Tag Archives: Receiving

Charity

I often get a very negative feeling when I think of ‘charity’. As somehow I believe ‘charity’ does not work, like just giving money or something ‘to the poor’. And I arrived at the subject charity as I offered to help a friend with his website for the SEMP Association. And no, my offer to help him was not really ‘charity’, but just like helping him with building a nice website as I can’t stand websites that are not built properly. So I offered to help him as a sponsor, which while thinking about it, just means I want something in return, that it is not just ‘giving’.

So when working on ‘charity’ of course when thinking about what inspirational quote to send today I searched for ‘inspirational quote charity’ and ended up on the page charity quotes. And seeing the quotes there made me realize that I am not the only one who has ‘problems’ with charity. And especially this one struck me:

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

As when talking about giving for charity I mostly feel obliged to just give ‘as one is just expected to give if others are in need’. And mostly that doesn’t feel good for me, especially as I am also much in need of especially money. And yes, I still have access to cash, so I can ‘give’, even money, but it doesn’t feel good to ‘give’ when I am getting deeper and deeper into financial shit with slowly an enormous interest burden, especially related to my current income. So anything I ‘give’ for charity just adds up to my future financial burden, as I need to borrow it, meaning I need, or actually want, to pay it back and it adds to my interest to be paid.

But let’s not talk about me and of course it’s okay to help people if they are in need, especially after some kind of disaster or personal mishap. And yes, I also do that, even in my current situation where I don’t feel comfortable in my financial situation. But I am starting getting more doubts about development aid or ‘giving to the poor’. As that just doesn’t seem to work. And while reading the quotes I also got some more clue why I mostly get an uneasy feeling if a rich actor or other famous person ‘gives for charity’. As of course it is easy for Bill Gates to give ten or twenty million dollar. He wouldn’t even notice as as far as I know he has much, much more. Where to me as of the moment it is very hard to give anything, as I don’t even have enough to support myself and my household.

And going back to the beginning, looking at sponsorship of course that is mainly in the interest of the sponsor. And development aid is as far as I know also not just ‘giving’, but often in the interest of the country or the companies in the country giving it. Like it has to be spent on certain things or with certain companies or within a certain country.

So it seems something doesn’t add up with ‘charity’. And of course I am also thinking about my ‘give and receive‘ idea.

So more thoughts to follow about this.

No need, thanks

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Strange, how the Universe works. Or God, if you prefer that, if you believe in that. As just now someone complained to me about something I had posted in Facebook and was kind of asking me, pushing me, ‘as we are friends’, to delete it. And I didn’t really like it, as to me it was a genuine comment on something he had posted. But somehow I decided to give in to the request and remove the comment. As somehow I had the feeling that for ‘Filipino friendship’ reasons that would be the right thing to do.

And then, somehow we continued chatting. And somehow we ended up me sharing about the problems I have in life, with business and with my partner, even though these two things are quite related, as it is mainly about ‘finance’, about income, about how my/our business is doing.

And it was strange, as this person is not a really close friend of mine, even though he related to ‘friendship’. But I guess, again, this is something Filipino, and I am trying to learn, trying to understand more about that.

So I found myself sharing a lot about my problems, basically my relationship problems. And he was just listening, responding to that. So yes, after quite a while I realized it was all about me. And I realized I was tired, as I guess these things are quite emotional for me. Yes, of course they are emotional for me, as these are things I have been struggling with for a long time and I never found a real solution to them, except starting this huge project that is supposed to, well, make me rich and finally make me successful. But that is future and for now I still believe the best option for my, for our daily needs is my knowledge and experience with ‘anything internet‘.

So I found myself getting very tired and wanting to stop the conversation. So I told him. And then I realized this conversation had mostly been about me. And that is sensitive for me, as my partner often says that my conversations are mostly about me.

And of course he understood, he agreed. So he just wished me goodnight. And then I realized that it had been most or all about me. So I said ‘I hope I can do something back’. And the reply was very simple: “No need. Thanks.”. And that hit me. As something was just given to me, for free, no questions asked, no returns asked, no favors asked. Where I often think people don’t give things to me, for free. And where I think I give a lot, without getting anything in return. But that is not true. As I do get things, and no, not in return. I just receive things, things just given to me. Like tonight.

So I felt very grateful, for this friend listening to me, spending his time with me. So yes, thank you <name better kept private>. And thank you, Lord, as I felt very grateful for this unexpected chat, this unexpected friendship.

Yes, the Lord, the Universe has strange ways. As it all began with a complaint, with some kind of ‘negative’. And it ended up sooooo positive.

Blog birthday

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I was recently reading Leo Babauta’s blog and ended up in his page about the first birthday of zenhabits. And I was a bit jealous, or actually a lot, as I read that within a month after starting his blog he had a few hundred followers, readers. And right now, after almost one and a half year Inspiration for Success I think I hardly have any followers. And I know there are many reasons for that, like now it is 2014 and not 2007 (when there were hardly any bloggers and blogging was probably hardly known). And I am not, and have not been, pushing this site, this blog, very hard. And I guess I am not as good a writer, a blogger, someone with a lot of value to other people as Leo Babauta and many other successful bloggers are. As I just found what I guess is probably his most recent post, on the homepage: pushing past the dip. And it just reads easy and is inspiring, even though I might have been just impressed as it is based on The Dip written by Seth Godin. And that book and Seth Godin had and still have great influence on my, on my thinking.

