to create to pair up with this blog post, the 7 of Cups from tarot symbolism came to mind.

In tarot, the 7 of Cups represents fantasy, illusions, dreams.

What is Self-Love?

Posted on February 6, 2017July 21, 2026 by savethesavages

Tuesday 7/21/2026 – I made this today. It’s sped up in order for the file size to be smaller so it’s a bit annoying to me. Anyways, look at me. Looking old asf.

Loving yourself has been on the rise as of late and I really think it’s here to stay. Maybe perhaps it’s WHAT I’ve been choosing to see/experience more and more of and so now I see it everywhere; at least in my digital/real world. It’s a beautiful thing to witness people loving themselves, but what does it mean exactly?

Here is the definition of self-love from my perspective:

Self-love means being kind to yourself. Being kind to yourself means not putting yourself down, not telling yourself “I suck” at doing things; self-love has a lot to do with how we talk to ourselves – our inner dialogue, our thoughts, what we think of ourselves.

Self-love means being happy with the way you look and not looking at the perceived flaws that you “think” you have. It means loving ALL of you, especially the parts that aren’t perfect.

Self-love means we deserve to have what we desire. We deserve to be happy and not feel guilty about it. We deserve to cut toxic, mean, assholish people out of our lives. Self-love puts “you” first, all in the context of not harming others of course.

To those who don’t understand, self-love might be perceived as a form of selfishness. Why? Anyone that calls you selfish is probably projecting something towards you. When someone is projecting it means they’re putting an issue out there (maybe towards you or someone else), when in fact the issue has to do with them. I wish I could explain it better but just know that self-love DOES NOT equate to selfishness…

Self-love also doesn’t equate to acting like you’re better than others either, it is way deeper than that.

I’ve been seeing this phrase a lot online: “when we love ourselves first, then we can love others”.

Or I’ve also seen it as: when we heal ourselves first, then we can heal others.

I believe both statements are absolutely true. When we practice self-love (or self-healing), the issues that we have had in the past tend to gradually disappear – some issues like being needy and self-centered or wanting attention from someone else, feeling the need to be right, etc. Things of that nature, things that tend to involve the ego or the “I”.

Practicing self-love is going to be an ongoing process, it’s not something that happens overnight. I still feel like I’m working on some things, as we all are. It’s part of the human experience and why we came to earth in the first place.

But we’re all making progress everyday and that’s better than not doing anything.

One of the books that helped me achieve self-love is by metaphysics author Louise Hay. Her book “You Can Heal Your Life” is an easy read. So easy that it’s hard to believe that it’s simple. It really is.

Let’s all learn to love ourselves more and more each day.❤️

I created the above image in Photoshop and saw that it was GIF worthy, maybe I will post a tutorial.

What Would You Do If You Were Fired Today?

Posted on January 21, 2017April 14, 2026 by savethesavages

I know what you’re probably thinking – the title of the post is completely unrelated to this image I created. Yes, your observations are correct. But I was in the mood, or better yet in a zone to draw crystals with my Wacom tablet while at work for some reason and attach it to this particular post. The title is still related to what I’m about to write…

What would you do if you were fired today? These are the kinds of thoughts that have been occupying my mind lately.

Continue reading “What Would You Do If You Were Fired Today?”

If Your Hobby Became Your Job…

Posted on September 9, 2016May 29, 2026 by savethesavages

If what you are really passionate about became your job, would you still love it?

Would you still feel the creative fire, or would it be replaced with feelings of obligation? Feeling stagnant and uninspired will also likely soon to follow.

Continue reading “If Your Hobby Became Your Job…”

Taking Part in Your Community

Posted on July 19, 2016July 2, 2026 by savethesavages

It would be easier to say ‘fuck LA, it’s gentrified. I’m moving the fuck out.’

Yes, easy right?

But much harder and more of a challenge to actually stick around and take up space in your own community.

Let’s be real here, do you really want to move; especially if you’ve lived in LA for so long? I’ve thought about the logistics of getting a house that I can actually afford…in the desert, but financially it would still cost the same. And besides, why the hell should you move just because some out-of-towners are taking over your neighborhood. Fight back!

So the question is, how do you fight back, then?

By supporting local businesses, supporting your friends who are all grown up now and have started opening up their own businesses; supporting small mom and pop shops who have become a fixture in the neighborhood. Support them by buying something, don’t ask for free stuff; understand that they have to make money and have bills to pay too.

Fight back by taking up space, why not start your own small business if you have an idea that you think people would love? This is your city, too!

Most of us have gone beyond the self-centered mentality – when you were young all you cared about was yourself. It’s understandable, you had to build yourself up first in order to survive. There was a time when it served you well.

