THURSDAY, 31 JULY 2003
The desire to maintain my creative independence is what I’ve held up in recent years as the reason (or excuse) why I should stay in Taiwan. “In South Africa,” so I always recite the line to myself, “one must be prepared to give up your creative independence if you accept a job at the average institution or corporation.” This is how it works most of the time and, I have always believed, how it will work in my case as well, if I wanted to make sure I lay my hands on a sufficient monthly quota of survival coupons.
In the past few weeks I have come to realise that it is precisely this need for creative independence, and above all, the ideal to be master of my own time, that would make me not only capable of earning enough struggle coupons every month, but indeed … roll the drums, crack the whip … to become rich.
To get rich, it is first and foremost important that you want to be rich, that you must know why you want to be rich, and that you need to know what the alternative is to financial well-being. Then a creative nature that will enable you to come up with ideas, and a stubborn belief that you can, shall and must succeed, are essential characteristics. Lastly, if you are the master of your own time, seven days a week, there is only one thing standing in your way to becoming financially independent – you.
If I am financially independent a year from now, or three years or five years from now, it would be the result of a series of images that had formed in my head, decisions I had made on how to turn the images into reality, and steps I had carried out at the right time and in the right ways. If I am not financially independent in a year’s time or in three years’ time or even five years from now, it would be because I did not follow up the images in my head with the right decisions and the right actions.
I, now, am responsible for my success one year and three years and five years from now. Just like I have to hold myself from one and three and five years ago accountable for the good and bad results of what I currently call my life.
The Universe is on my side? I think that might just be possible. The time is now. I am the father of my children three or five years from now. I am the son of a father and a mother who will benefit from my success. I am the brother of two sisters who will also reap value. I am a man from whose success many other people, who are now not even aware of my existence, will benefit.
I must take responsibility right now for my success one and three and fifteen years from now.
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