Author Archives: Guus

Anticlimax

I had a big issue with the website of one of my customers as due to some bugs in the website code there were a lot of copies of the images in that website taking up quite a lot of disk space. And as I regularly download backups of everything I host in data centers this was, in combination with my internet problems, quite a problem for me.

As this was quite a large job and needed to be done with care it took me a while to start with it, but about one or two weeks ago I found time to start with it. But as the problem was a bit complicated I was not able to finish it in one working segment. So I planned another and another, not pushing myself too much as, again, it was a job to be done with care as a mistake might cost me a lot of time to solve. As one of the risks was that the photo’s would be gone, meaning I would have to upload them from a backup in the office to the hosting server. And that would take a lot of time, as for these type of things internet speed is pretty slow.

Anyhow, today I was kind of committed to finish this project, but it took me still quite some time to get all the bugs out of this small program to delete some stuff that was not needed anymore. Ah, and it was about thousands of photo’s, so not something you would do manually and also quite complicated to check.

So after finally running my last tests on my local system I decided to upload, do one test run (without making changes) and after that looked okay run the final program and solve the problem.

And I was amazed, as the test run was very fast, like a hundred or a thousand times faster than my test runs. It was like a few seconds. And the final run I expected to be slower as it involved quite some data,but no, that was also fast, like a few seconds.

And it really felt like an anticlimax. As I had spend hours, days to create this program. And it just ran for a few seconds and that was the end of it. And to be honest I felt disappointed. Somehow I still expected problems to be solved after running the program or still having problems with the data not properly converted or deleted.

But no, in a few seconds, imagine even over the internet, the program had done its job and the project was finished and the problem was solved. And I didn’t feel satisfied or proud or happy; no, actually I felt dissatisfied and disappointed. And I still feel like that.

So what weird mechanism is working here? I should(?!) feel satisfied and happy and proud as I had solved a major problem that had haunted me for months. And yes, looking back I know I spent the time and the effort to make the program do what it was supposed to do. So I have all reason to be satisfied. And apparently all my testing paid off, as the bugs came out while testing, not in the final run, as it should.

But I had expected some kind of ‘booooom’. Or at least the program running for a few minutes. And I think the last was the major thing, that the final run was just so fast. And then it was over. And the program is never to be ran again. And that’s what I spent hours and days on.

And I know somehow this is very common when achieving success by working for it. Like I often read that ‘success’, that winning in sports for example, is in the training, in the preparation. Not in the game itself, the game that is also often only hours or maybe even parts of an hour.

But still weird, this feeling I had today. And I also still don’t know what to learn from it,even though there are quotes in my mind like the journey is more important than the goal. And I also know from riding a bicycle climbing mountains in the end it’s about the climb, not about the going down. As also there the climb is hours and hours, and the going down is often less than an hour.

But seconds versus hours and days? That’s still weird.

A great day

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I just updated my gratitude page and realize just now that I had a great day, even though there were some things I didn’t like. Like I just had a great conference call with my team. And earlier today I had an interesting conversation with missionaries from the Latter Day Saint movement.

And it seems I have learned something, as before I would just end up in some kind of argument with missionaries of churches like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or other type of people who want to tell me about (their version of) Jesus Christ or how to live or improve my life by following Jesus Christ. And with my team I would just want something from them, for my own purpose.

But today was different. As I had a very interesting conversation with sister Lacuata and sister Landicho. They even opened up to me a bit, something I have never experienced before in conversations with missionaries trying to convince me their church or belief is the only.

And my conversation with the team of Inspiration for Success was also very enlightening. As before I was just trying to push my own agenda, trying to get my own things done, but tonight I decided to take another direction by asking each of them how I could help them, which of course brought me, brought us to their goals. And strange enough the last thing started with me defining a segment IFS, just before the meeting. And it was strange as I felt kind of pressured as I did not really plan the meeting, didn’t think about it before, didn’t make an agenda or something. So it seems somehow Infinite Intelligence came of help to make me do the right thing, ask the right questions.

