Tag Archives: Blocks

Too much pressure

Yesterday I decided to let go of my planning and discipline and fully enjoy a day and spend time with my partner. And also today I was not able or willing to go back to what has suited me so well for the last few weeks. And I don’t feel guilty about it as I know I’m going to pick it up again soon, probably tomorrow.

What is more worrisome is that this morning I felt very tired and couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t get my day started. And it appears it is mostly or fully physical. And I don’t like that as I somehow believe, want to believe in the ideas of Abraham Hicks, the idea of the Law of Attraction. So it seems I am calling this tiredness I feel upon myself. And that makes me feel guilty. And that doesn’t really help make me feel better.

And this depression type feeling is very hard, as when I’m in that mood it is virtually impossible to get out of it, even though rationally I know e.g. that during the day, after I get up, things will improve, mostly. Although the last didn’t really happen today as right now I still feel very tired and it’s even very hard to keep my mind with the writing as I’m kind of feeling like almost falling asleep.

So what am I resisting? Or is this all bullshit and I am just physically ill, just have my hay fever as I had most of my life.

Ah, well, yes, even for these cases Abraham Hicks has some solution. As he teaches something like if you are in ‘that place’, in a place where you don’t feel very well and can’t seem to get out of it, it is just best to look for the feeling that is still ‘the best’, but then related to that situation.

So let’s try that and just stop now, here and just look for the feeling that is ‘the best’ I can reach right now. And that would probably be just to watch some TV and do nothing really.

Enjoy your day!

What’s next

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So what’s next? I’ve learned a lot and somehow I progressed a lot, but still there are some things missing.

But yes, I am making progress and I’m becoming more careful. Especially more careful with people, more careful with choosing people.

As today I received an e-mail in reply to a request from me to meet a previous employee again. As I thought he might be one of the people who could be part of restarting my business. And please keep in mind the goal of my business has always been and still is to indeed support myself, but also to support Filipinos and the Philippine economy. But especially the last has proven not to be easy as it is virtually impossible to find decent staff. As it has been very easy to find graduates who were all willing to be trained, which they were and which I did. But in the end I found myself without customers, without any money to invest and without any people willing to support me, help me rebuild the business. As most of those people willing to be trained decided to look for greener pastures elsewhere after having been trained.

And yes, I made my share of mistakes and of course I am responsible for my business, not the staff, the people I hired. And yes, I guess my management skills and social skills are not the best in the world. But looking back I am starting to realize more and more that it is not only me that is the cause that my business is not flourishing, was not growing and in the end kind of stopped. And no, it was certainly not the fault of the staff I hired, the graduates who were just looking for a start and of course in the end left my very small company that was kind of surviving and in the end couldn’t really survive anymore.

But looking back, knowing what I know now I think the main reason is the culture, the Philippine culture that makes it virtually impossible to start a company that wants to do a bit more than standard stuff, a company that wants to stand out and wants to deliver advanced quality stuff and services. And you can’t do that with graduates. And you can’t do that in an environment where the good people go abroad to work. And you can’t do that in a culture where it seems people only want to work as an employee, work for money.

And yes, I know more what I want now and I am still determined to build the company that I have in mind. And yes, I know that is virtually impossible, here in Cagayan de Oro City. But yes, I know anything is possible and that persistence in the end normally pays off.

But yes, I was very disappointed with the reply I got today. As for me it was an e-mail to someone who I think might be willing and capable to help me rebuild the company, build the company I have in mind to not only serve customers, but also help Filipinos stay with their family, not going abroad. Build a company that can provide decent jobs to the people of Cagayan de Oro City. Help him earn more, have a nicer job.

And no, apparently he was not the right person to ask. As the first thing he did was demanding for solving issues with his Social Security plan. And yes, of course I know there are and have been problems with the payments to the SSS. But the reason is very simple: the company just never earned enough to fulfill many of its obligations to the government. And looking back I have never really earned anything from this company. On the contrary, I think I invested more than the company ever earned. And yes, my mistake with all my good intentions trying to build a decent company here. And yes, certainly for me, for my own income, for my own money. But also definitely for the staff, for the people in Cagayan de Oro City, in The Philippines. But they didn’t make it easy, just leaving mostly after half a year, after a year, after their being trained.

And yes, I guess this person doesn’t know all this, doesn’t know that I lost most of the money I had when I first came to The Philippines. And doesn’t know I lost a lot more, money I don’t even have a clue how to pay back. And my living in a big house and my supposedly high living standard is only a very small part of that.

And yes, I can imagine he is worried about his SSS. And of course I guess that is my problem, the problem of my company. And of course I am looking for ways to settle all my debts. But is the implicit where is my money really the first thing to mention if you are being invited for coffee or something, being invited to restart or cooperate in a business?

Control your thoughts

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I am still thinking a lot about the statement of Napoleon Hill and many others that you can control your thoughts. And in a way that’s true, but what I recently notice is that it’s not always that easy to focus your thoughts on something else if there is something in the way. As my thoughts keep coming back to the malware/spyware script that is still inserted by my Internet Service Provider that I can’t do so much about. And I’m confronted with it every time I open a site, especially if I test sites on the internet. And I don’t have much option at the moment as one internet service provider, who has served us here since 2006 can’t deliver anymore a decent internet connection. And the other has worse service and is inserting those scripts in websites that most people would call hacking. And their infrastructure is not as good as the infrastructure of the other, so I”m also constantly confronted with pages that don’t open or open slow or don’t show up properly, partly probably because they mess with the content of web pages.

