Category: Chillin

Just chillin

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Chillin Hooraaaaaaaaay

Graduation Pics

While I technically graduated this past September, I finally celebrated the official graduation ceremony this past Friday, May 9, 2025. Here is a photo of myself and my advisor, Erich Dietrich, who hooded me as a Doctor of Education 🙂

Graduation regaliaFunny, before the ceremony when I was in the bathroom, it hit me: I look just like Erich! Meaning, our gowns were essentially the same. This was a realization that I am on the same degree level as him now, as well as being on the same level as my other professors. It’s a pretty amazing realization. And during the ceremony he sat next to me in the audience and walked on stage with me – again signifying this equal level of education attainment. Of course he has much more experience, research, etc., but the degree levels are the same. It really helps me understand where I am at in regards to education, position, and potential.

Here are a few other photos from May 14, 2025, the NYU celebration Grad Alley, where the streets around campus are blocked and filled with food, carnival games, music and entertainers, and other fun things to celebrate graduation. It was raining plenty but I wanted to celebrate, and celebrate I did =D

Graduation picNYU LettersNYU LettersDr. Orlando Fernandez

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Chillin Quotes Relationships

Surrender to the Perfection of Imperfection

“Surrender to the Perfection of Imperfection.”

–Francisco N. Diaz

This was a quote from my cousin. What the heck does it mean? He was talking in reference to relationships, where each person must sacrifice and accept imperfection in a sort of surrender, and that is how things balance and continue to function.

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Chillin Reality

If the World were Perfect

If the world were perfect, I don’t think there would be laughter. Laughter comes from imperfection, doesn’t it?

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Chillin Quotes

Every Sacrifice Deserves its Reward

“Cada sacrificio merece su recompensa.” (quoted in Spanish)

-Alfredo

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Chillin Spark the Flame - Long Podcast

Podcast with Mom

Happy Early Mother’s Day 😆 And Happy Early Halloween 😊 I am posting this 2017 podcast audio of me chatting with my mom over a variety of deep, human topics. She is a therapist, substance abuse counselor, and is highly credentialed. But besides that, she is a practicer of much Life, wisdom, love, and deeply challenging human experience.

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Chillin Quotes In Person

A Simple Quote on Surrendering

“It’s better when you let go and surrender because then what’s real will float to the top.”

-Mom =)

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Chillin Musica

Song: Happy Together

How about some music? Some days ago I happened upon this old song. I remember this song from childhood but the chorus would only ever be played, whether for a commercial, a movie, etc. Listening to the entire song now, it’s really masterful to my ears, almost haunting actually, beautifully. Enjoy 🙂

(Released January 1967)

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Chillin Quotes

Commitment

The biggest difference between those who succeed and those who fail at any endeavor is their level of commitment. Most people would like to be committed. But in practice, commitment requires an endless series of small painful actions. When a person has no way to deal with that pain, [their] commitment falls apart.

-Phil Stutz and Barry Michels from “The Tools”

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Chillin

There’s a Beauty to the Routine in my Life

It hit me on the bus ride home. It was snowing, peacefully. I was watching the same old scene, the same stores, the Taqueria, the vitamin store, the pizza shop, the lights. And the warmth and peacefulness of the warm, full, quiet bus, and the dark but lit road outside, with people bustling across the narrow street. This is what my life is. This is what it could be every single day, in a way. Me staying a little late to help my coworker teammates with a task. Me being ready to do a little more work tonight at 10pm from home, and then some more careful work tomorrow. Everyone just accepting that this is the life, their life.

And it was a beautiful thought, a beautiful moment. Tears flowed down my face while the bus stopped to pick up a cold couple from the bus stop. I didn’t want those people to see me crying, but it didn’t really matter. This is NYC, I generally don’t know these people. But they are part of my neighborhood fabric in a way.

A beauty to accepting this is my life. The life I have been granted. A life I have worked for, and also have been blessed with.

Thank God.

Thankfully….

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Chillin Quotes Relationships

A Short Quote on Couple Relationships

“I don’t think it’s about whether someone’s right for you. It’s whether you both want to make it right. Like there is no perfect person, there is no perfect partner. There’s only the person that wants to make it work with you and the person you want to make it work with. And if someone doesn’t want to make it work with you it doesn’t matter how perfect you think they are, it’s not gonna work.”

