Tag Archives: Sharing

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.

Success consciousness

1 Reply

I never really understood the idea of success consciousness, but especially recently I am starting to feel more and more success… conscious. And I still can’t fully figure out how it happened, even though I know it started somewhere in my deepest down in life around two years ago, towards the end of the year 2012. And, if you have read more here you will know, it started somehow with the book Think and Grow Rich from Napoleon Hill. And while writing this I realize I often think I never got my ‘break’, the thing I believe most or all successful people have. But maybe this was just my ‘break’, meeting Napoleon Hill and his ideas about how to achieve success. And maybe was the person who gave me the book, actually lent me his, the person who gave me my break. As I also believe there must be some person giving someone his or her ‘break’ towards success. But no, while writing this it was not really like that, but please note how I somehow am looking very positively at that event, where before I would just have not realized how a simple event like lending someone a book could be something very special, something very positive.

And that is what I notice more and more, how I see most things happening to me now as a positive, as the Universe helping me to achieve success, where before I was just annoyed, as I guess most people are, when I had to wait for something or if things don’t turn out the way I expected them to be. Like today I was in such a situation where my two meetings, the main reason I went to the city for, were cancelled, postponed. And before I would just be annoyed and would end up in a very bad mood. But today I just thought that something better must be on the way, that there must be a reason for the delay. And it doesn’t mean that that feeling of being annoyed is not really there and it didn’t mean I didn’t try to push through with the meetings, but I just left it to the Universe, to the other people to decide whether they would still be able or want to entertain me. And I just went my way, did my errands, enjoyed the extra time I had, relaxed a bit and finally decided to just go home. Or not go home, as I decided to visit an acquaintance I wanted to visit already for quite some time, but never really did. And that person was not there, but his brother was, and he offered me a cup of coffee, which I decided to take. And he didn’t really seem to want to entertain me, but when he was out for a smoke another visitor and me found ourselves having a nice chat.

So yes, something I never realized before, never wanted to believe before, most or maybe even all what happens to us, or at least the way it happens to us or what we do with it, how we feel about it, is just in the mind. And if your mindset is negative, you will experience negative, as if your mindset is negative you will focus on the negative, and more important, your environment will react to it, will indeed join you in your vibration, as Abraham Hicks often points it out so nice. And there is not even a real secret to it. Just imagine what would have happened if I had reacted to my cancelled, my postponed meetings in a negative way, in a disappointed or frustrated way. I would have just been annoyed or angry. Or just blame the other parties for not keeping to their agreement with me. So I would have reacted differently to the other people I met, I would have behaved differently, would have done different things, something like finishing my errands in stress and trying to go home as quickly as possible or something. So I would feel right now that I had a bad day, a shitty day and I would have probably experienced that other people had reacted very different to me, in my angry, annoyed mood. And I would certainly not have visited my friends place, meaning no coffee and no nice chat.

And don’t get me wrong, I can still get annoyed and I was certainly not happy while I was just on the way and my first meeting partner cancelled the meeting. And also not when my second meeting partner also wanted to postpone the meeting, meaning that I could have just skipped my visit to the city, something that still involves quite some time and effort as I don’t have a car. But I quickly changed my thoughts, starting indeed with the thought that there must be a good reason for this and that the Universe had its reasons for what happened, maybe even meeting that person I met the end of the day.

Please note that if you are still more into the negative thinking and don’t understand those things yet, those things took me more than half a life time to learn, to understand, to experience. But if even a hard headed person like me can turn around and learn to see the positive side of things, I’m sure you also can learn this. As it seems it’s just a learned skill, a habit, that can be learned, acquired by just a little bit of practice. And yes, step one is awareness, be aware of your thoughts. Once you got there, the rest is relatively easy.

Breakdown

Leave a reply

So last night I had a complete breakdown, even though I was much more conscious of what was going on with me than ever before, so somehow I made a deliberate choice to stay in this state of, well, not sure what word would be applicable. Maybe something like ‘complete opposition’ or something. So I decided not to send the daily inspirational quote and not to write my posts. Which is a big thing to me, so you can imagine how I felt, how annoyed I was.

And it all started somewhere like last Saturday, when I decided not to pay the helper. As my partner, as usual, had decided to stay away longer than he planned. And as the last months I decided it is easier to deal with my partner, with our budget, by just giving all, or actually most, of the income to my partner, I had no budget left. As he had left me only budget for a few days, which was actually not even enough, especially because I had a large hospital bill last week. For which I withdrew money from the ‘floating cash’ as I call it. Actually meaning I was just plainly borrowing money, as that money is not mine, it is money in transfer to be deposited to our company.

And I am a bit hesitant writing all this, as it is very private and should not be in the open. It should be dealt with by my partner and me discussing it. But until now I, or maybe I should say we, did not find a way to deal with our budget issues, which kind of worries me, as in the end I always gave in and borrowed money again (indirectly, that is important to know, so there is no actual borrowing from ‘someone’). As of course you need to eat. And the dogs need to be fed. And the helper needs to be paid. And yes, last Monday, the medical bills needed to be paid.

