Category: Old age of my youth – 2018

MONDAY, 5 MARCH 2018

16:21

I said to [N.] a few days ago, if we make enough from English teaching to put some money away, we teach too many classes. We will never save enough money for retirement by teaching English classes at NT$620 [about USD20] per hour – and that on a part-time schedule over which we have no control.

We simply must spend more time on projects or investments with which we hope to replace our current income in the future – and hopefully to double and possibly triple it. Even if an enterprise only has a 50/50 chance, we must take that chance. More so if it involves the development of skills we currently don’t have but that we can use in the future.

17:46

I am almost 47. [N.] is almost 40. If we think we can rely on our income from the English classes we teach, we live in a fantasy world. Every now and then we are ripped out of this fantasy – like today, when I was informed that there is a delay in the issuance of my work permit and that someone else will have to teach my classes for the next few days. But, soon enough, we are lulled into comfort again by the relative ease of making money with English teaching.

Fact is, we can’t count on it! And this applies equally to any of our friends who also earn their bread and butter here in Taiwan as English teachers! Unless you have a permanent position, with a pension plan and three weeks of paid leave every year, and paid public holidays, you’re simply asking to be cruelly disillusioned if you think everything is hunky-dory!

Of course, I’ve been saying these things for almost as long as I’ve been in Taiwan. And I’ve spent so much life energy and time and money trying to earn money in ways other than teaching, I’d rather not think about it to save myself the emotional discomfort.

Every now and then, the possibility comes up to accept another class, another evening you could otherwise spend working on other projects that will have to be sacrificed to earn NT$600 or NT$900. Here’s what you should ask yourself: Can I not pay my rent? Is this why I have to take the extra class? Do I not have enough to eat? Are my clothes peeling off my body and I need the extra cash to buy myself a pair of jeans at Costco? If you answer “No” to all these questions, if you answer that you just think it would be good to get an extra NT$X or NT$Y per month, I suggest you go to the beach one weekend, sit down on the sand, and stare at the horizon for a couple of hours. Because it is clear that you have not thought enough about your life and the consequences of the way you’re living it.

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SATURDAY, 3 MARCH 2018

Money is Boss. Money is King. Money – let’s be honest about it – is God. People devote their lives to it. People die for it, and people kill for it.

If I could have my way, I would organise my life in such a way that I don’t need much money, and therefore don’t need to make much money. But because I understand the pressures of modern civilisation, I’m also trying to add to my little bundle of cash as often as possible. In fact, I have been trying for a very long time to make a lot more money than I really need, so that I can assist my parents in their old age, amongst other things.

For various reasons I haven’t been terribly successful yet. I make enough money to survive, but not much more. So I needed to set my life up in such a way that I can survive with less. I can thus say that I lead a good life and that I’m relatively happy because I learned to live a good life and to be happy with what I have – which is not very much, materialistically speaking.

Unfortunately, money is God. Your elderly parents cannot be helped with your ideas about a simple life. Your elderly parents cannot buy food with your creative skills. Your elderly parents’ medical plan cannot be paid with your poems or your notes about human existence. Only cash is good enough. When the bill arrives and you can’t pull enough cash from your closet, from under your mattress, from under your pillow, out of your desk, out of your shoe, out of your pocket or wallet, or from the bank, you can just as well go to hell. Because money is God.

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THURSDAY, 1 MARCH 2018

Personality (given), circumstance (given), culture and religion (both given) programmed me to a great extent* to, at least initially as an adult, not pursue material gain.

What was I programmed for? “God”, “The Truth”, “Stay on the Right Path”, play your part in helping people “see the light”. The pursuit of material comfort, money and status was of lesser importance. Not my choice, mind you, but how I was programmed. Or, I certainly had a choice, like when the reverend tells you to choose between Jesus or Satan when you’re sixteen years old. It’s a choice, all right.

I say that initially personality, circumstance, culture and religion programmed me – or as one religious leader loved to say, compelled me – to do certain things and not others, because eventually I did try harder and harder to make money, and I spent more and more time on it. But, what was my training for it? Did I learn about investments at school? Was I exposed to successful ventures at home as a teenager or young adult? No, and no. What I was exposed to was parents who worked themselves into a stupor to make enough money to pay rent and school fees, and to buy food and clothing and other necessities, but if “God” decided “he” wanted to test you to see how you would respond in a certain situation, “he” simply rolled a stone in your path and then you stumbled. That was my education. That was what I was exposed to.

Of course, I have been deprogramming myself for years. But let’s not imagine we grow up in a vacuum. Yes, you move on and you improve yourself and your life despite psychological stones that had been rolled in your path when your brain and personality were still taking shape. But let’s not imagine who you were as a teenager did not influence how you thought when you crossed over into adulthood, and that decisions you had made then don’t still have an impact on your life twenty years later.

* I know “to a large extent” is a weasel phrase, but we are talking about indoctrination and the influence of the environment on the psyche here – not something you can measure like ingredients for a cake.

