Category: Blog

Bossypants by Tina Fey (c) Shainne Hostalero

The Good Read:  Bossypants by Tina Fey

Truth be told: Tina Fey is my favorite… In all her ways as a writer, an artist, an actor, a producer, a wife and a mother. I see the humor arise whenever I get to see her writings, her stints, guesting and hosting gigs (well, of course, on publications and on TV only.)

When the book Bossypants was recently out, the first published of it was on a blue hard-bound book. I was then a student, third year in college to be more specific. I went to a bookstore – a bookstore where you can read books even if you don’t have any intention of buying them; a bookstore where no one’s going to reprimand you for being such a freeloader. Hahaha! I swear, I’ve finished lots of good reads there. I was just a student and the books that I was interested about were the books that cost more than my weekly allowance. In other words, I couldn’t afford. So, what happened was I made it a point to swing by and read the books I like there until I’m done with all the chapters. (I’m sorry book authors/writers, I know you’re about making profit too. Now that I (somehow) can afford, I can purchase all your masterpieces.)

In lieu, I finished reading Bossypants long long ago. It took me four (4) weekends to flip and turn the pages of its hard-bound version. I really fell in love with the book. I remember laughing out loud inside that bookstore while reading. It was really awkward. It was quiet, everyone was reading and browsing silently then someone (who didn’t have any intention to buy… wait, I have all the intention to buy but I just can’t afford it during that time. Remember the Ability vs. Willingness analogy?) will laugh that loud. I was sorry. I couldn’t resist.

Jumping to the most recent, three (3) weeks ago I finally bought Bossypants! I bought it along The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho that I will soon share with you too. I couldn’t find the hard-bound version of Bossypants anymore. Well, beforehand, I tried looking for the e-book version. Old school that I am, I still prefer the real book maybe because I love flipping the pages and I really like the smell of it.

For most part of my reading, I always smile and laugh whenever I could come across something funny and I nod each time if something really makes sense to me – most specifically if that part is something I have experienced or experiencing as well. Let me share to you my favorite pieces of Tina Fey’s mind:

Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.

– Thanks for this Tina Fey! It’s always a good advice to give and it is something really doable.

I’m the kind of person who likes to feel like part of a community. I will make strange bedfellows rather than have no bedfellows.

– Exactly.

Now, obviously in real life you’re not always going to agree with everything everyone says. Put the rule of agreement reminds you to “respect what your partner has created.”

And to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a yes and see where that takes you.

There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

– This helped me get through tough times.

 Bossypants Lesson #183: You can’t boss people around if they don’t really care.

If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important Rule of Beauty: “Who cares?”

– Confidence is key, and their opinions? INVALID.

You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go.

It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good.

Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

– One for the books! How timely it is! Hahaha! Noted with thanks, Tina.

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

Publicity and press junkets are just part of the job. Your work is what you really care about because you work is your craft and your craft is your art. 

– This moved me.

Technology doesn’t move backward. No society has ever de-industrialized. Which is why we’ll never turn back from Photoshop – and why the economic collapse of China is going to be the death of us all.

Sometimes if you have a difficult decision to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.

Dearest Tina Fey,

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Shainne

The Good Read:             For One More Day by Mitch Albom

In this life, how often would regret things that you have done before? How often would you think stuff that occurred, circumstances that you thought would turn out nice but it didn’t, situations that would have gone better if you just made the right decisions? At times, we have thought about these and just like any given times, we have wished to make these right, though it wouldn’t be possible; then we wished to make up for it.

Photo from the web

Charles Benetto is the same. He had no idea how his life went on. What remained clear was his willingness and eagerness to end his life after all the turmoil in his career, personal life and his family. He couldn’t take back things but he was able to go back. Not to change anything but to realize what had happened to his life, the things he missed and how people around him went on while he remained stuck in the moment wanting to be dead.

Like many of us, we have emotions. Some we wouldn’t want to shout in the open and some that we want to voice out but nobody would dare to hear. That’s how it works, actually. We are humans, we have weaknesses and we seldom think to give up everything.

Situations, especially the bad ones can make us strong or stronger. It all teach us a lesson and make us realize that we have to make way for better things to happen.

We want a chance to go back on how it used to be. A chance to see how it will be like when we have done a different thing from what was once executed. A chance to keep all the things and people we have lost. A chance to see how today will go if we have fought for something before.

Truth is, we all have fought for something, though we might have a different run from what process we think of now, but we have fought for that something (or perhaps, someone). It was never really gone. It was never really nothing.

When someone is in your heart, they’re never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.

There is everything you know and there is everything that happens. When the two do not line up, you make a choice.

