Tag Archives: Support

Help the poor

I bumped into the initiative of the Kalinga foundation a few days ago. And I sent them an e-mail as I still want to do something for the poor people in The Philippines. And I saw their focus is on helping children living on a garbage dump in Manila. And of course it’s a very good cause to help ‘poor children on a garbage dump’, but I think the economic problems in The Philippines go much deeper than just ‘people being poor’. The longer I am here, the more I realize there is a reason, there are reasons why The Philippines is poor, or at least why many people in The Philippines are poor. And those reasons go very deep, they go back to culture and upbringing and the resulting attitudes from that. And without changing that you can’t achieve any result in the reduction of poverty, as it’s the system, the culture that makes The Philippines, makes many people in The Philippines poor, even including me at the moment, but that’s just incidental, I’m just a sample. And maybe the statements I am making now are just the reason why I’m here, why I am in this situation I am right now, this situation also of poverty which I don’t like, even though I don’t really lead a life in poverty as I still have enough to eat and to drink and still have a decent house to live in and still take my daily hot shower. But yes, I feel poor and basically I am poor, as I still have some capital left in the form of the capital invested in the house, but related to day-to-day living I am poor as I don’t earn enough to sustain myself and my partner and I ended up in quite some substantial debts, even though those debts are smaller than the capital still present in the form of the value of the house.

So related to all those poor people I see all around me and all over The Philippines I am thinking more and more in terms of what I would tell myself to get myself going again, to get out of poverty. And I still didn’t find the answer to that as I basically lost hope to find a decent income, to find customers or even to find a job.

What I want and need

So maybe let’s go from there. What would I need to get me moving again, moving in a direction that would lead me to a higher income. Or what circumstances would need to change in order to give me hope again, make me move again. And don’t get me wrong, I’m still moving somehow, but somehow I also lost all hope of finding customers again, a sufficient number of customers to work forty hours a week or so and at least go back to a financial level where I can sustain myself and my partner and start paying back my financial debts.

So what would make me move again right now? Well, just customers finding me I guess. Customers wanting and needing my services, wanting and needing the stuff that I have built over time and use that to build websites and web applications. And no, not the other way around, because I have no clue on how to find customers. I tried many things and it just doesn’t seem to be my thing. And following from that I would also be inspired by someone believing in my skills, in the services and products I can offer, believing that much that he or she would sell my services and products to customers.

Alternative would be people enjoying to stay in The Malasag House and paying for it. Paying guests, although I might have trouble with my partner in that, but if people would be really interested staying here, staying with me, enjoying the house, enjoying my company, yes, that would also give me hope, inspire me.

And next step would be to find people who I can rebuild the company with, rebuild Active Discovery Designs with. People who want to be part of a professional ‘anything internet’ company. People who would enjoy learning from me and at the same time enjoying producing quality products for customers or doing other office work in a nice, efficient way.

And then, yes then, I would be able to think further again. Enjoy my own life again with a nice car and some holiday and indeed giving to the poor, giving back to the world. So sound simple, isn’t it? I just need other people needing me, needing my services, needing what I have to offer.

System changes needed

Ah, but I forget something here, something that came into my mind earlier. There are some things in the system, in the culture that are really annoying and are really blocking progress in The Philippines. Recent sample is that I found out that one of our internet providers is limiting our connection to something like half the speed with service interruptions for every second half of the month. And compared to other countries internet speed is already very slow. And internet is already very expensive. And that’s where somehow the culture, the government, isn’t able to make sure that systems, that companies work efficiently, at least not compared to at least the Western countries, the Western world. And those type of things are everywhere and they are very annoying and are taking away huge amounts of initiative and energy of people and of companies. So yes, if anything is to change, also something needs to change in the government, as somehow these things go back to how the country is government. But I’m not sure. It might as well be the culture, the system, the way how things work here, the way how things are done.

Start for the poor

So where to start when looking at ‘the poor people’, the people on the other side of the road (yes, on the other side of the road of where my house is there is a very poor community). Or indeed the children on the garbage dump that the Kalinga foundation is trying to help. Maybe the first thing they would need is indeed something like food and other daily needs, the things I still have, the things I don’t worry too much about. But I guess the next thing they would need would also be something like the feeling to be needed, the feeling of doing something useful. So maybe the first thing would be to just ask them what are their dreams, ask them what they want in life. Do they want to be a truck driver or a Jeepney driver? Or maybe an artist? Or a sailor or a ships captain? Or a pilot? Or a government employee, president of The Philippines of president of the United States?

Help the world

Well, maybe just discuss this with the people of the Kalinga foundation. Maybe we can find some answers there and maybe those answers would lead to solutions, for The Philippines and/or for the people in The Philippines. Or maybe even solutions for the world and all people in the world.

Because in the end I guess we all want the same: be needed, feel needed. Of course after our basic needs are met.

You’re doing it wrong

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I’m not sure what’s going wrong, what I do or don’t do or whatever.

Just five minutes ago someone said to me I did it wrong. And I know he was worried. But it hurt a lot and it still hurts a lot.

And fifteen minutes earlier someone else also told me I did something wrong. And that I ‘should’ do it differently.

And is seems this has been going on all my life, that I did things ‘wrong’ and ‘should’ do things.

