COMMENTS
Not very active but I am not very surprised since:
1) Traffic is still too limited
2) Most of My blog posts doesn’t really leave a lot of room to comments, questions
3) I think people prefer to comment on twitter, facebook etc instead of directly on the blog
I am not surprised the Blogger Dilemma reached the top spot since with the proliferation of the blogs more and more people are somehow disappointed and disillusioned from the lower than expected traffic in their blogs. The post brings back on the basics: i.e. creating value. The post in second place very likely had several visitors trying to understand what the blog was about. I have to say I was not surprised of the post in third position since most of my readers seems attracted by topics such retirement, where to live and they are from the U.S.A.
In late November I started the Twitter account linked to this blog and I am having a blast to read all the interesting comments and post of my fellow bloggers out there. In few weeks I was able to reach over 100 followers (20% in my opinion are only real followers). I also opened a Facebook account linked to this blog but I do really think blog + Twitter is enough so far as main communication channel.
WHAT IN 2019
1) Publish every Saturday no matter what 2) Start some experiments in monetizing the blog 3) Extend to other social channel (e.g. Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest) 4) Being published by some media 5) Reach 10K Visitors/mo 20K Visits/mo
While always (trying to) create some value for you.
Do you live in a fantastic place…or in a ugly one (or a so-so if you are lucky)?
Pick one:
Fantastic
So-So
Ugly
Let me set it straight: there are no reasons to live in an ugly place that you hate….not even a So-So one.
No reasons.
No fantastic jobs, schools, family, the dogs…nothing.
No reasons you waste your live in a ugly place.
Keep reading and let’s move to your dream place…
The reasons why most of the people live in horrible places (and you might be one of them) are three (or better two and half)
REASON #1: Their job
Is this what’s stucking you?
Have you ever noticed that most of the jobs are concentrating in horrible and/or super expensive places?
Think about it…wherever you are…think about how many people live in horrible metropolis in the USA, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
I personally visited dozen of these metropolis. People commuting 2-3 hours EVERY DAY, often for a miserable salary, doing a miserable job.
Living in a place where everybody is there only to work, so super expensive, especially the real estate, two-three sometimes five times more expensive than in other beautiful places.
Why is this happening?
Why, excluding some few exceptions, our society cannot offer us a good balance work-life?
Simply speaking because such balance does not exist, unless we create it (!).
If we live in a nice place we will be attracted by the “nice” things of the place (e.g. beaches, mountains, social life. night life etc.) that will drag away time from working…and our society doesn’t want that…correct?
They want to tie us up with a six figures mortgage/students loan for 30 years, two or three expensive cars, credit card debts so we are forced to show up every single day in the office.
Making enough money that we may feel it’s not worth it to leave our job but that are not enough to leave it (I love the way Chazz Palminteri explains it in A Bronx tale).
That’s why if you are in this situation you have to more than ever cut the costs and invest to reach asap financial independence
REASON #2: Because they think it is normal
I do NOT think it’s so NORMAL
Most of people think it is normal to live in an ugly place working 12 hours a day Again the society…go to school…get good grades…get a job…pay your bills…get a 30 years mortgage…die…
Where is the having fun, growing as person, enjoy a sunset, follow a passion, just THINK ?
Open your eyes my friend…wasting your life in a crappy place doing something you hate IS NOT NORMAL
We have only one life and that’s not suffering that we are supposed to spend it.
REASON #2.5: Because of the family
Remember them?
I call this the second and half reason.
Why not the third?
Because it might have sense to live in a so-so place if you were born there and so you find it pleasant (i.e. you don’t know any better). Or maybe your family lives there and the love for them is big enough to forget about the place you live.
Anyhow…watch out and don’t find it as an excuse to justify your inertia.
You know well what you like and what you don’t …don’t make the mistake to live a life in a perennial state of denial. I have seen too many people literally wasting their existence pretending to be happy and sadly dying after a miserable life.
Don’t be one of them.
Let’s take some actions.
So where do you want to live…and why?
In my view the best place should have the following characteristics
Safe
Clean
With accessible and cheap good health care
With amazingly good weather
Cheap
With great food With beautiful scenery
Culturally attractive
With decent balance of business, academic opportunities
Not extremely far from loved ones (family, friends?)