That’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going into every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.

Sharing tales of those we’ve lost is how we keep from really losing them.

Going back to something is harder than you think.

Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.

It’s such a shame to waste time. We always think we have so much of it.

You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.

You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up.

Secrets tear you apart.

The more you defend a lie, the angrier you become.

When you’re rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love.

Life goes quickly, doesn’t it?

The truth is, there is no line. There’s only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you or who isn’t.

All that happens when your dream come true is a slow, melting realization that it wasn’t what you thought and it won’t save you.

The Good Read:               Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Photo from the web

Yes, you are right! This book is really familiar because it is a hit and it is now a major motion picture (2010). I know all of you guys know that this book was about finding one’s happiness, surviving the loneliness and understanding things that came after a certain relationship (or life, in general) turmoil.

I, myself, came from countless of it too; and like many of you, I have experienced loneliness and the deepest of it in all possible ways it can be felt. It was indeed hard and finding happiness is kind of subtle but one thing I have learned was – happiness is a choice and though there are times you want to surrender and give up everything because it is just too heavy, there will always a part of you wanting to survive. Simply because you want to experience that certain happiness again and you want to see the bright side.

There are no permanent things in this world. All good things come to an end, so does bad things. It will be tougher, to the extent you don’t have anything to give anymore. To the extent that you feel that it is always bound to end and that you are no better. You are always stronger than you think you are. It is not everytime that you will find yourself inside your room or your apartment figuring things out – how it ended, how it will be from this day on and how you will find happiness again. We all know the answers to all our questions, well, sometimes. We just don’t want to acknowledge it. We are too afraid to know that we had a fair share of b*llsh*t. We are too scared to acknowledge that we had our own mistakes. We are too conscious to even forgive ourselves.

Living alone – away from family, being a busybee and not in any committed relationship, made me realize that I can manage to be who I want to be; indulging my own flaws, accepting my shortcomings and forgiving myself for those. Safe to say, I’m done figuring why things didn’t work out for me. I stopped worrying. I stopped questioning. Instead, I’m at the point where I want my life to offer me what it has to offer and see how it will go if I work hard on things I want to happen.

I’m not afraid to be anywhere. I let go all of the attachments that kept on bothering me and preventing me to be where I want or what person who I want to be. I have a strong support system (my family and friends) and I guess, it will work out just fine. Things happened because they are bound to happen and I always believe that no matter how painful things might be, there’s always a reason why I ever felt that way; why it happened; why I can survive and why I really should, for all I could.

Then, later on, you would definitely know and realize, you are now ready (again) to whatever and whoever.

Here are some of the quotations and lessons from the book that helped me all throughout:

Travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.

That’s the thing about a human life – there’s no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed.

Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.

So be lonely. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map out of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

 Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.

You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.

The mind is restless, turbulent, strong, and unyielding. I consider it as difficult to subdue as the wind.

 “You are after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”

The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do your best at the moment.

In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time.

That’s just your ego, trying to make sure it stays in charge. This is what your ego does: It keeps you feeling separate, keeps you with a sense of duality, tries to convince you that you’re flawed and broken and alone instead of whole.

Meditate on whatever causes a revolution in your mind.

There are only two questions that human beings ever fought over, all through history: How much do you love me? and Who’s in charge?

If something is rubbing so hard against you, you can be sure it’s working on you.

“The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world.” In other words: GET USED TO IT.

If I could sit through this nonlethal physical discomfort, then what other discomforts might I someday be able to sit through?

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you’re gonna wear everyday.

The rules of transcendence insists that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.

 God dwells within you. As you.

 Your treasure – your perfection – is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart.

You can still live there. You can still live on that shimmering line between your old thinking and your new understanding, always in state of learning.

Stop looking for answers in the world. Just keep coming back to that center and you’ll always find peace.

Organize how things go, in order to keep things from falling apart.

The hardest part of your life is behind you now.

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.

We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.

To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.

The perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Awesome book! 🙂

A perfect song for my life is required; perhaps, for me to know what I should feel in every situation or maybe I just want a piece of background music because I don’t want moments to be dull. I am not sure.. I love music, I love everything about it.

Like Charlie (the character in this book), I can’t stay on the sideline forever. If I want to feel ‘infinite’ I should take the courage to change my own songs from time to time and see life on the dance floor perspective. That I know, I should not be dancing sway when the tune is hip-hop or so. Probably, the best thing to do is to improve my unique perspective.

Many individuals get to be involved at things.. and I think by these things, people should take into consideration that.. Life doesn’t stop for anybody, we should keep going.. even if things are starting to devastate us.