This has to be the coolest Valentine’s Day gift EVER!
To give please visit: www.5dollarwater.com
Got any gift ideas for Valentine’s Day? We do.
Love Never Fails, Special Edition
Due to overwhelming demand of our previous “Love Never Fails” shirt, we decided to roll out a SPECIAL EDITION white version (also available in V-Neck). Quantities are LIMITED, so please order soon. We expect this to sell out quickly.
Details:
Pre-sale ends Wednesday, February 4, 2009 11:59pm.
Shirts will be in 2 weeks after the pre-sale. Price $20. (Free shipping for USC students, everywhere else, $2.50)
To order multiple T Shirts, form must be filled out multiple times.
If you have any questions, please contact us at info@thelegacymovement.com
To view shirt:
http://legacymovement.posterous.com/love-never-fails
To Pre-order Shirt:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pV4L5wey1G38MRrmNYKbbKg
Friendships and Relationships
Someone once told me that your heart is like a garden full of flowers. Some will walk by your garden and see nothing. Some will walk into your garden and steal flowers. And others will come into your garden and not only help you to remove the weeds, but also plant more flowers for you. These are the friends you should keep. These are the relationships that you should keep. Guard your garden, guard your heart.
I had a conversation with one of my friends the other day. We both were able to catch up with each other and see how each other were doing. During that time while we were hanging out I realized how blessed I was to have him as friend. Although we sometimes get into small arguments, one thing that I value most about our friendship is we are able to speak truth and in love to help each other be better people. When one falls, the other is able to lift the other up.
Who are you letting into your life? Do they pull you up or pull you down?
My Grandfather’s Pride and Joy

I spent this past Christmas in the Philippines paying respects to my grandma who passed away after a long battle with cancer. Thankfully while we were there, Grandpa seemed his usual self. We stayed at his house to keep him company, and he seemed to be taking the news well.
One afternoon, I walked downstairs into the living room and saw Grandpa watching TV. He beckoned me over to watch with him. The date on the ancient VCR recording flickered 1995. On screen, a chorus of young children no more than ten years old were singing what sounded to my unfamiliar ears like traditional Chinese opera. As I patiently watched the children recite verse after verse, I could only imagine how many times Grandpa must have watched this same recording over and over through the years. Interrupting my thoughts, Grandpa informed me in broken English that these children were all part of a nonprofit established in his home village – a nonprofit he had funded in its entirety for seven years.
The delight in his voice couldn’t be masked by his halting speech. This was my grandfather’s pride and joy – establishing a nonprofit that would preserve culture and tradition to his village in Fujian, China for years to come. Never did he tell me how he came about the money to support this charity. It was only hearing from my mom (who heard from my dad) that he had owned a very successful export business many years back. Yet Grandpa didn’t brag to me about the sales he generated over the years, or the profitable contracts he landed. At the end of the day, this charity was his greatest accomplishment, and it was this charity he wanted to share with his grandson.
“Look! Look!”
Grandpa nearly jumped out of his seat as he motioned at the screen. On screen, the camera had panned away from the performers to focus on one dignified member of the audience. She sat pristinely watching the performance unfold before her. The image flickered with years of wear, but the figure was still recognizable.
“That’s your grandma! .. That’s my wife!”
I looked from the screen back to Grandpa. There was a sparkle in his normally sleepy-looking eyes, a bright smile filled his weary face. As he settled back into his seat, his bright smile faded slowly into a peaceful, meditative one, the sparkle never leaving his eyes.
What are you doing today that will bring a smile to your face years from now? What part of your life will you jump up to show your grandchildren decades from now?
Perfection Within the Imperfection

Today, I spent the day taking care of work for clubs I’m in and doing laundry. I did, however, take a much appreciated break watching the Japanese drama, “1 Litre of Tears.” The show tells the real life inspired story of an unfortunate girl befallen with an incurable illness and her struggle to live with dignity. Put simply, I was moved. I watched several episodes and when I thought I had cried enough for one day I placed my computer on my desk and walked to my room’s window. To my surprise, I discovered a red glow cascading over the valley mountains behind my Hawaii home. I was shook by its beauty.
I walked out to the front of my house, took a seat at the top of my red cement steps, and took out my ipod. Listening to my music, I made it a point to capture this moment before it left. Far beyond in the distance, a canvas of colors filled the sky as if shaded in by a huge paintbrush. Pink clouds spotted across a powder blue horizon hovered over a Honolulu metropolis of jagged buildings pointing to heaven. A soft breeze blew through my hair and gently rustled the trees nearby. And I realized everything was perfect.
But not because everything was necessarily perfect. Everything was perfect because it was enough. It was enough.
I realized that circumstances may make a different world for each person, personal blessings or seemingly unfair burdens change the rules of the game for each player, but at the end of the day every man is measured not by what he is worth but by how able he is to see the things of worth around him. Every single day there is a sunrise and a sunset. And too often, we let these very simple moments of beauty escape us. Instead we clutter our lives with the worries of tomorrow and the chains of a what-could-have-be yesterday. And amid all the chaos, disorder, or anxiety of our lives, we lose sight of the only thing that really matters: The Present.
I don’t want to live a life where the best years of my life are always contained in memories of the past. I don’t want to live a life where I’m always just waiting for something better to come. I want to live a life filled with constant rebirth and unending epiphanies, joy in each blessing and peace in the downfall, but most importantly, I want to live with gratitude.
Someone very close to me once told me, “We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” The same can be applied to the world. The same can be applied to everything. If you’re looking for the perfect life by trying to find perfection itself you will always be disappointed in the end. We live in such a world that the happiest man is not he who has attained perfection but he who has learned to appreciate the imperfection instead. This is the power of gratitude: to see what is there over what is not and to live happily with what life has handed you.
The best feeling of all is being able to say thank you—and meaning it.