So I learned that the website Geschichte Lernen is more important to Robin than I thought, than I knew. That it is even his main goal next to his work at Metamove and that he is even really investing in it. It always appeared to me some kind of sideline, some kind of blog where he wrote every now and then. But no, apparently it is a lot more than that and comes close to some kind of life goal, sharing something history (have to check with him to know more about what his real purpose is).

And i know David is working on a new project, Maybe This Matters, but I didn’t know it is his full time job and how important it is to him. And that he needs some serious help with things like:

front end html;
graphic design;
server administration;
back-end programming in python;
writing explainer content;
designing a new landing page interaction.

And I didn’t know he is so focused on helping others by creating a website with the following features:

being a place for you to share the issues that you care most about
provide information to learn specific things you can do to make the world better
build communities around other people that care about fixing similar issues.

Who wouldn’t support something like that?

And I know John is working on a new business related to his website Philippinen Tours, being a tour guide for German tourists wanting to visit The Philippines on individual tours. But I didn’t know he wanted to be the number one travel operator for Germans visiting The Philippines. That is some awesome goal isn’t it?

And I know that Christian is very focused on his church activities. But I didn’t know he is even considering giving up his job for that. That is quite something and perfectly fits the idea of definite purpose.

So yes, quite some day today, with a lot of positive interaction.

Thank you Lord!

Something goals and definite purpose

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Well, that’s one of the assignments I gave myself today, something about goals and definite purpose. And I’m not fully sure why, although of course I do. As somehow my direction is not clear at the moment. Or maybe it’s more that there are some things I don’t know how to do, how to get. Or maybe better use the word receive instead of get.

And I guess one of my main issues is that I still believe that you get things, whether money or something else, that you have to work for it, do things for it, in a kind of negative way, in a way that you wouldn’t like to do it. So why would that be? And yes, it’s something most people believe, it’s something most people, or maybe even all people, in the world of today grew up with. And it’s one of the things that is contrary to the teachings of Abraham Hicks.

Ah, and there is another reason I wanted to do ‘something goals and definite purpose‘ as I notice more and more that many or most people don’t know what they want. And that I have the feeling most people don’t care about the things I want, the things I’m concerned about. Like I am very concerned about poverty and many things ‘wrong’ in The Philippines. And somehow Filipino’s themselves don’t seem to care, don’t seem to want to do something about it. And I can’t figure out why as at the same time I have the feeling people here do want ‘more’ and ‘right’ and ‘better’.

So is it just communication, my social skills? Maybe, as many people have told me my communication skills are not so good, all my life. But I’m starting to doubt that.

Or don’t people just want to do the effort to bring change, make things better? Or they don’t know how to support me, don’t know what I need? Or they just don’t know what I want, don’t understand me?

So while writing this maybe my short therm goal should be to figure out why people are not concerned about the things I am concerned about, want to change, want to change.

So if you can tell me more about that, please let me know. As I believe life can be better, especially in The Philippines, especially in a material way, material in the sense of improving quality of life in general.

I did it again

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I did it again today, even though somewhere during the day I realized I had planned too much. But somehow I managed to finish again all the things I planned for today and I have been doing that for a week now or so. Or maybe even a bit longer. And around fifteen minutes ago it felt as if Infinite Intelligence came to help me, as I had planned to reconnect a computer i was installing for a friend to the network again as inexplicably that computer was not able to connect to other computers anymore. But somehow I did the right things and suddenly it reconnected without re-installing anything I had planned.

So now only left this post and my Dutch post and the daily update of my gratitude page.

And somehow I still feel a little insecure if I’m not doing the same I did my whole life, like pushing through when I shouldn’t, like being very stubborn. But somehow I also feel proud and somehow I also feel I may be doing the right things in the right way, or at least in a better way. As I understand habits are very strong and proper habits would lead to success. And as far as I have read things like planning, discipline, not changing decisions easily and persistence are considered good habits. And those are the things I have been doing for the last week or so.

