It’s all about the money, money, money

“It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.” – Albert Camus

Imagine this: having enough money that you do not even need to go to work for the rest of your life. Enough but not necessary rolling in piles of money. No need for savings and all the bills are taken care of. How would you spend it? And more importantly, how are you gonna spend your time now that you are free from the usual 9 to 5?

Growing up from a middle-class background (at least in our country’s standards), our parents worked hard to provide for us. We did not have much but we never did go hungry and we did the get the best education our parents could afford for us at that time. We had conveniences that some could not afford while others have the advantages we are not so fortunate enough of but we did get by regardless.

And with that, if I would be given the opportunity of not having to worry about money. I would like to…

• Spend my time by being hands-on in raising my daughter (solo parenting is hard especially when you are a man). Being a father is what I have been working on ever since I became one and it is only proper to spend the majority of my time to be one.
• Taking care of my mother, I owe her a huge debt of gratitude simply by raising me the way she did.
• I wanted to take care of our house, and how our house operates.

Aside from that:

• I wanted to make some investments and let the money do the working for me. Because you will never know when enough is enough until you needed it and life is pretty much a series of unexpected events so I choose to prepare for it.
• The rest of my time, I wanted to spend by learning. I wanted to learn to cook formally, I do love cooking and it gives me pleasure in cooking for myself and to others.
• I would love to learn about first aid and marksmanship, I would like to spend time in the mountains and just test myself. I wanted to learn judo, I wanted to train again in boxing and Brazilian jujitsu. I wanted to do weight lifting consistently.
• I want to collect books, lots of books and have a small library.
• I want to have nice shoes, nice clothes, a nice watch, maybe a nice perfume and just feel good about myself…

Writing this made me realize what kind of a man I am, and what my priorities are. I wanted to be my best self, the best father and the best son I could be. This made me realize what my aspirations are, what I wanted for myself. It also revealed to me my character and made me realize the steps I needed to get take to get there.

Maybe I will never have the chance of having enough to stop working, maybe some of us were meant to keep on grinding. But maybe I could not let that stop me from forging the life I wanted for myself, taking care of business, learning, growing and acquiring. Making good with what I currently have, and still have the best life I could possibly make.

If only money and time is never a problem…

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TMI Tuesday #8

1. If you had three wishes that would come true, what would they be?

• A bank account that never runs out of money, so I’ll only worry myself to the things that money won’t solve
• A body that never gets old and never gets tired, because I’m still fond of doing things despite having a bank account that never runs out
• To be able to perfectly tell the world’s greatest joke that no one gets ever tired of, and guarantees to make anyone laugh

2. What are your favorite things to spend money on?

Shoes, books, food, and to spend those moments with my favorite people

3. If you could write a song about your life, what type of music would you use?

Hardcore, or epic death/black metal

4. If you could choose your partner again, would you choose the same person?

Why the hell won’t I?

5. When it comes to discussing your sex life, who do you confide in more than anyone else?

To that someone, I’m having sex with

Bonus: What’s your definition of cheating? Is there really such a thing?

Cheating for me will be that one thing that breaks some bodies trust for whatever selfish reason be.

When life is hard you have to change

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain

Change… Why am I so afraid of change? Why do I so desperately cling to the familiar? Why am I so afraid of the failure and suffering that change is about to bring me? What makes change for me so difficult? Have I so overly optimized the way I live that even the slightest deviation threatens my stability?

I recently let go of my day job to chase a dream. The last fragment that ties me to my life almost 10 years ago. A new chapter to start again.

But change is not easy, change is hard. I do not know if I will find success. All I know is that change is inevitable, change requires courage. Change requires effort, small yet relentless effort each day. But what I did not realize before is that in order to go big, I have to go small. It is often the small things we do that leads to change.

I wanted to broaden my network, so started by trying to make one each day or nurturing an existing one each day. I want to read more books, so I tried reading an additional page each day. I started making little efforts here and there every day and hopefully make change a habit. I develop routine/schedules in hopes to familiarize myself to the unfamiliar. I give things I normally do not like a try and hope to surprise myself. I try to step just outside my comfort zone and just lean beyond my edge. I tried and still am trying but no matter what, I try not to stop.

I know it’s hard, I know it will knock me down more often than the number of times I can get up. I know that it will break me… But I always try to remember that those who have lived significant lives are those who suffered much in this life. And those who succeeded are those who lived their lives courageously amidst all the hurt and failures.

Fortune favors the bold and those who dared, and it matters not if my knees are shaking standing as long as I stood. It matters not if my voice trembles when I speak as long as you spoke. And it’s more admirable for a man to be courageous when he knows he might lose than to be confident when

he knows he will not lose.

TMI Tuesday #7

1. What is the most annoying thing to you during foreplay or sex?

When you’ve both gotten your hands dirty yet the other party still acts like a princess (acting like she’s too good for you).

