Author Archives: Guus

No internet

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Strange to sit here in a coffee shop where I ordered something to drink and a piece of cake as I wanted to use the internet to write my daily posts and update my (Dutch) gratitude diary. And after ordering and getting the password I found out the internet was slow, very slow, as none of the sites I opened. And it is so bad that the WordPress editor does not even properly open, so after typing some words for my Dutch blog item I was kind of stuck. And it is a bit amazing, as internet in The Philippines is supposed to be bad, but not this bad. As with my technical knowledge and skills I looked a bit further what was going on. And it seems the connection is Globe and amazingly more than half of the tcp/ip packets don’t seem to arrive. And I guess you don’t know what that means, but it means among other things that traffic will just increase, as those packets will be resent as tcp/ip is designed to deliver information in a reliable way. So while waiting, like ten minutes, fifteen minutes or more, I was thinking what is the positive side of this. And at first I couldn’t really find anything. As the Globe system just seems to suck and of course I will blame the Globe technicians that they don’t know what they are doing and such things. And I guess that is true.

So I found myself with a very slow, unusable internet connection, at least for the purpose I am using it for, kind of waiting for either something working or my partner and some friends returning.. And yes, again, with my new mindset of persistence and not giving up and trying to find some way of getting things done, I found at least ‘something’ as I realised that I can just write my posts in a text editor and upload them later to the site or sites. So I can just write my daily blog post or blog posts, and maybe in the mean time the WordPress editor will load, so I may even be able to just copy this text to the site.

And another positive thing is that, as you may know if you follow my posts, was already considering to improve my writing, like maybe even combining the writing of several days into one weekly post or so, instead of daily writing a small and not so good item.

So yes, even in this situation, where of course I am somehow I am still very annoyed, as I can’t do what I wanted to do, it is possible to find something possible and finding and learning new ways, other ways to do things, like writing my daily blog post.

And the strangest thing I am experiencing right now is even that this new thing of writing a blog post in a text editor seems to put my mind in a whole different ‘mode’. Like I am just activating different parts of my mind that give me new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking.

So yes, even though I was annoyed and still kind of am, because it seems I won’t be able to post this post right now, tonight, there is something good in it. And I don’t even feel that bad and start even to feel good as I am enjoying different parts of my mind being opened, creative parts of my mind. Parts that my even help me now to find new ways of doing things, where I may also feel stuck.

So yes, you can find something good in any situation.

And my partner and friends just joined and I realised on the other side of the street is OK Pension where my friend and somehow also I have good connections. So I just went there and just copied the above text here. So again achieved to publish my daily post on the day itself!

Something changed

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My router, or actually one of my routers, died, or is possibly still very sick. And normally I would be very annoyed, and yes, of course I still am kind of, but I noticed something changed, as I noticed that I just say to it ‘thank you’, thank you for all the years you have served me. And it has been sick for quite a while and I have been trying to keep using it, which kind of worked, but right now it seems it doesn’t run at all anymore, as I can’t seem to connect to it. And this may sound strange, but normally I will just do anything to get something like routers, computers and such fixed. And yes, I will still try a bit more :).

But what changed is that instead of mainly being annoyed I am grateful, grateful for the years it has served me, even though it has been sick for quite a while, probably causing a lot of problems a while ago, even though I can’t fully figure out if it was the router causing those problems.

And this router being broken makes me think that devices like repeaters and routers, and mostly also desktop computers and other electronics seem to have a pretty long lifespan, while the last years I often experience that a lot of household equipment is not as good as it used to be, as I remember it was ten, twenty or more years ago when I was still living in The Netherlands. And the lifespan of things, especially the short lifespan of a refrigerator we bought a few years ago that gave up after four years or so, bothers me a bit. As I know of many refrigerators running for ten, twenty or more years, without any problems, except looking worse and worse. But still working, still useful.

And it reminds me how a company like Acer, where it is kind of funny I am using a laptop from Acer right now, doesn’t seem to care about customer service. As e.g. for this model, a ‘cheap’ model, there is no support or warranty after one year. A while ago when I needed something like software,drivers or something, I found that one year after buying their whole support system stops. You can’t even send them an e-mail anymore.

And I guess they have good reasons for that, as I presume customer support is very expensive and margins may be very small. But it is very strange to me that a supplier stops all support after one year, especially as we bought an Acer again as the old one had been running for years and years to full satisfaction, even though that one also didn’t look that good anymore, as it began to fall apart physically. But even after the hinges and such were broken, it just ran, and we used it for many, many years to full satisfaction. Contrary to the one I am using now, that is currently using its third hard disk. As the first hard disk died after one and a half year or so, which is too soon to me for a hard disk to fail, as I have many hard disks that are four years old or more and are running fine. So no, no warranty after one and a half year. So I had to buy a new one, that gave up soon after it had been installed. And yes, that one was replaced, even though the cause of the hard disk problems appeared to be a problem with the cooling, as there was a lot of dust blocking the ventilation holes.