And I know I’m not there yet as there are some things I don’t know how to deal with. But somehow it seems have I planning much more careful now, in a way that I really can finish my planning every day. And I don’t feel really inspired at the moment, but somehow I’m proud that it seems that I have improved in planning and pushing through with it. And the main things seem to be to plan very carefully, state very carefully what I am going to do or accomplish, and to NOT do things I did not plan, but plan them somewhere else, on another day.

And one major thing that is bothering me is that it seems so little, the things I can do in one day. And another thing that is bothering me is how to deal with things that are beyond my control. And still the most difficult thing is ‘people’, how to find people to cooperate with or how to find people to do the things I want to get done. As again, it seems so little what one person in one day can do. And I know I am good at the things I do, like Internet Marketing and web development.

But yes, I guess I have reason to be proud of myself, that somehow I have been able to find a way to plan that suits me, that works, starting with a plan for one day and now a plan for a week, even though I was not able to fully extend my planning for a week the last few days. But it’s not one day anymore, so what if I can manage to extend it to a month or a year. That would be something and that is certainly my goal.

And that is where the success can start, will start.

So yes, start with one day at the time, start with a little thing like making the bed every day. And then extend it a bit. And do it slowly, very slowly. And just go back to be proud of making the bed only if you can’t make it yet.

Good luck!

Tourism and Philippine business culture

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Today I had a very nice day out to the Tinago Falls in Iligan. And on the way we stopped in the nature park in Initao, a (very small) piece of tropical rain forest on the coast where we used to go for swimming. And it turned out they had built a very interesting and impressive canopy walk in that nature park. But, as I have heard more often than I like, it was “temporary out of service”. And fortunately I was fast enough to walk up the walk bridge leading to the canopy walk and was even able to climb up the stairs that lead up to the bridges that hang high in the sky at tree top level. So there was indeed a canopy walk here, kind of unbelievable. And it was impressive. And in my opinion it has quite a lot of tourist potential. But it was out of order because the platform connecting the stairs to the bridges in the tree tops had fallen down or something.

So someone had had a very good idea and had even been able to realize the idea. But somehow it was not realized good enough. And somehow I guess there had not been enough paying tourists or local visitors to maintain this canopy walk. Or it was just not built good enough.

So when I came down to fetch a camera and made some photo’s and wanted to walk up the walking bridge leading to the stairs again I was stopped by the caretaker. Which didn’t really matter anymore as I had already seen what I wanted to see. So I came back and was not sure whether to tell him that I already had walked towards the stairs and had even climbed the stairs. Which of course probably was not safe. But as I am interested in helping The Philippines, helping e.g. building the tourist industry I asked who was the owner. And, of course(?!), it was the government. Which in my opinion means that it will be very hard to build a tourism industry. As governments in general are not good in building ‘industries’. Businessmen are good in that. So in my opinion tourism should be driven by businessmen wanting to make a profit, which in the end they can only do if they provide good service, provide things people want. And yes, governments should create the conditions, some conditions to support businesses. And maybe provide infrastructure. And yes, maybe even build the canopy walk itself and indeed be and stay the owner of things like this piece of rain forest.

But somehow in The Philippines the government is running many things that I think would be better run by business people, people looking for profit, people providing services and products in an efficient way at the right quality. And I have seen many things and even was involved in tourism related government projects. And I just see too much government involvement, like the government even running resorts and cafes and restaurants.

And somehow that doesn’t seem to work. And I keep wondering how that is in other countries, countries that are better in catering to the needs and wants of tourists and are better in also getting the money in.

So maybe really worthwhile how that is done in countries, in places that do have a flourishing tourist industry, like who is doing what there. Like what role does the private sector have and what role does the government have. And indeed,if cultural or natural tourist attractions have been damaged or ruined or destroyed if private businesses have too much power, too much control.

But I have seen better than here in The Philippines. So it can be done better and I guess I would like to do about that, for the people here, especially the poor people, and even for myself, as I still want The Malasag House also to cater to tourist needs.

So let’s see what can be done. As there are really beautiful and nice things to see and to do. Like I saw and did today.