So what is this. Am I doing the same to others? Am I somehow evoking these things for others?

And yes, it seems this all goes back to something like self confidence, which apparently I don’t have or at least don’t show.

And I guess it’s all meant well.

But it hurts. So let’s be careful what we say to each other and how we say it. Nobody has the right to judge that what we are doing is wrong. Or tell us that we ‘should’ do something.

Am very interested if you have similar experiences or have a different opinion about this.

Long way to go

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Yesterday I got an e-mail related to Hundred lessons learnt from blogging and the post is awesome. It made me a bit jealous as i don’t see myself write a post or page like that as it’s a very well written and prepared page. And I’m quite sure Alden has spent quite some time making it, as putting one hundred items would take some thinking and time.

So I was comparing myself with him and felt myself ‘lower’ than him. As I often feel myself ‘lower’ than other people. And many ‘self help’ guru’s and sites and everything say you should not compare yourself with others. But of course I do, you do. I guess everybody does.

And why not focus on our strengths, not our weaknesses? I’m quite sure there are areas I am better than Alden. So why feel below him just because he created something nice I can’t create or only could create with the greatest effort?

So what is this ‘feeling lower’ that I guess many people have. It doesn’t make any sense as everybody is just born somewhere, lives his or her life the best he or she can or the best he or she knows. And then dies. I mean, we’re all just human, in the end, in the very basic the same. So not ‘more’ or ‘less’ than other human beings. Not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than others. And in the end not more successful or unsuccessful than others.

So what is this competition thing? Where does it come from? What’s the use? And the more I think about it the more I also think that we should abandon this competition thinking that is everywhere. And of course the ‘use’ is that it comes from the biological selection process. That the stronger genes will survive. But humanity, humans, somehow bypassed that. As we don’t leave mentally or physically disbled people behind (so they would die). We do anything to save babies who don’t have the basic capacity to live. We save human beings who are in danger, who are wounded.

And yes, the weirdest thing is that we can go to war and wound each other or kill each other and then finally help each other to recover, get better.

So why can’t we push that a little further, that helping each other, supporting each other? Why not ‘always’ and not only when people are in need?

Looking forward to your comments on this.

Making progress

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Wow, it seems I’m really making progress. Today we had the first team meeting with the whole team together, even though we had to fall back to chat as some of our internet connections and/or Skype let us down a little bit. But amazing what you can do in 2013 in the virtual reality of internet connections, like building a virtual team. And you may know that ‘people’ and/or ‘team’ and/or ‘teamwork’ and/or ‘Master Mind‘ are not my strongest points, but today I was really proud of myself that, well, I, have somehow managed to build a team around our project Inspiration for Success.

And I’m starting to believe that patience may have been my biggest issue in cooperation with other people as I know I used to push hard and expected employees, team members and who else to put the same amount of effort and time as I do and expected them to be as intelligent as I am or maybe something like expected them to understand straight away what I want without properly explaining what I want or properly instructing them or give them time to think things over and let it sink in.

So things seem to sink in with my team members and they even start taking initiatives and generate ideas that i had never thought of or could have never thought of. So I may be ‘intelligent’, but other people have their own intelligence and I’m certainly not ‘all knowing’, which I think I presumed I was too much.

So wow, what a day, that started very, very bad as I had a very bad mood as i really didn’t know where to go anymore, but that’s another story.

So yes, I’m starting to become very happy with my team and I’m very proud of them! Thanks a lot for being with me, staying with me, Christian, John and Robin. Thanks for your patience, support and the work you all already have done. Thanks!

Need a kick

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Well, it seems today somebody finally got to me a bit with what I need: a kick. So he gave me a small kick and I feel like moving again a bit more. And actually that’s what this whole site is about, that’s why I started this site: I felt and still feel a bit I had nobody who gave me the right kick, nobody who really inspired me, made me move when I needed it, when I was lost. So thanks Allan for today’s kick as it was really inspiring to me. Even though I think I need some more as I’m still deep, deep down.

So going back to my main question of the last week or so like what’s inspiring to people I can use what happened to me with this virtual kick from Allan to analyze what was the inspiring part, the part that hit me, that touched me, that made me feel inspired, that made me feel like, yes, I need to move, move differently.

I think the most important thing he said to me was “Maybe I’ll try a few more kicks with you, then give up, to focus my time time on people who really will take best action to help themselves and our world”. in that sentence was something like, “I won’t give up on you” and “I’ll give you another chance”. Something else in that sentence that caught my attention was the term “best action” as it made me think that my actions may not be effective. You see, I think the most frustrating thing in my life is that I took a lot of action, did a lot of things, at least during most of my life. And only recently I kind of gave up taking action in a passionate way, as it felt that all my actions had been in vain, even though that’s not reality for all areas of my life. So maybe I took a lot of action, but not the best action possible.

Searching for best action brings me to a lot of action movies and not to best action as I think Allan meant. But maybe he relates to “Next best action marketing”. I’ll check that later and if you’re into business you may also want to check that.

Anyhow, just want you to know that I feel very much inspired with this chat I had with Allan and this is exactly one of the things I had in mind when starting this site: find ways to connect people to inspire each other. As inspiration only through a website or reading in the end is not enough.