Now is the time to give back and help out.

I hope this puts things into perspective a little bit. Here is an excellent read: 9 Tried & True Methods for Fighting Back Against Gentrification

Death Tarot & Sacred Symbols Oracle Card

Posted on July 8, 2016June 3, 2026 by savethesavages

The Death card appeared to me twice this week – first it was Death from the Sacred Symbols Oracle deck with the skull and rose at the beginning of this week on Monday, (top left)…

and then last night when I came home from work. I was sitting at my desk talking to a friend on the phone when I randomly pulled the Death card again from my HK tarot deck (bottom right).

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Edit 10/2/19: some people have asked me where I got the HK tarot deck. I got it from Etsy but I don’t think the person is making them anymore. Sorry! I’m guessing it was a bootleg and the person didn’t want to get sued by HK / Sanrio for using their images.

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I had a few other decks on the table so I decided to pull the other Death cards from them for this photo: top right is from the Albano-Waite deck and bottom left is from Camoin / Jodorowsky’s Tarot de Marseille.

The reason why I have all these tarot and oracle decks is because I am learning from them, they guide me throughout the days of the week. I feel better prepared for real life situations (whether I am consciously aware of them or not), and I admire the artwork too. The Tarot is a teacher. I’ve barely been studying the Tarot for only about 4 years now and I guess this is my method of learning; I learned that the same cards tend to come up in different decks. It probably doesn’t make sense to others, but for me it helps me to see comparisons. Consider it a double or triple confirmation. Some decks I use more frequently than others and so they end up sitting on my desk for months.

Reflecting on all the violent events so far this year made me realize even more that Death is and will always be a constant part of our lives. Someone is probably dying right now at this very moment, but we’re not aware because it’s just another day. So we only pay attention to what we see on TV and social media. We cannot dictate to Death who lives and who dies; Death doesn’t care if you’re gay, a person of color, a cop, a rich or poor person or someone of authority…

Death comes for everyone, this is the ultimate truth. Once you strip away all the complex feelings that humans attach to death – grief, sadness, hate, anger and everything in between…

there is just that, the natural part of life. It seems unnatural that a person dies at the hand of another, but at the same time this is and has been the history of human civilization. A person dies, and another one is born. It’s the cycle that keeps on going, no matter how we feel about it. The World Tarot card appeared to me this week too.

Death is certainly the most painful of all teachers. It is the one that is hard to let go of, to get over with and move on from. It’s especially painful for us who are still alive because we’re the ones who have to keep on living and remembering.

My mom passed away 10 years ago from cancer. I feel as if it was only in these last 4 years when the Tarot showed itself to me, that I started to feel like I could live again.

This is not to say that your feelings and emotions are invalid. They are valid and you have a right to feel the way you do. You can grieve and experience all the feels for as long as you need to, this is what it’s like to be human. Just know that this too shall pass, and that you have people that understand what you’re going through.

Where there is death, there is also rebirth, growth, transformation, healing, a new way of seeing things, a different perspective and so much more. The effects of death are far-reaching; peace, love, unity, justice, karma, and other cause and effects can spring from it. It really puts me in awe.

Why Cats Vomit

Posted on June 1, 2016February 5, 2026 by savethesavages

My cat Tabby started vomiting recently, even though we feed her the same kind of food – a can of wet food (Purina Pro Plan) and some kibble (Nutro). There are a number of reasons why a cat would vomit, but the main reason usually has to do with their diet. Apparently a cat can develop allergic reactions to food as well. We had to figure out which one is the culprit and we think it’s the kibble. I am just posting this link as a reminder.

Learn the Reasons Cats Vomit

Hiking Around Los Angeles, CA

Posted on February 28, 2016April 14, 2026 by savethesavages

[At the time this was written] I was forced to make a lifestyle change 4 months ago – I went and got a physical and was told that I was prediabetic and had high blood pressure too. Fuckin a, bummer. Being Filipino doesn’t help, either.

If I was still a few years younger, I would’ve probably ignored it and kept on eating the way I did (I did ignore my first warning actually). But this time around, it was different. I paid attention this time and commited myself to reversing this.

So long story short, I’ve been eating better. I’ve also been exercising and exploring LA like I never have before. I am learning to appreciate nature a whole lot more. Admittedly I’ve lived in LA for a long time now, but never explored it’s natural environment.

Here is a list of places I have hiked at so far, this list is just for my own record.

Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

Cahuenga Peak

Coldwater Canyon Park

Eaton Canyon

O’Melveny Park

Runyon Canyon

Stough Canyon Nature Center

Temescal Canyon Gateway Park

Wildwood Canyon Park

Stough Canyon Nature Center

Wilacre Park