-Jay Shetty

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Chillin Quotes In Person Using The Brain

It’s Beautiful When the Simple Things Make You Happy

Let me quote my mom and myself for a minute.

Yesterday my mom texted me: “I finally have an armoire to put my sheets in. Yay! So silly the things that make you happy when you get to my age. Have a wonderul day. Love you!!!” And I replied to her: “It’s beautiful when the simple things make you happy mom ❤️”

I have been struggling with gratitude recently. As I said to someone a few days ago:

“I feel like the practice of gratitude for me…I have to keep working on it….its like I get called / lured away from this gratitude, by these social cues / lures for things that I desire, not really material things but more ideas of a ‘better life’, like an amazing self-business or making so much $ from selling books, or having the whole family and everything with amazing job….but I look at people with fame, with $ and status, with great work, and I know they have sacrificed, probably things I dont want to sacrifice, things I truly value, like the people in my life, my loved ones. health, people, meaning and comfort. so this means that really, I think I have what I value the most, and I dont want to lose it soon, not before its natural time….I have to be grateful. and its this constant exercise of not only telling myself that this life is ok, but looking at it in its gorgeous illustrious beauty, because it is beautiful. gratitude really gives us beautiful lenses to see everything with.”

So, I think it is beautiful when we can appreciate the small, simple things. In fact I think appreciating the small simple things expands them in a way to be bigger and even more beautiful things. A key to happiness? Hmm….

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Chillin Exponential Potential Quotes

The Comfort Zone

“Whatever your Comfort Zone consists of, you pay a huge price for it. Life provides endless possibilities, but along with them comes pain. If you can’t tolerate pain, you can’t be fully alive. There are many different examples of this. If you’re shy and avoid people, then you lose the vitality that comes with a sense of community. If you’re creative but can’t tolerate criticism, then you avoid selling your ideas to the marketplace. If you’re a leader but you can’t confront people, no one will follow you. The Comfort Zone is supposed to keep your life safe, but what it really does is keep your life small.”

-Phil Stutz & Barry Michels, from their book The Tools

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Chillin Quotes

Putting Yourself Into Something Can Give it Meaning

“Doing something with all your heart gives things meaning”

The above is a re-worded quote from a nice book: The Dog Who Followed the Moon by James Norbury.

I think there is truth in that meaning can arise from what we put into something. Especially if it is with all your heart. What does it mean to do something “with all your heart?”

I guess it means you put your entire self into what you are doing.

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Chillin Life Is Yours Oetics

A Poem for Love for Me

I found this poem tonight. I had written it on 4/4/2013 at 1am. This was a poem I wrote to myself; I was realizing and learning how I needed to feel love, instead of just logically knowing that I was loved. At the time I was referring to romantic love. Now I can probably expand this beyond that:

A Poem for Love for Me

It is not enough for me to know I

am loved, I need to Feel it.

I need to feel I am loved.

A week ago I realized a baby portrait of

mine has had barbed wire attached to

it all these years, literally. I could

not hold the portrait tight. I could

not hold it right.

Then I realized, that baby needs to be

held, not looked at. Not put somewhere

to be looked at. He

needs to be held.

And that is me. And it is a daily occurrence,

daily need. I need to feel it

everyday. Anything else is not enough.

Because When I don’t, I shrivel up and recoil,

and get cold and bitter. I cant live like

that.

I need to grow and open my heart,

open up, and bloom. I’ve come too

far, I must

continue opening and growing

I May forget these details, but my heart

will not. My heart knows

that it needs Love it can feel.

My heart will not let me

stay with anything else.

-Dr. Orlando Fernandez

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Chillin Religious

Part of a Prayer

“O God, please give me the grace to welcome the unexpected, to see your blessing in every moment and to be awed by holiness wherever encountered.”

-From a prayer of Our Lady of Lourdes

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Chillin Interconnectivity Quotes In Person Reality

A Decision Can Change Your Life

“A Decision Can Change Your Life” – Janine Diaz

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Chillin Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Relationships

True Connection

Maybe the fact that we have flaws makes us a perfect human.

This is a beautiful video my cousin sent me. I must credit the creator, Verodigm, from Instagram. Here is the link to the video, and I am pasting the video below:

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Chillin Quotes

Stay Focused in the Moment

“Stay focused in the moment. Be where your feet are.”

