What You Should Never Forget in 2006.

I am posting this because i like it very much. Walang pakialamanan. Blogspot ko ito hehehe

People Make Financial Goals, Business Goals, Health Goals… But What Are We Desperately Missing?
By Bo Sanchez

I was like a five-year old boy about to rip open a huge birthday gift. That’s how I felt the eve of January 1.

Why? Before 2005 ended, I sat down and wrote my 2006 Goals in seven areas of my life: (1) Spiritual, (2) Family, (3) Work, (4) Service, (5) Emotional-Physical, (6) Financial, and (7) Intellectual.

It was exhilarating!

I wrote down simple goals like the amount of water I will drink each day (eight to ten glasses), the exercises I will do (muscle toning through chin ups), the profits I will earn through my various micro-businesses (I won’t tell you!), and the expansion of our ministry of sharing God’s love to as many people as possible (we’ll bless millions of people!)

But there was one goal that made my heart leap like a gazelle. I wrote down that in 2006, “I will bond with my eldest son even more.”

Boy, just writing it down here makes me feel powerful and warm and ecstatic all over again.

My son is six years old, and I felt that I should spend more time with him.
So I wrote down under my Family Goals, “Have a weekly date with Bene.”
I then got my calendar and plotted our weekly dates for the entire year — all 52 of them. I also wrote down the possible things we can do together: go to a mall, camp at our backyard, visit an ice cream factory, distribute leaflets house-to-house for his bangus business (Yes, he has a business), or just bike around the village…
Our first date happened in a very unexpected way.
I went home excited, mentally planning our trip to the mall.
As I stepped down of the car, my phone rang.
“Bo, are you already at the wedding?” my friend asked me.
“What wedding?”
“The wedding of Amina…”
Wham. It was like being hit by a bat on the head. I totally forgot about the wedding! How do I explain to Bene?
When I entered the house, I greeted him and said, “I’ve got a problem about our date.…” I told him about the wedding. That was when my wife said, “Son, can you go with Daddy to the wedding? That’ll be your date.” (Thank God for my wise wife.)
In a few minutes, my son and I were riding the car in our matching barong tagalogs. It turned out that we were early for the wedding, so we walked to a coffee shop beside the church, and talked and laughed together as he ate his favorite cinnamon roll.
The wedding was superb! It was also a wonderful time for me to give mini-lectures to my little pupil — in whispers at the back pew — on marriage, family, state of life and love.
After the wedding, the reception was at the exclusive Polo Club.
While waiting for the dinner to begin, we had a phenomenal time sitting down on the grass (yes, still in our barongs) under the canopy of stars — and chatted the night away.
“I don’t want to be a cowboy anymore, Daddy,” he said.
“No more?” This was a shock to me. It had been his declared dream ever since he was two. In fact, his first word wasn’t “mama.” It was “horse.” (I’m not kidding.)
He piped up, “I don’t want to be a cowboy anymore. I just want to ride horses for pleasure.”
“Okay. What do you want to be?”
“A businessman.” (Six-year-old kids have a way of declaring their dreams as if they’re as sure as the planet is round. I wonder what age do we lose that confidence?)
“That’s great. You can own a ranch. How many horses do you want to own?”
“About ten,” he grinned.
“How will you earn to maintain the ranch?” I asked. “
"Kids can ride my horses for P20 each…”
“Uh… isn’t that a bit too cheap?”
“They can also feed my rabbits if they pay something. And I’ll sell my customers snacks and have a restaurant in my ranch.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“My ranch will also have an imaginary forest.”
“A what?”
“An imaginary forest. Parents will be afraid if their kids go to a real forest with real animals. So I’ll make an imaginary forest with robotic animals — even some legendary creatures like dinosaurs, unicorns, mermaids,...”
“Mermaids?”
“Yes, because there’ll be a lake in my ranch. With a shipwreck. Kids can also visit the shipwreck.”
After planning for his future, we got our plates and stood in front of the buffet table for the entire evening. Because the food was so fabulous, we didn’t bother to sit down. That night, he ate seven sticks of barbecue and I gobbled up 50% of the European cheeses there. (Sorry, Amina and Rafael. But I loved your wedding. Please invite us again for your tenth anniversary.)
In other words, my first date with Bene for 2006 was a ball.
If I didn’t have a weekly date with him, how would I know about his dreams? I would have missed hearing that he didn’t want to be a cowboy anymore, that he wanted an imaginary forest, robotic animals, a lake and a shipwreck for kids to visit and have fun…
I was even more convinced about my family goals when I read the frightening statistics from David Perdew about “fatherless kids.” According to statistics, children from a fatherless home are:
* Five times more likely to commit suicide.
* Thirty-two times more likely to run away.
* Twenty times more likely to have behavioral disorders.
* Fourteen times more likely to commit rape (this applies to boys).
* Nine times more likely to drop out of high school.
* Ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances.
* Nine times more likely to end up in a charitable institution.
* Twenty times more likely to end up in prison for a long period of time.

Fathers, your kids need you.
David Perdew says we either pay now or pay later.
And when you pay later, it always costs more.

I suggest you pay now.

Have a fantastic 2006 — especially with your family.