In Conclusion

 March 10, 2026

Hello!  How is each and every one?  Thank you for all of your prayers and intentions for myself and my intentions last Monday most especially.  I know I mentioned and asked for your prayers and offerings on the occasion of ‘ocho decada’ of my life on earth. So we did celebrate, March 8. It was also the International Women’s Day.  We prayed for all the women in the world. 

The day started with the usual Mass and thanksgiving.  Then the group started singing happy birthday accompanied by the guitar. And again the inspiration to share my sentiments for the day made me do it.  I don’t remember exactly what I said.  So I said you know that it is not convenient for me to be speaking this way but I had the inspiration to say something.  “These days we often hear about sowing and reaping. Let’s continue sowing good, true, and beauty.  What good are we going to sow is not the spirit of God, God’s work which is so beautiful, so good and so true.  Then we will not only reap what you and I personally sow but we will also reap others sow.  Then and only then will we attract many others.”

I had been asking the Holy Spirit what I can give to each and every member of the family and the inspiration I received was to work on a bookmark with the cover of Family Occasions, Speaking Heart to Heart, 25^th Anniversary edition at the back of which was different superhabits lifted from the blog which kept Family Occasions going since the time of the pandemic (cf. above example).  The only reason there is for the above is they are both (the actual letters in book form and in digitalized format) initiatives through the Holy Spirit.  Each and every initiative I worked on and produced has been inspired by Him, I am only His instrument.   And it will always be that way.

I spent hours of the morning replying to birthday greetings as they came one after another and I wanted to reply as soon as possible to each one of them. Since the day before there were early greeters warning me of the down flow of greeters on the day itself.  It is wonderful to confirm that I am reaching most of you in the group.  And that is always a source of joy and gratitude. 

We invited a guest who had just come from a seminar in Rome.  She brought a letter for me and a box of Belgian chocolates, a couple of affectionate details on behalf of The Prelate on the occasion that celebrates the milestone of 80 years

In the evening there was a program of talents - songs, dances, jokes, poetry, French reading of an excerpt from a book.  A simple yet elegant card was the perfect note finishing a delightful day. 

The celebration continued the next day with the presentation of the bookmark after dinner when most of us were together. I talked about the idea and I went around and fanned out the bookmarks for choosing and when each one had her pick, I suggested we take turns to read the message behind the bookmark she selected.  They thought that the message was the same for all and then they realized that no card had the same message except for the above wish that ran through each bookmark. One expressed her delight on the message she picked. After three messages were shared, the most curious one of all started searching for superhabits and of course found more about it.

Good news, with this post we end the topic (From  SUPERHABITS, The Universal System for a Successful Life by Andrew V. Abela, PH.D., Dean, Busch School of Business, The Catholic University of America, 2024).  How did you find the whole series?  I wish you would find time and energy to share your opinions or take away/s from the whole series. You may just send me a personal message on my Viber account.  I suppose by now you and I know we could share our joys and sorrows turned into joys with one another personally and privately.

Let us now end this series with the following excerpt from the same source of course.

MAHALIA JACKSON WAS DEEPLY involved in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her grandparents were born into slavery in Louisiana, and she grew up in poverty. She had an early passion for singing, and after moving with her family to Chicago, as part of the Great Migration North, her talent was recognized and she moved from success to success, becoming known as the “Queen of Gospel.”

In 1947, she recorded a version of “Amazing Grace” that is now considered to be among the most notable. No doubt in part thanks to her, the hymn became the unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement.

In 1963, exactly two hundred years after Newton’s anonymous exposé of the slave trade was published, Mahalia sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of a quarter of a million people gathered for the March on Washington. Shortly after she finished her last song, she stood by to watch her close friend Rev. Martin Luther King deliver the speech that was to be the grand finale of the day.

As she listened, she could tell that something was going very wrong. He was not achieving the resonance with his audience that he usually did — his words were falling flat, at this crucially important moment. 

Inspired, Mahalia yelled,

“Tell ’em about the dream, Martin, tell ’em about the dream!”

Reverend King had spoken of his dream of racial unity many times before, but that was not in this day’s text. He paused, set aside his notes, and began to speak off the cuff:

 I still have a dream.

It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. 

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

This most famous part of King’s celebrated speech, indeed arguably the part that made the entire event so memorable, was never in his speaking notes. It was all delivered spontaneously, in response to Mahalia’s cry.

King wanted his children to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the “content of their character.” What is the content of your character? The content of our character, the ancients tell us, is the virtues — the superhabits.

How do we build these superhabits? Captain Sullenberger, the hero of Flight 1549, observed that:

Through the media, we all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment. . . . I believe many people in those situations actually have made decisions years before. Somewhere along the line, they came to define the sort of person they wanted to be, and then they conducted their lives accordingly.

Somewhere along the line, you must decide that you want to live your fullest life — a life of calm, joy, and strength. If and when you do, you will start to take the small repeated steps to build the superhabits that will give you this life.

The most important thing I want you to take away from this book is that the superhabits you have just read about are not optional strengths that could improve your life, or tools that you could add to your toolkit, but that you could reasonably do without. They are the necessary ingredients, the essential habits, for having a happy, healthy, and successful life. Ancient wisdom knew this. Modern science confirms it. The superhabits are muscles that you already have, which you need to build up in order to reach your potential. They are the content of your character.

A recent article from global consulting firm McKinsey & Company asks, “If we’re all so busy, why isn’t anything getting done?” The answer given is that we need to collaborate better. But in order to do so, we also need to get better at making decisions and dealing with our emotions, both our fears and our desires. The cardinal virtues of Justice, Practical Wisdom, Courage, and Self-Discipline, built through all their associated superhabits, are the habits we need to drive a total transformation in our lives, in our organizations, and in our societies.

 

As you’ve seen throughout this book, you should begin by choosing one superhabit and starting to practice it. The superhabits in this book are in a deliberate order, so the first one you came across that made you think “If this were a habit of mine, my life would be so much better” — that’s the one you should start with. I’ve suggested a few simple first steps in this book. But there are also more listed on our website, superhabit.substack.com.

Don’t just focus on your own growth. If you work in a team, or run an organization, encourage your colleagues to grow in superhabits too. You can survey your colleagues to identify your team’s biggest superhabit gaps, and then work together to select one and begin practicing it. Superhabits are contagious. It should not be surprising to find that people working together tend to have similar superhabit strengths and superhabit gaps — and when some people grow in a superhabit, they will help others to improve in it as well.

As the members of your organization grow together, your organization’s productivity should improve. Why shouldn’t it? If everyone in the organization starts to become better at decision making, collaborating, and managing their emotions, your organization’s performance should soar.

Best of all, regardless of organizational outcomes, everyone who begins growing in the system of superhabits will be on the path to an easier, happier, and healthier life.

Much has already been said and suggestions have been given.  It is up to you and myself now as always to take these thoughts into our quiet time in dialogue with the Lord.  Heed closely what He tells you at any given moment of the day not necessarily during the times you talk to Him in prayer.

Let me once again repeat. You might have missed my selfless appeal for your personal take/s from the series of this topic on superhabits.  May you find time and energy to pm me whatever your take away may be. 

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky