Today I had some very weird experiences related to procedures, policies and mistakes and the weird thing was that one of the issues that I encountered began a few days ago when I decided to write a check of PHP 1,998.00 or nine hundred ninety nine pesos only. And it seemed that Infinite Intelligence was setting up something at that time, as I was in doubt whether to write a check of two thousand pesos or nine hundred ninety eight pesos. And with in doubt I mean that it took me a few seconds to decide, that I really made a decision on it whether to pay the actual amount or the rounded off figure. And I decided on the actual amount, which is a bit more of a hassle when writing a check.

The story related to the check had some more starting points, as my partner did not want to pay the check in Cagayan de Oro as he was sick, so I decided that I would have time in Cebu where I am as of the moment for some business and pleasure.

So today I went to the Smart office, which actually took me some effort as I didn’t want to go back to the Ayala mall where I knew there was a Smart office. And when arriving there, the office appeared to be at the sixth floor, which again took some effort. But when arriving at the office I was happy as it was very quiet and I did not have to wait for other customers, which normally is the case when paying your bills here in The Philippines.

So I guess I looked happy and I told the employee behind the counter I was so happy I didn’t have to wait, so he started handling my payment. But after a while he hesitantly told me that their office would not accept a non local check, which sounded completely crazy to me, because to me a check is a check, whether local or out of town. And I also wouldn’t really know why I wouldn’t be able to pay a Smart payment to a Smart office, as that’s what those offices normally do: process bill payments. Anyhow, the manager, who supposedly had implemented the rule not to accept non local checks was not there, so there was no use discussing this issue with this employee, as I knew he had no option and being Filipino wouldn’t take any risk to bypass this procedure.

So I asked him or he suggested to pay in the payment center in SM, another mall in Cebu. As I really wanted to make this payment as it was over due already I decided to go to the SM mall, even though it would take some hassle and a taxi ride. So I took a taxi to SM costing me seventy pesos, something like 3.5% of the payment to be made, next to my time and ending up in a place I didn’t want to be.

So in SM I went to the Smart office and ended up in a queue as this apparently is a much more popular place to pay than the other office. But it was not that bad and after about ten minutes it was my turn. And again, the employee behind the counter accepted my papers and check and began processing. And to my amazement came with the same message that this Smart payment office didn’t accept non local checks. He suggested even to pay to BDO (a Philippine bank) as apparently BDO processes payments for Smart, leaving me quite stunned, as what would be the most likely place in The Philippines where to pay my Smart bill than to Smart directly.

This time I decided not to budge as I didn’t understand why a Smart office wouldn’t accept a check, any check for payment of a Smart bill. So again I asked for the manager, which made the employee leave inside an office at the back of the shop, this time taking quite some time making me think that probably they would call the bank to check if the check was OK, which I’m sure it was.

After a while the employee returned, telling me that the manager was in a conference, so not available. This time again I decided not to budge and decided to stay in front of the counter as I thought there was something really wrong here with their procedures as why wouldn’t a Smart office accept a check for a payment for a Smart bill. As far as I know check processing is centralized even, so local and non local technically wouldn’t make any difference. The whole thing just didn’t make sense to me.

Then the employee started complaining the me that there was something with the number 8 in the check, the 8 pesos. This made me even more annoyed as I know my handwriting is bad and banks here complain about

the smallest corrections in the writing in the check. And as this was a clear 8 to me my temper began to rise even more.

So the employee didn’t budge and I didn’t want to budge, until somehow he was able to make clear to me there was a real mistake in the check. The figure in numbers was namely 998, where the number in words was nine hundred and ninety nine. Of course this was a real mistake that made the check invalid and of course no one would accept the check as a check with this kind of mistake would be refused and returned by the bank. This put me in a very awkward position as I prefer those payments to pay in check, but as I was already delayed with this payment and as I want to be ‘clear’ with Smart due to my internet connection issue. So realizing there was a real problem with the check I decided to pay cash and solving my own payment problem. But I was not happy, as I had no opportunity anymore to make some point about the weird procedure of not accepting non local checks by Smart.

After leaving the Smart office the whole story though appeared very interesting to write about as it has all the elements in it related to the issues where I want to change the world, making the world more humane. And even the one peso difference which made the check invalid is an interesting one, because from a (Western?) human point of view no businessman or businesswoman would make a point of a one peso difference in a two thousand peso payment if it were an obvious unintentional mistake which it was.