People and foreign language friendly
Though isn’t it?
According to this list few places have all or most of these characteristics.
The whole USA is out, some places in Asia can be ok, same for Central and Latin America, many European places definitively are good candidates.
Wait a second…USA is out!?
Should we all move to Europe, Central and Latin America or Asia (!)
Well…yes…
Listen…I traveled and lived in three different continents and ten different countries …and the answer is YES….
The ol’ USA…the American dream doesn’t make the list…
USA is (or can be) an opportunity…not a destination.
Good to stay there to reach financial independence because the average salaries are higher than the rest of the world and the opportunities abundant…but after you have enough money it’s better you run away from it and very quickly afterward.
Why I say that?
Try to live in the USA without a job and get sick or even with a job and getting SERIOUSLY sick….
No insurance, no health care coverage…you are totally ruined…you might lose everything in a hearth beat for a medical bill and die sad and poor..so no way…bye bye USA at least until the system will be less screwed..
Europe is a great alternative, great food, culture, generally good weather, free and averagely good quality healthcare, cheap flights, relatively short drives to travel within the old continent, mostly secure, great education facilities, very affordable education (free until high school and generally 2-6,000E per year top university (a fraction of the USA one)…with some few exclusions).
Basically a great alternative to that nice beach in Costa Rica (or Mexico, or Thailand, or… you name it) that can be relaxing to recover decades of 9 to 5 cubicle slavery but pretty boring after one week.
Step out from your mental limitations for a moment….the world doesn’t end 20 miles from your home.
Believe me.
There are much better place to live than where you are right now and taking our stuff and leave will be much less traumatic than you think.
Let me tell you my personal case:
after 1 weeks most of your friends and acquaintances will have forgotten you
after 1 months most of your relatives will do the same
after 2-3 months YOU will start doing the same and stop missing your favorite food, church, sport team, bar etc and will replace with new ones
Besides (and this is a big BESIDES) with all technology and social networks (Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, instagram, wechat, messenger, LINE and other dozens) you will be in constant contact with your friends and relatives, even more than when you were at home
(I am not kidding…I have more contacts with my friends thousand of miles away than they have with other friends who live few meters away from them).
So…let’s pick the best place in the world
If you are in your 20’s and close to jump in the workforce please take a minute to reflect
Do you really want to spend the rest of of your life in a cubicle in the same place where you where born?
Don’t.
Just make the jump, take that flight, cut the umbilical cord, try that start up on the other side of the world…don’t look for safety…you will have time to look for safety.
Run away from ugly and boring place Pick the place of your dream and go…even jobless
If you are in your 30’s-40s capitalize on your skills, you will have great potentialities and possibilities to move out, ideally with a great contract. Don’t underestimate yourself, that’s the age you can give your kids a great exposure worldwide, don’t limit them to one place, one city, one country even thought you think your country is the best of the world there is still time to go back there.
I mean Truly happy?
Not the so-so way..the pretty much happy…
Do you feel GREAT? Or well…no bad?
Most people are not happy…just look around.
They complain all day long living in a place they hate doing something they hate, surrounded by people they, in the best case, would like to kill. They live an empty live, no emotions, just a 9-5 to pay the bills and die with a nice fake gold watch on their wrist received from colleagues (who hate them back!).
Back to you: do you have a choice to be happy or miserable?
Yes you do.
I am happy by choice and I can easily show you how you can be as well without winning the lottery.
Let’s assess where you are first…YOU ARE:
Living in a place you hate doing something you hate
If you are here you are in trouble my friend.
But don’t despair…. the two good news are:
Almost all of us at some point were here
It cannot be worst than this (smile)
You can be here for three main reasons:
You are lost and stuck..you simply does not what to do to change your situation.
You know where you are and you also know you must escape from here but for the time being you think it makes sense you stay here because it is an investment for the future (e.g. you are learning something or you are making a huge amount of money)
You are scared to move (you know kids…I will never find another job…the mortgage…the dogs…bla bla) simply throwing away your life.