2. Tell us something you really wanted to do but let someone talk you out of when deep down you wanted to do it?

That someone would always be me. I always do check myself before anything else and avoid acting out on impulses.

3. During sex are you more orgasm-centered or going for an all out enjoyable experience with the connection?

Orgasm centered, typical male brain here…

4. When was the last time you sought to introduce new activities in the bedroom? What did you want to introduce? Did you and your lover do the new sexual activity?

Last night I guess. I tried to open up my fantasy about her trying to flirt with other guys, but we just talked about it and I’ve decided its still too early for the relationship.

5. Finish the sentence: I would enjoy spending an entire day alone.

Reading, writing, cooking and eating.

Bonus: If you had to sum up the internet in one word, what would it be?

Entertaining!

Leave of absence

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.” – Paolo Coelho

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written something and a lot has changed since then. The last few months have been overwhelming that made me reevaluate and put certain aspects of my life into perspective. I’ve ran into some difficulties that demand my attention and a firm resolve, hence my lack of writing as of late.

The last few months have been really challenging. I’ve encountered some difficulties with social services, family concerns, raising a child on my own and to finally quitting my job.

You read it right, folks. I finally got the courage to quit the daily 8-5 grind (on my side of the globe) and pursue my passion for cooking. Cooking has always been a great passion of mine, a great source of fulfillment. So with the support of some friends, I decided to invest the little savings I have to pursue my dream of opening up a small cafe.

I’ve always thought of the kitchen as a man’s domain and cooking has always been a manly trait in my opinion. The sense of pride I feel whenever someone has taken a liking to my cooking, the primal feeling of cooking through an open fire has always been an exhilarating experience as well as rewarding.

Quitting my job, have been filled with many uncertainties and I’ll admit that I’m very anxious right now. But the situation requires me to have courage and be open to all possibilities, to take risks and believe even when a very only few does, to realize what matters most, and follow my dream.

Dreams are meant to be followed and fear is your heart’s way of telling you it doesn’t want to suffer. But we must have the courage to tell our hearts to have faith and the resolve to move forward, that we cannot allow our situations to weaken us… To find our place among the stars.

The age of convenience

“Fire tests gold, suffering tests brave men.” – Seneca

First off, let me start with a little disclaimer. The things I’m about to say may offend some, but this is just my opinions and my recent reflections in life. I will not say that I totally abhor convenience, money, and technology, but to rather point out how absurd our reliance to conveniences, the lengths we go through for money and on how most men abandon their virtues for the pursuit of conveniences and money. I totally enjoy Netflix and writing in the wonderful world of WordPress as a matter of fact and I totally needed money to fund my house renovation project, so please don’t hate =)

From high-speed internet to a device that folds our laundry for us, it’s almost on a daily basis that someone breaks new grounds in terms of our technological advancements. Somewhere in someone’s basement, somebody is tinkering on something to revolutionize our way of living. To make it easier, more convenient… Or is it?

A week ago, I witness a very heated exchange between my younger brother and our youngest sister. I watched how our sister berated my brother about his wife and children just because he owes her… money.

My brother borrowed money from our sister to fund his small motorcycle garage because it was more convenient than getting a loan from somebody else. As the business grew so as their resentment toward each other, with our sister often clashing my brother’s wife.

The incident forced me to reevaluate a man’s role in a world of convenience. The age where a man’s gift is looked down on and only called upon and appreciated when needed. Even men forsake their own manhood and virtues because it’s no longer convenient.

The age of convenience favors those who can afford it and to afford the world of conveniences you need to make money, lots of money. The more money you have the more conveniences you can afford and the more conveniences you can afford gives you more time to make more money. But convenience always comes with a price…

The age of convenience makes very little room for a man and his gifts. His strength, his resilience, his courage and his other gifts are no longer needed in this age when we have the technology for just about anything. Even to the conception and raising of a child, a woman can simply get a donor and make more money to make it more convenient. A life of a man is expendable (sigh)…

The world has become so convenient that even a man’s true virtues are no longer required, making most men abandon the pursuit of their own virtue. But what if… one day, the world loses all of its conveniences. What if there’s no hot water, no high-speed internet, no fast food restaurants, no roofs above our head? What if money has lost its value? What if all we’ve gotten good at is earning money and loaning ourselves to afford those fancy gadgets and other latest conveniences, technology has to offer? What if the world needed men, our strength, our courage, our willingness to do the dirty work?

I guess what I’m trying to convey in this post is that people, especially men shouldn’t abandon their virtues just because it is no longer convenient. Do it not for the world but to themselves and by that, in my opinion, would make the world a better place, not with its conveniences. How I wish it would be convenient for me to earn money just by writing, but the reality is I’m not a great writer yet still I write. I write for wisdom, for that connection I share with those who read my writing, I write for something that I could be proud of.

Bits and pieces…

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