And the weird thing is that you are not allowed to open it, as then warranty will stop. But then you can’t clean it. And the technician indicated it was our fault that the hard disk broke, as we hadn’t cleaned the laptop…

Anyhow, I am complaining now I see, contrary to how I started this post. So yes, thank you, equipment and manufacturers and service people who make things work for a long time and who give proper service. And Acer, maybe you should review your quality and support policies. As where I bought a new Acer because the old one did so well, I won’t buy an Acer again, as I believe a laptop should last longer than two years or so and even after that period there should still be service.

And for your information, my router is or was a Netgear. And I guess I would buy a Netgear again, but I hope they didn’t change like Acer did, I hope they still deliver quailty, which they certainly did with the router I have now.

Finishing things

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This morning I decided to replace my ‘savings box‘ with another box with a cover, so I could put my not on top to avoid other people in my household (and myself) to use the money in it. And that replacement had been overdue for one or two days, as I prepared the box one or two days ago. So as I wanted to have a clean box I decided to take off the remains of a sticker that were still stuck on the box. And of course that took quite a bit more effort than I wanted or expected, so of course after one minute or so thought, well, what the heck, let’s just leave the rest of the sticker and just use the box anyhow. But somehow something inside me said that I should just finish my sticker removing process. As recently I encountered relatively quite often something about doing things right, no matter how small. And something like starting with small things.

Savings Box

And recently I am experiencing indeed how important it is to finish things, no matter what. And I knew that already, but I never really put a lot of attention to it. So looking back I presume I have left an awful lot of things ‘unfinished’, just because it was not worth the trouble or I didn’t want to spend the time on it. Or because it was ‘too difficult’. But recently I am much, much more serious on finishing things, on finishing things I started, on doing and finishing things I planned. And somehow it seems that is very important, as somehow I have slowly acquired a ‘finishing habit‘.

So this morning I decided to get the sticker material off the box, no matter what. And I did and it gave me a very good feeling. And yes, it still took more time and effort than I expected or wanted, even though in total it was maybe less than fifteen minutes. But I finished it, and somehow that felt very important.

So I can certainly recommend to start small with ‘finishing things’ and other things you want to do or feel like wanting or needing. As if you can’t finish small things, how could you expect to finish large or even huge things?

Stop and relax

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I still feel very tired and like doing nothing and I keep feeling some kind of guilty about it. I still want to push, to force to do something. Which of course is kind of stupid, as it seems my body or my mind or the Universe or everything seems to tell me to stop. And no, I am not talking about quitting or avoiding something or procrastination, as that is not how it feels like. I just feel tired, exhausted, and indeed something like I should stop and relax.

And no, I still didn’t, as I am still writing this and I still planned some little things for today I am planning to do, to finish. So I did not stop yet. But yes, I should stop as soon as possible, as what I am doing now, kind of forcing myself doing things where everything in me, my whole being and everything around it says ‘stop’. As I am quite sure there is a reason for that feeling, that knowing.

So know the difference between ‘real’ procrastination (sorry, no link here) and listening to your body, to the Universe, to God. And make time to stop, to relax, if everything in and around you tells you to stop. As there is a reason for that and something better will come out of it if you listen.

Patience needed?

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Today and also yesterday I had some very nice and interesting conversations with several people visiting the party that was being held at our house. So especially this morning I felt very inspired with all kinds of subjects we discussed, especially related to this site, to success, to inspiration for success. And yes, I think I wrote a nice post earlier today on my dutch site, my dutch blog. But right now I don’t know what to write anymore. Yes, I remember the subject that the only law a human should obey is ‘though shall not steal’. As almost anything can be related to that, like if you take some of the Ten Commandments like you should not kill someone, you could say you should not steal his life. Or about cheating in relationship you could say you should not steal someones wife. And I always admired the Ten Commandments, as, no matter if you are Christian or not, I  think most people would agree that those ten commandments cover virtually everything or maybe even really everything about how we should live our life, treat each other. In my opinion all other laws go back to those principles, somehow. But today I was really amazed, stunned, that you could basically even put that into one law: “Though shall not steal”.

Another subject we discussed was ‘success‘, one of the major subjects of this site, of even my project Inspiration for Success. As I already long time ago, just after starting with this site, with the page about success, I already found that success is something that is personal. And related to that, being Dutch and living in The Philippines, I am still wondering if people are really different than in more Western cultures. As mostly when I ask people here what they want in life, especially younger people, they answer something like ‘I want to take care of my family’, mostly meaning providing money for the family. And even when I try to ask further, something like, ‘but if you leave your family out of the equation’ or ‘if you leave money out of the equation’ I still don’t get answers I would get from people from other cultures. Often I just don’t get an answer at all, so today, when discussing this issue, I was thinking that the question of ‘what do you want in life’ is just the right question here, in Philippine culture.

And for a long time I already have in mind to do a study about success, about when people would consider them successful, especially younger Filipino’s and people from lower classes. So maybe I should push through with that, find a way to get that done. As that question is really important to me, especially as that answer might give me some more clues on how to build the site, how to inspire people for success.

But right now I think I did pretty well writing the above, if you look at how I started this post. So maybe I should just stop now and let those things rest in my mind, as I am sure the discussion of this afternoon will inspire me for more, for better.