-Robert Saleh (Head Coach of the New York Jets)

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Chillin Quotes

A Description of Humanization

“Humanization” is a word that describes the act of perceiving other people as human. This may sound like not a big deal, but it is the opposite of dehumanizing, which is lowering the value of a person to something less-than-human.

Below is an excerpt from Man’s Search for Meaning, a book written by Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps:

“It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp’s influences, and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards.“

Then the author provides an example of being humanized:

“I remember how one day a foreman secretly gave me a piece of bread which I knew he must have saved from his breakfast ration. It was far more than the small piece of bread which moved me to tears at that time. It was the human ‘something’ which this man also gave to me–the word and look which accompanied the gift.“

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Chillin Quotes

There is No Ultimate Arrival

“There is no ultimate arrival. Only continual reflection, failure, refinement, and re-commitment.”

-John Wineland, from his book “From the Core: A New Masculine Paradigm for Leading with Love, Living Your Truth & Healing the World”

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Chillin Exponential Potential Spark the Flame - Short Vlog

Giving What You Have, to Life

This video doesn’t do justice to this set of thoughts and feelings I have. But it is a little hard to unravel, I will try a little here:

I write, speak and think a lot about meaning. Creating meaning, living meaningfully. Experiencing meaning. The reason why is because I’ve felt and experienced the opposite, which is a dangerous place to be because without meaning it is difficult to come up with a good reason to stay in this life.

I love this quote: “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” – Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Somehow, meaning is tied up in this, in a sort of giving, sacrificing. We are all temporary. Like beautiful pups or tiny plant shoots that spring in the beginning of our lives, we are full of all kinds of potential, time, vigor. Through life, time, and all that, we expend, transmute and propagate energy. We are energy conduits, channels. But every conduit in reality that humans use, endures weathering with usage and time. There is another beautiful quote which I love to try to remember: “We have only the present moment, sparkling like a star in our hands — and melting like a snowflake.” – Marie Beynon Lyons Ray.

When I think of that quote, I think of the snowflake like a burning star in our hand. Alive it once was. Alive it began, full of potential, life, energy. And then it expends these things, giving beauty, giving heat and warmth. Very likely, giving meaning to the observer. In this expulsion and giving, sacrificing of energy, of life, of meaning itself, it creates meaning in whoever or whatever is lucky and blessed to experience these things.

It gives its breath. It gives its mind. It gives its heart, its warmth, its focus, its attention, its Presence, and burns into that palm. And in that experience is beauty, warmth, wonder, tears, love. Meaning.

Is that star asking for anything??? WELL? IS IT??? If you think so, go ahead and tell it that. Tell that star, burning itself to death, but in that process exuding brilliance, light and practicing love of life, that it is asking for something. Maybe it is. Maybe it wants connection. Maybe it wants your attention. Your presence. Your focus. Your kiss.

That is my intro to this video, which comes off slightly different than this intro, but which is trying to get at the same thing, I think.

Blessings. And Love.

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Chillin Inserts

Kintsugi – Living with the Wounds, Instead of Without Them

Was told about this art form, kintsugi. When I looked it up, one of the first things it says is “As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”

That hit me hard. You know we all have wounds. Whether some are from earlier or later in life, or both. Some deeper, some more surface level. I guess I had thought that healing means completely recuperating in a way where the wound is no longer visible, impactful, or perhaps even memorable. But how realistic is that? And, who are we if we get rid of these wounds?

Wounds can be beautiful too. Maybe it depends on how you incurred them, why, and what you do with them – how you carry them. They are part of us, aren’t they.

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Chillin Interconnectivity

Finding Purpose and Meaning through Hopelessness and Suffering

Here is another quote from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The author was a researcher who survived the Nazi concentration camps. In this book he writes about these experiences, and how it impacted his awareness of how people find meaning:

“Another time we were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. ‘Et lux in tenebris lucet’–and the light shineth in the darkness. For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.”

This quote struck me. I find it beautiful in many ways.

Right now, regardless of what we think about the bird in this excerpt, it is obvious it was profoundly meaningful for the author, for the bird to land in front of him and look steadily at him. I gather that this meant there was connection there: connection between him and his wife (who was deceased at this time), and connection with this bird. And I think the meaningfulness stems from and has something to do with this sense of connection.

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Chillin Quotes

The Salvation of Humanity is Through Love and in Love

“The salvation of [humanity] is through love and in love.”

-Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

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Chillin Exponential Potential Interconnectivity Life Is Yours Using The Brain

No Matter What, Know that Things Can Get Better

No matter what, know that things can get better.

No matter where you are. Or what is going on. Regardless of the impacts of the past, the future can be very unpredictable.

No matter what we think is going to happen, or how we believe things will turn out, we don’t consciously know it all. We don’t know the details. And so often, wild, crazy things have entered into Life to be a part of reality.

Keep positive. Keep open. And definitely, please, stay real.

Keeping positive doesn’t mean denying the truth of the moment. Positivity that can spark change is about accepting the truth of the moment, being a “Yes” to it, with humility, love, connection, and optimism. Imagine the number of people who have done the worst things, and then turned their lives around. Imagine the many miracles people have experienced with seemingly no rhyme or reason, but which have been saving graces in their lives?

Keep positive my friends. Real to your self, your core, your Soul. And yet, positive. Loving. Accepting. Forgiving. Loving. Loving. Loving.

Blessings to you and yours. And all. One Love.

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Chillin Life Is Yours Using The Brain

Meaninglessness, and Feeling Meaning

I have been struggling off and on with feeling meaning. It comes in waves. It’s difficult to define how long this last one was, I think it was on and off for almost a year. It was more on struggle this autumn until a few weeks ago.

I think there were a combination of things that helped alleviate it. My mom helped me paint to a much brighter color in my living room and bedroom. And she shared with me a meditation which put me in a purer state of Presence when listening to it. These things helped a lot.

One of the greatest contributions to my sustaining more meaning in these recent weeks is drastically reducing the noise that my brain listens to. I live by myself, and during my free time I’m normally listening to news, sports content, talks, etc. When I cut out all those things and just sat quiet while eating, while cleaning, while brushing my teeth, etc., I was in effect spending more time with a part of my self.

While I care about what’s happening in the world, possibly the greatest meaning is found within my self. Or at least, it was a huge factor that was not getting any attention to Be, and be Present, and quiet. Quiet so that I can discern and feel the meaning that exists in the fabric of the moment.

I feel a lot better now, having cut out a significant amount of distractions from my free time. I automatically sense more meaning in the moment.

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Chillin Using The Brain

Slow the Perception of Time

As I’m getting some older I notice time in general seems to go by more quickly. At the end of the year I would look back and think “Wow this year flew.”

There are some exceptions. Like the last couple of years with so many changes in my life.

I’ve been interested in this because I don’t want time to fly so quickly. Even though I am talking about the perception of time and not the speed of time itself, I still want to feel things going by more slowly. I don’t want to wake up one day and be really old and say to myself “Where did my life go?”

An aside: I do think it is possible that the actual speed of time fluctuates, even within a single day. Not sure how much control of this we have. My theory is it’s attached to some wave-like pattern / mechanism (like gravity waves?).

Back to time: I found a video which emphasizes how to slow down the perception of time:

  • being very Present (I had an intuitive hunch about this method, and had written and drew something about this previous post under the section “Stay Present”).
  • having new experiences that are attached to your ever-evolving identity.

I’ve been testing this out the deeper Presence and it seems to work. Whenever I am more Present time seems much slower. This is ‘paying’ attention to the Present moment. One way I can tell how Present I am being is when I’m in my elevator in my apartment building, if the ride went fast, I know I was distracted. If the ride feels slow, it tells me I’m being Present.

Here is the video with some thoughts on slowing your perception of time:

 

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Chillin Halloween

Happy Halloween :D

Happy Halloween Birthday
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Chillin Hooraaaaaaaaay Inserts

Master’s Graduation

I graduated in May 2021 from NYU Steinhardt School of Education with a Master’s of Higher Education and Student Affairs (woot woot!!!). Because of the pandemic, we didnt actually hold a ceremony till one full year later in May 2022. Now another year later July 2023 I am posting this video from the 2022 celebration of my 2021 graduation 😆

NYU recorded this and sent this clip to me. Great job. Helps me feel super proud 🙂

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Chillin Quotes

Addict Recovery Joke

My mom told me this one =)

“I was addicted to soap once, now I’m clean.”

It put a smile on my face, I had to share it 🙂 My family, myself included, have suffered from addiction. We are a lot better now, thank God, truly, so, it’s nice to be lighthearted about this, even though we addicts always must remain humble and grateful.