Living in a place that’s ok doing something you hate
You are a little bit better off here, you might like sometimes the place and maybe your family likes it more than you.
So every morning you drink the poison of a miserable job surrounded by miserable people.
Days in, days out.
Even if this situation on the surface seems a little better than the previous one, this is the most dangerous place to be because you have (or you think you have) something potentially to lose if you want to take the jump and change your life.
That’s the category where I estimate 80% of people fall especially people who decide to stay in their hometown or Country (the infamous comfort zone) to compromise with a crappy lifestyle
You don’t wanna be here my friend, believe me.
Living in a dream place doing something you hate
A rare category.
Usually in a dream place it’s difficult to do something that you really hate just because the only fact that you live in a paradise makes everything look better.
I guess that someone at minimum wage in Honolulu is more happy than the same folk in a suburb of Chicago or Detroit in February, right?
Besides, usually in a dream place the nice jobs are not abundant, have you ever noticed that most of the jobs are concentrated in ugly and expensive places? (maybe because otherwise people have fun instead of working!)
I guess 1% of people fall in this category that can be even more insidious of the previous one (you really want to quit your job in sunny San Diego even though it pays 8$/h and you starve?)
You don’t want to fall here either because…. you want to be in the next one:
Living in a dream place doing something you love
That’s where I want to bring you and your ultimate goal.
To achieve this you need:
Financial independence
or
Doing something you really love
Honestly…I disagree with the mantra of “Do what you really love and money will come” that is in every motivational book, blogs, social etc.
While I do believe that in the same job you can make more money if you like what you are doing, I don’t believe that simple following the passions will translate in financial independence.
I know hundreds of teachers, philosophers, artist of different genre, average athletes who literally starve because their job is not paying them enough.
Following your painting passion will not make you next Pablo Picasso nor studying philosophy the next Socrates, nor playing guitar the new Jimy Hendrix.
And be sure you have talent at it, passion is not enough…you must be exceptionally good.
Watch out my fellow reader…it’s more complex than how the hundreds of motivational books want you to believe.
You MUST be sure you have all three attributes below:
Do something that you love
Where you have an exceptional talent
Where the money are
If you are lucky enough to love an engineering or software job and be good at it there are good chances that you will get some serious cash.
If you love being a teacher you might be happy with your job but be realistic on your earning expectation, there will be low…unless you are a teacher in a top university (exceptional talent & money).
Last but not least: doing something you love as a job can quickly turn you passion in hate.
I like the colorful way MJ DeMarco put it in his 11-poverty-traps.
Let the solved problem guide you. After you put your solution to market, what does the market echo back to you? Assess. Adjust. Act. Rinse. Repeat. As for this entire process, it should be fueled by your internal passion for freedom, autonomy, achievement, or whatever else motivates you — the manner of the work is a by-product of those passions. As Marc Cuban says, to hell with follow your passion — follow your effort. Of course, WTF does Marc Cuban know — he’s a billionaire and your broke-blogger-buddy (the one who says “do what you love”) rakes in $353/mo arbitraging Adsense, yea, keep listening to him. In other words, what does the market WANT AND WILL PAY FOR?
I indeed met people turning their cooking passion in opening a restaurant or becoming a chef and now they simply hate cooking and they are doing it now only because of money, it became their job.
They had to sacrifice the creativity of cooking to meet the margin goals of their business restaurant…cutting corners, cooking fast for hundreds of people with cost effective ingredients vs taking a whole afternoon to cook for a family of three.
Or people with the passion of photography who now every day shoots hundreds of vacation memory pictures daily of families sunburned in a resort with the background of a fake pirate ship.
Far from the dream of becoming the next Robert Capa right…?
The Takeaways?
Remember the ultimate goal is happiness, freedom, family and health.
IF you are stuck in a job you hate you cannot be happy no matter how you pretend to be and you are not free.
IF you are able to free up 8-10 hours a day from that job you are getting back your live so you must be happy.
IF you do something that you love you are happy, free and healthy.
So…again…our primary goal is
Financial Independence
TO
be free from jobs you hate
be able to do what we really love
leave in a dream place
If you are reading this blog you are stuck in point 1…let’s move together to point 2…and 3…
