FRIDAY, 8 DECEMBER 2006
What I want to become, what I want to be, the lifestyle I want to make my own, the type of days and nights I would like to make typical of my life is not meant for everyone.
Here is my advice, to myself and any other person with a dream: Keep on believing, keep working on it, comfort yourself when you have to work long days and nights on projects with no end in sight, and with no fruit waiting to be picked and enjoyed. Ease your frustrations, especially those times when you think you are a Moses who would see the Promised Land but never enter it.
Things will come together. Believe in that … and keep working on making it a reality.
MONDAY, 11 DECEMBER 2006
This is what I want: A stone house on top of a hill, on an island a good distance from the nearest mainland. It must be windy – not necessarily all day, but it should pick up from, say, late afternoon, and the evenings must be at least cool if not cold.
All morning and afternoon I’ll be in my office working on my projects. At four o’clock or so – just as the wind starts picking up – I will take a break, first for some tea, then for a walk on the beach, then dinner. (Maybe I can also fit in a nap on the living room couch with the TV’s sound turned down.)
After dinner and a little TV, I will continue working. Weekends we will go to the mainland, stay in a small hotel, spend some time with friends and family, go shopping, walk around, eat at some decent restaurants … and by Sunday afternoon we’ll head back to the island.
Translation: I want to have enough money so that I can get on with what every soul on this planet would do if they knew of the possibility, or: if everyone had a desire to do more with their earthly existence than a pet or a vulture does with theirs. I would work on my own education, expand my knowledge and sharpen my abilities, and apply my knowledge and skills to work that fit my aptitude and personality.
How can this life ever be possible?
It can only be possible with a money machine that will generate income with the minimum of maintenance – year in and year out.
TUESDAY, 19 DECEMBER 2006
Ideas are like butterflies, and I am like a child chasing all of them and therefore failing to catch a single one – despite the large number of possibilities.
FRIDAY, 22 DECEMBER 2006
Taiwan is not in my room – reflections from the inside
OR: A personal agenda: shortened, with added detail
THURSDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2006
Is spiritual development in the modern world possible without financial independence? Would son of a local ruler, Siddhartha Gautama ever have been able to start on the journey to become Lord Buddha if he didn’t come from a position of financial comfort?
SUNDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2006
One of many lessons learned during 2006: Two ways to make money:
1. You sell – your time, your knowledge, your skills, your experience, even your body.
2. You speculate – in shares, casino games, property, foreign exchange, horse races, a coffee shop, and other opportunities where there is a possibility to get away with a profit.
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