So yes, I decided not to do anything about that today, but I didn’t fully manage to do that, as, what I just explained, even right now I feel confronted with it as this very page I am writing right now probably has that script inserted. And I was confronted with it the moment I opened the site, this site, to login as the design is affected by the script.

And the problem is that as far as I know I only have two options here for internet access. And yes, I’m trying to see the advantage and yes, I am trying to do some positive things around this whole issue. And looking at the richness I am still searching, the money, I am even thinking big, like starting a new Internet Service Providing company here, connecting to some foreign company or something. So yes, Think and Grow Rich and many other ideas and books have made me start think big.

But in the mean time it’s just annoying, even though I am very happy I have access to internet again from home, regardless of the inserted scripts and stuff.

But controlling my thoughts and focusing on something else, not always easy, especially as I wanted to write an inspiring post today, but I’m not fully sure if I managed.

But maybe I did if you are someone involved in the internet industry and looking for a new challenge, a location to build a new internet infrastructure. Or if you also think big, dream big and want to do something big together with me.

So please let me know, as I think we can do better, humanity can do better, The Philippines can do better and certainly Globe and Smart can do better.

Bread and circuses

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One of my biggest questions is still what people really want, especially what younger people want, what youth wants. And as I have visited quite some internet cafes recently it seems that young people, students just want to play games, computer games, internet games, as most of the people around me in this internet cafe seem to play computer games or internet games.

And I have thought about that quite a lot recenlty, as I remember that when I was a student there was I time that I was also addicted to a computer game. And that in later periods in my life I also played games quite a lot, although in the end, mostly after months, I will get bored with it, so right now, recently, I didn’t really play that much.

But looking at my goals, my desires, in the end I also just want to ‘play’, want to relax. And recently also realized that many things people do business wise is to entertain people, serve people in their spare time. And that indeed virtually anything that is being produced or sold is mainly focused on entertainment, of course next to things for daily needs like food and household items.

And this brought me back to the old Roman quote “Bread and circuses” (or “bread and games”). And I just read in Wikipedia that that is mainly related to politics, like keep the people happy in a simple way.

But going back to the subject of what people want I am indeed really wondering what people really want. And maybe I should just see if I can find some statistics about that as for now I basically have my own reference and some feedback I got from some of my friends. But that feedback is often very limited and confirms what Napoleon Hill states, that most people don’t have a definite purpose or a goal in life. Mostly I hear people say if I ask them what they want, what they want in life very simple common things like ‘a family’ or ‘enough money to support me and my family’ or ‘a happy life’. So indeed hardly any of the people I asked have clear definite goals they want to achieve, let alone dates and plans related to them.

And also looking at myself I am slowly starting to realize why most people are where they are. They are where they are because they are not very specific about what they want, where they want to be. So they are indeed where they intend to be: nowhere.

And that makes me often think about the quote from Alice in Wonderland who is at a crossroad and asks someone whether she should go left or right. And the other person or creature asks where she wants to go. And she says something like “I don’t know” and then (of course) the answer is “then it doesn’t matter whether you go, left or right”. And the more I think about it, this is so true. And this is where most of us I guess end up, including me at the moment, although I think I am a little bit further than the majority of people.

But all that I know about goals and timing and plans makes life much easier for me, as right now I don’t have any clear short term timescale or plans. So often I don’t really move so much, don’t take much action. And before I would mostly kind of blame myself for not doing anything. But right now, when I am in a place where I think I don’t want to be, I often realize how I got there. Just by doing the things I did, making the choices I made. And indeed, I am starting to believe that uninspired action, action without a specific goal, is quite useless, maybe indeed harmful to get us where we want to go, where we want to be. As uninspired action may indeed just get us further away from our goals than we think.

so yes, be happy where you are right now. Because you are where you are because of the things you did and the choices you made. And you may have quite some hidden desires that stop you from reaching goals that you think you have. Like in my case one of my implicit goals is to stay in The Malasag House in Cagayan de Oro City. And that limits my options and defines my choices. But it’s a very important, even though quite hidden and unspecified goal. As The Malasag House is my home and I don’t want to leave my home anymore as I did before, and realized I lost my home only afterwards.

So what are your goals? And what are your hidden goals? You may be closer to where you want to be or may just be where you want to be if you look at all of this closely.

So be happy where you are and start from there if you want more or something else.

Other people

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It seems my biggest weakness is connecting to other people. And that’s where everything seems to stop and until now I didn’t find any suggestion how to deal with that in Think and Grow Rich or the Principles of Success.

In the end I mostly find myself alone doing the work and I am starting to realize there is always more work than you can do alone if you want to achieve anything in life. And that’s where I don’t seem to succeed, put other people to work in a useful way. And before I could still put people to work by paying them, but as of the moment I don’t know how to do that, even though recently I think I did manage to motivate or inspire some people to do things.

So maybe things are going better, maybe I am meeting the right people now. Or maybe I did find a way to do things better.

So next will still be planning.