[I seem bothered in this text, and in a few other pieces before this one, and after this one. Actually, I was. And I’m not in the habit of discarding notes I wrote in a bad mood when I feel better. They are just as much part of my truth as notes where I’m positive and happy.]

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WEDNESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2018

14:37

I know how to make money … in one sentence: Place on several markets hundreds, even thousands of products specially made for you by other people.

Note: If you try to manufacture hundreds or thousands of products yourself to save money, you’ll never be as successful as you would be if you pay other people to execute your instructions with you perhaps putting the cherry on the cake.

18:31

The aim should be to produce the largest amount of products in as little time as possible, without compromising quality or value for the consumer.

What it comes down to for me is simple: A small, skilled team of freelance workers.

SUNDAY, 25 FEBRUARY 2018

A thought caught me offside today: “You have to tend to your business.”

No matter what you do for money, you have to pay attention to your business. You should do this if you teach English classes (preparation, checking homework, taking care of your mental and physical health), if you sell teaching material online (you need to look at reviews, answer queries, get clients or potential customers on your email list), if you trade in foreign currency (training, tracking the markets) or if you sell physical products on AliExpress or Amazon (again, you need to check reviews, answer queries, track orders, research new products, delete some products and add new ones). You should also do that if you produce your own literature and hope that more than a dozen people download or purchase your books.

For a few hours I was worried because I know I don’t have a good record with tending to your business.

Then I realised: If tending to your business is something mystical that you’ll be lucky to get right no matter how hard you try, then I’m indeed in trouble. But if tending to your business is something that can be systematised, I’ll be okay. I know how to take action. And if it’s not on someone else’s orders, in my own time, in my own workplace, I can keep it up week in and week out.

In other words, no reason for panic or worry.

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THURSDAY, 4 JANUARY 2018

The book I’m currently reading – Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and the few I finished recently – Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Scott Adams’s How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, and Mark Douglas’s Trading In the Zone – presuppose two things, and expect of you to accept these two things if you want to lead a better life:

1) People have the ability to create an environment where certain (positive) results will be more probable, and

2) people are not only programmable animals, you can program yourself to abandon certain ways of thinking, to replace certain habits with better habits, and to replace certain beliefs with other beliefs that will enable you to achieve better results, and just maybe end up leading a happier and more productive life.

TUESDAY, 23 JANUARY 2018

When I write, translate, or edit a piece, I’m in my comfort zone. When I have to read it one last time and publish it, I’m uncomfortable, and I want to postpone this final step.

When I do research for a product, I’m in my comfort zone. When I have to produce the product, I’m still in my comfort zone. When I have to take the product to the market to sell it, I’m not in my comfort zone.

When I had to research affiliate marketing many years ago, I was in my comfort zone. When I had to write product reviews and beckon people closer to read my reviews, I was not in my comfort zone.

When I have to learn about currency trading, I’m in my comfort zone. When I need to enter live trades and monitor them, I’m not in my comfort zone.

I think it’s pretty accurate to say that there is limited money in my comfort zone, and that there is no restriction on the amount of money that can end up in my bank account if I can manage to venture outside my comfort zone.

* * *

As I was jotting down the above-mentioned thoughts, I remembered a piece I wrote in 2007 entitled “Expanding your comfort zone” (a reminder of my tendency to want to lecture other people while occasionally failing to do the right thing myself):

“What you need, is to EXPAND your comfort zone. Start doing things differently. Take new actions, even if they are strange at the beginning, and even though you stare back at your comfort zone like a child staring back at his mother on the first day of school.

But as you take these first steps, imagine becoming comfortable taking them. As you talk to new people, or do new things, or start running with new ideas, imagine these actions becoming PART of your comfort zone. Imagine a day when all those wolves that now roam outside your cosy circle run beside you like protectors, like part of your inner circle.

Isn’t that the more natural thing to do?”

* * *

One of the ideas in the Harv Eker book that I like is that getting rich is not just about making a lot of money. It is primarily about becoming the person you need to be in character, personality and outlook on life. He believes the fastest way to get rich and stay rich is to improve yourself: “The idea is to grow yourself into a ‘successful’ person.”

TUESDAY, 6 FEBRUARY 2018

21:54

I crave my comfort zone. That’s why I easily sneak back to where I’m comfortable. I quietly ignore what I have to do outside of my comfort zone.

23:09

What I’m trying to say is: The way I work is still inadequate. From time to time, I’ll do things outside my comfort zone, but instead of broadening this area with repeat actions, I quietly sneak back to the old boundaries of my comfort zone.

What I need is a system where you repeatedly take actions that are initially uncomfortable, for at least a few weeks, until the limits of your comfort zone have actually been moved. (It’s as if there is an agent inside my head that would say, “He wants to move the boundaries of his comfort zone again. If everyone stays calm and work together, it’ll be over within a week or two. Don’t kick up too much fuss if he wants to do something strange. Say: ‘Oh, yeah, that’s great, let’s do it!’ or something. As I say, everything will be back to normal soon.”)

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