The most crazy thing to me still is that a company like Smart, and don’t get me wrong, this is not about Smart as it could happen in any dealing with any big organization, did not want to accept a check, which is basically equal to cash as far as I know, because of some kind of reason related to, well, I don’t even know, I don’t even understand.

And the sad thing was even that Richard, the employee who dealt with me in the Smart office in SM, at the end of the transaction and all the hassle said something like “Sorry for taking so much time” while in the end I was the one who was wrong having a wrong check and not he or Smart and where he even solved and prevented a bigger problem of a returned check. But yes, I guess that sorry was again company policy.

So thank you Richard in the Smart office in SM for being so patient with me. And you can’t help it and even confirmed to me that you also don’t like many of these company policies that make simple transactions and situtions so difficult to deal with.

To be continued, as I want to analyze this whole situation a bit more and want to find solutions from this, which is not as easy as I originally thought looking at the mistakes I made myself.

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Today I had a meeting with some people I didn’t really know, but I had some feeling of Master Mind. And today’s meeting gave me hope, as I was about to give up some things as nothing seemed to work out. So indeed, the road to success is, next to other things, indeed about not giving up, about persistence. And yes, maybe the following quote confirms indeed again what success is all about and that it doesn’t come easy:

“Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.” – Napoleon Hill

And today I felt a bit that my persistence in the end may pay off, even though I’m starting to feel really stubborn (in the eyes of the world). But today I noticed the desire is still there, even though I didn’t really feel it lately. So yes, there is really power in the Master Mind.

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I was devastated last night when I found that our Smartbro internet connection was not working. I am in kind of a conflict with Smart regarding their Fair Usage Policy which is in practice a straight volume limit on their unlimited plans and I had just send another (still nice) e-mail to them with regards to what to me is plain fraud as they advertise 2Gb/s unlimited internet where in practice after reaching a certain volume limit the connection becomes practically useless at speeds around 0.1Gb/s which is not enough for even normal internet browsing or using Skype as many connections time out (= are cut off)..

So somehow I feared that they had cut me off because of my complaints about this volume limit which would put me in even greater trouble than I already had with only having proper internet access during the first half of the month or so. And as my basic business is still building websites and internet marketing being cut off from the internet is a big thing. But looking at my experience of the last few days, weeks, months it’s even worse, as I, and not only I, am using internet for so many things. And indeed, internet traffic is increasing at very high speeds and in very weird ways as because of the very low speed of the internet I am experiencing after reaching the volume limit everything, including my local development environment and even my local internal network slows down. As many, many programs that are installed are doing all kinds of internet requests and not only programs on computers, but also TV’s, DVD players, mobile phones, game devices, etc.

But I didn’t want to talk about that. I wanted to talk about how much I was affected with my mind going around in all those negative thoughts, those negative experiences that I would encounter if my internet would indeed be cut off. And the next thing that indeed is kind of scary is that I, and I guess with me many other people, would really be affected a lot if they wouldn’t have access to the internet. One of my problems e.g. was that I couldn’t check was a plane ticket that I booked earlier yesterday as that is being confirmed by e-mail. And this might even mean that I wouldn’t be able to fly as I wouldn’t be able to print my ticket. I also couldn’t check if my hotel booking was confirmed as again I couldn’t read my e-mail. And I also couldn’t plan my trip properly as I couldn’t check the ferry or plane schedules or even book another ticket if I would want to. I also was not able to send the daily quote and write my daily post in Inspiration for Success and for my personal blog. And yes, many people have mobile devices now that can also connect to the internet through the mobile phone system and yes, I could use the personal hot spot from the phone of my partner. But still.

But the most scary thing is that in my location, and I guess that I’m not the only one, there are only two Internet Service Providers that can provide me internet access. And they are both private companies and cannot be forced to give me internet access. So if I have some disagreement with one of them, which I currently have, and if they would cut me off, which they legally probably could, there is only one left. And that made me realize that the whole internet, similar to the electricity system, is pretty much a monopoly, but without the government regulation, as I presume electricity companies are obliged to deliver electricity to all citizens where Internet Service Providers are not. So pretty scary, as related to my lifestyle, the social class I belong to, I can’t live, maybe even survive, without internet. And this whole thing brought me again to the fact that the whole capitalist system that we still have in most parts of the world, does not always work, is not THE solution for all human needs. And that yes, government regulation is a necessity. And looking back, that there was a reason that electricity systems and phone systems were ran by the government in maybe all or many countries. I never really understood the complexity of ‘private’ and ‘public’, something like ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’, but I do more and more. And it is not easy to find the right balance between these two as governments are not good in running efficient businesses. They seem to create very inefficient systems when it comes to business, to producing stuff and give service. So yes, governments should put rules and regulations around businesses, around industries. But again, I recently encountered a very weird issue with some private company I was dealing with. I had some financial problems and couldn’t pay my bills, so I called them and tried to make a deal with some payment plan or something. But they couldn’t as it was against the law. Which was very weird, as in this case in my opinion everybody lost: I would lose the service and the company would lose a customer, where a simple payment schedule would have just solved the issue very easily.