But anyhow, my blog posts may not always be that inspiring, while thinking now I think this site is still some kind of masterpiece, even though it is not fully finished and of course never will be.

So maybe the big question is how I would get out of my chicken/egg problem of not having enough readers and probably not having any people using the inspirational tools I made a start with (and yes, they are working) and creating better stuff, spend more time.

Maybe the answer is pretty simple though. Maybe I should just do a little more effort and then everything will go by itself. Was already thinking about that, but I will plan something.

Thanks for listening.

A little stressed and tired

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Today I was a little bit stressed and tired. And I am not fully sure why, as I had a good weekend and ‘should have’ (imagine what I am stating here) been fully rested and such (for the new week). And while writing this I am starting to realize more and more how crazy it is what I am writing here, as why should a weekend day be that different, or at least ‘better’ than a weekday.

I still believe life should be enjoyed, and somehow we have programmed the world to make a separation between ‘work’ and ‘pleasure’. How crazy can we be?

And yes, I guess in ancient times ‘work’ might have been really necessary just to survive. But I doubt if ‘work’ (hunting and such) was considered as stressful as most (working) people consider it today.

And yes, I do take breaks, as you may or may not know that on Sundays I normally don’t send my daily quote and I don’t write my (daily) blog posts and neither do I update my gratitude diary. And on Sundays I normally don’t work, I normally don’t turn on my (working) computer. As indeed I believe that humans need something like a weekly break from their daily routine. And yes, I often feel obligations as ‘work’ or ‘stress’, including my daily activities related to Inspiration for Success. And yes, I ‘worked’ yesterday, because I just felt like it, because I just thought it was fun to turn on my computer and do some work type stuff.

So well, it seems we have something interesting here, because the question rises if my ‘working’ on yesterday was (part of) my stress today. And I don’t know the answer to that, as there are some other stress things going on right now, which I think have much more influence on me than the stuff I did yesterday and I did not consider ‘work’.

Still interesting how I started this post, the thought of separating ‘work’ and ‘pleasure’ as most of us normally do. And how we should deal with that in the future. As I believe humanity somehow has past the point of ‘needing to work’, probably deeply rooted in the ideas of the bible, the bible that I believe still defines most of our culture, at least Western culture.

So let’s think a bit more about this and how to organize this. As that is one of the main reasons for this blog, this site: not linking ‘work’ and ‘income/money’ to ‘fulfilling needs and wants’. As these things have nothing to do with each other, at least not anymore, in 2014.

Earning as a blogger

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Today I got an e-mail from Alden Tan as I get many. Often even e-mails with the same text with a different title, ‘as that works’ according to him. And his e-mail was about the commercial side of his blogging, the commercial side of blogging in general. That most bloggers earn from advertisements and people clicking on links. And ‘that works’. And I don’t mind, as I also earn from some of my sites, our sites (as most are earned by the company of me and my partner). And the last year the income from these sites were very welcome, looking at the financial status I am still in.

And his e-mail made me think, again, about this site. And yes, I know it has become some kind of personal diary, often of my problems and stuff, maybe even a site with my complaints, with me sometimes or often feeling a victim. So maybe my writing is not always that good, maybe it doesn’t really help people, maybe it isn’t all useful. But especially in the beginning I did my very best to also put more useful content, especially in the form of pages related to stuff I learned from the Principles of Success as described in Think and Grow Rich. And I started the IFS Tools, on my own in the end, as I couldn’t find any programmer to help me with it. And yes, I know they are kind of a draft, far from perfect and I guess for them being really useful they would need to be extended a bit. But when is good good enough?

Ah, and yes, I send a daily quote, now to around 150 e-mail addresses, partially from my initially entering e-mail addresses I had and found, but more recently from people signing up, as it is supposed to be.

So no, until now I didn’t earn anything with this site. And that bothers me. As either it is useless, except maybe for myself, or people just don’t care about the people behind many things like this blog, as ‘everything internet’ is ‘free’. And yes, I am also guilty of that, of using all kinds of stuff for free. As that is how the market works, first giving things for free, and in a later stage charge. Or just charge for additional stuff.

Well, the above makes me think again. As I still don’t understand how Facebook e.g. works. How can so many people use a system so much for free, presumably hardly clicking on advertisements, and Facebook still making a profit? Yes, maybe I still don’t fully understand what is real ‘mass production’ or ‘mass use’, the benefits of millions or billions of people using something. And even so, are we still willing to use services by paying for it indirectly, to especially the large companies paying for their advertisements to be put? Is this really the way how we want it? Should I really start putting advertisements here ‘because that is how the market works’? I don’t think so, but sometimes it is frustrating seeing ‘successful people’ and ‘successful companies’ earn so much, where I also do my best to put some value, even if it were just by sharing my thoughts.

P.S. I guess my request for a camera is still some kind of begging and maybe I should rephrase or just buy one, but is there really no one out there having some few years old decent camera he or she doesn’t use anymore and willing to send it to me?