Anyhow, all those details about the issues my partner and me have are not really relevant to what I wanted to write. But it may give some background on the behavior I chose yesterday. As as usual my partner made some remarks like ‘if you behave like that I better not come home’ and such. Meaning I felt like ‘here we go again’. And don’t get me wrong, I am doing much better with all of this, mainly based on the ideas of Kim Cooper. But sometimes, like the last few days, especially yesterday when my partner actually came back, I just feel like I’m back at square one. Or at least have no clue what to do to improve the situation. As no matter what I do, my partner seems to stay in this state of “it’s your fault”, including completely withdrawing from everything related to me.

So I just decided to write about it. And while doing so I at least I realize more and more that it’s not my fault, that it has nothing to do with me. As it’s just especially my partner having a terrible mood or not knowing how to deal with things. And apparently this is just his way of dealing with it. Just as I did by just going to bed last night and staying there. As no place in the house felt ‘safe’, meaning a place my partner wouldn’t find any reason to put more blame on me.

And going back to you I think my main reason for writing about this is that I have improved, a lot, to dealing with my partners bad behavior, even though sometimes, like last night, I still break down and don’t exactly know what to do, except hide. But at least this time I made a more deliberate choice, like deciding that I would not do my daily ‘inspirational things’, even though that was a big thing to me. And right now I am trying to convince myself that it’s okay to do that, that it was okay last night to put myself above my obligations to other people, as I feel I have an obligation to send my daily inspirational quote. And maybe most that I am not perfect, something I often try to be, like pushing myself to do the things I planned to do.

So please don’t be perfect, be human.

Earning as a blogger

Leave a reply

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?

Control your emotions

Leave a reply

Control your emotions and separate business from private. That is what is said so easily and something also I read about leadership. So today I was put to the test and I failed miserably, failed even that much that I am still trembling and am missing the last night out with friends on a short holiday in Siargao.

So yes, thinking about weaknesses I better analyze what happened just about an hour ago again, as somehow I was drawn into something I know is kind of killing for me. And the setup is something I am talking to someone about something, maybe some private stuff or culture or emotions and somehow my partner bugs in and finds someone who will support him in what he is saying, something like he is right and I am wrong. So I feel attacked and I feel being a minority, which upsets me very much and somehow puts me on the defense or something. And I did quite well tonight up to a certain point keeping my mouth shut about certain things I consider private, something between my partner and me. And while writing I realize this is very weird, as normally I don’t mind so much talking about anything, but I know my partner prefers to keep some things between us.

So yes, of course I was the one opening up about something I never told anybody about, as I consider it private and I don’t want anybody to know, especially because of my partner. So in front of my partner I was making the mistake (again), not him, even though I feel kind of ‘set up’ into this kind of situation, this kind of conversation where I don’t feel comfortable with the people around, people supporting my partner, making me feel attacked. So when something like this happens, I feel even worse towards my partner than before, as it was me who made ‘the’ mistake, making him even more right about the negative things he is saying about me, the things he wants the support for from the people around, as he always wants to be ‘right’ and I am ‘always’ wrong.

So again, where I had a very nice conversation with one of our friends, or actually a friend of him, somehow he bugs in with his best friend and turns the conversation to something where those two people are supposed to support him in his being ‘right’ and me in my ‘being wrong’. And where to me most of those things are just ‘opinion’, to him it is about ‘me not understanding people’ me not reacting properly to social situations. And yes, those people often confirm that these things are ‘me being me’, so that’s not my problem. What is my problem is that mostly (‘always’) those people seem to confirm that I am the one socially not ‘correct’, meaning I am doing something ‘wrong’, meaning I am wrong.

So after my big mistake I decided to leave the conversation, even though the group was breaking up anyhow, because we were supposed to go out, have a beer or so, have our last night out. So nothing really happened, except that I was so upset and felt so bad that our ‘secret’ was out, that I decided that I didn’t want to join anymore. Which of course made me feel even worse, as this of course meant I was breaking the group again, meaning my partner was confirmed again about my social skills. And next that the not joining made me feel bad because it confirms my social inability, it also means I am missing out on a night out, even the last night out the group is together. A night I was kind of scared of, as it might become too late to my liking, but also a night that kind of came up naturally to just go out together and have fun together.

And yes, while writing this, I know it is all written too negative and that it’s not all as bad I feel and that it is not bad people knowing about what I consider one of our major problems. It may even be good. But the time and place and how it came together are just fully wrong, and one of the people present is the last person I want to talk to about this.

So what is there to learn and what is the real problem? Maybe something to think about. The main thing I think is that it is something repeating that gives my partner more power and that makes me feel bad and makes me feel bad in the eyes of other people.

So how can I prevent this in the future, as somehow I am drawn into situations like this and I don’t like the outcome.