Ah, there is so much more in my mind about this subject, as one of my main goals with Inspiration for Success is to make the world more human again, spread the wealth better among people. I mentioned it before, we, as humanity, can produce virtually everything for everybody’s needs. And somehow we can’t, as capitalism mostly seems to end in greed (for the shareholders) and communist/socialist type systems tend to be very inefficient.

So let’s find a better way, a better way to distribute products to all people in the world who want them and provide services in a better way so we won’t be scared the service would be cut off if controlled by some large monopoly type company.

Ah, and my internet was just working again today, so it was probably a small hick-up and had probably nothing to do with my problem with Smart.

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Yesterday I basically didn’t do anything. I just couldn’t. And lately I more and more allow myself to be who I am, feel what I feel and things like that. But I’m not happy and I still have the feeling I am doing a lot of things, am very persistent in trying to do something useful and somehow nothing comes back. Do am I depressed? Do I have some kind of mental illness? And if so, what then? And if not, what then?

But just wanted to share a quote here:

And yesterday and this morning I “just couldn’t get out of bed”, so the above sounded very familiar.

¹Found on Ruby Wax on depression.

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One of the teachings of Abraham Hicks is segment intending and today again I found how powerful that is. I was still very much affected by my internet problems, next to all other things that are not going as I want so my day started with an even worse mood than usual, even though I woke up relatively early as we had guests. And unlike usual days my mood stayed quite low for most of the day, until I decided to do the Placemat Exercise and some segment intending. And while writing right now I realize that I use this segment intending more and more, not only consciously, but also unconsciously. And yes, it all goes back to some ‘deliberate creating’, meaning something to take more control of your own moods, your own life and not so much let it depend on whatever event or person or mood of person or group comes your way.

And it can go different ways, as sometimes I just decide to deliberately have a very bad mood, like being angry or annoyed or just sad. And often that just makes me feel better, just allowing myself to have some kind of negative emotion. And if you’re the same as me you probably often tell yourself that it’s not OK to have a bad mood, allow a negative emotion. Which often makes it worse in my experience, as I’ll just feel guilty or more guilty about being ‘negative’.

But moods are just part of life and negative moods are as normal as positive moods, so somehow it is really weird that we are taught that a negative mood is ‘bad’. And why would it be bad? Why would we need to feel ‘good’ all the time? And while I am writing this I remember that I once told someone about where I stood in life and it went like “I have no relationship”, “My study is not going well” and some more negative things about my life as at that moment nothing seemed to work out. And I just felt guilty about that as I presumed, just like most people, that I’m supposed to feel good, be happy. And you don’t want to know what a truckload of stones or sand or whatever were taken off my back as this person sad something like “Well, if that’s all going on it would be really weird if you felt good or would be happy, wouldn’t it?”. And I think it was the weirdest remark anybody had ever made to me, but it was so true and after he said that I felt a million times better as suddenly I allowed myself the feelings that were just normal for that situation, that time in my life.

So yes, with the segment intending I sometimes still do and that I learned from a thirty day program from Abraham Hicks I am mostly able to go from just allowing anything to happen to me, to deliberately create my own mood. And mostly, or maybe even always, it just works.

Like today, after I had led myself be down for more than half a day or so, just feeling annoyed and pitiful and whatever negative emotions you can imagine I just started writing a ‘place-mat’ and a ‘segment intending‘ paper. And my first segment was something that I wanted to find peace, wanted to be peaceful. And my second segment was that I wanted to have a good evening with my partner.

And guess what, right now I am quite a bit at peace, at least a hundred times more at peace than earlier today and my partner even took the initiative to go out and eat somewhere.

So yes, again, all this ‘pushing and shoving’ we are often doing, trying to do everything on our own, trying to force everything in place as we want it, often doesn’t work, or maybe stronger, never or hardly ever works. And yes, first finding the right ‘mood’, first feel inspired or more inspired mostly works much better and in that state many things often even come to us, without any effort.

So yes, I can really recommend to do this segment intending, whether daily as I did during the thirty days I did the program or just incidental, like I did today.

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