As you might have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much lately. Less than a blogpost a week even, which somehow feels very wrong. The big problem is that I can’t find anything to write about these days. So let me just enlighten you on how life is at the moment. It’s a bit of a chaotic blogpost, which reflects my life at the moment.
Tangible success
I’m writing this blogpost on my laptop, a “new” 3 year old Lenovo thinkpad x61s. A very small laptop with 12 inch screen, the perfect urltraportable. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s a huge deal to me. You see, I’ve payed for this laptop (That cost me $400) with nothing but money that was in my paypal account. That money got there through online incomes, the sometimes called passive incomes a lot of you are trying to set up.
It’s not a lot of money and it took almost a year to accumulate but it was there eventually, and I bought myself a laptop. One of the goals I set myself for this year, and I made it! It’s as big a deal as earning your very first dollar through online sales, this laptop makes that income tangible.
What else is going on? I’m taking Aikido classes every week and although I’m a beginner at that I’ve had extensive training in martial arts throughout my life already. So every week I end up flying though the air (of letting others fly) only to land smoothly on the dojo floor. I missed the sensation of hitting the floor actually! Okay, you get some bruises, intense muscle sores and there are moments I’m almost thinking of cutting off my long hair because it gets in the way but it’s great. T’ai Chi is starting again too. A lot to do on the body development side, it feels great. Next on the list is a new daily routine, I’ve crafted a time table I plan to follow and I’ll share with you soon. A sneak preview: getting up early, meditating twice daily and studying at least 8 hours a day.
A proper job
And how is brain development coming? As you might know I’m a full-time student at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. I’m working to get a bachelors (and masters) in Information science. Hardly what you would expect from someone who is striving to become location independent. But I see it differently.The skills I’m learning here definitely help in becoming independent. If everything goes right it’s a degree that taught me a lot about marketing, users, clients and the digital world, if everything goes wrong I have a degree that’s rare in the job market and so valuable. Either way it means I’m financially secure.
Being around computers (and other geeks) all day has it’s side-effects as well. I’m learning all sorts of things I used to only dream of being able to do. Again, to you might be insignificant, but I still find it amazing that I can connect to my storage disk at Uni from home through an SHH tunnel, edit text using Vim and work my way around linux through the Bash.
What’s more is that the courses I follow teach all these little things about how humans interact, how people are persuaded through texts, how organizations work and how computers work, down to “the smallest parts” level. There even is some attention towards how people interact with websites and other online media.
It is a full time education though and this year is a bit tougher than last. I’m finding myself with less spare time on my hands between everything that is going on.
To fill up even more time and to pay for living expenses I’ve also applied for a simple but very useful job: Helping people with computer problems. Roughly translated it’s called “Student on your doorstep”. By bicycle I visit people who have software or hardware problems and are in dire need of help. I fix the problem while having a social chat and proceed to teach the client a bit about what actually went wrong. It’s a combination of social skills, teaching skills, computer skills and exercise. To top it off it’s extremely flexible and the pay is quite good. In my spare time I sometimes help people with computer-related problems, the only difference now is that it’s payed.
All in I’m very busy, but there is hope: This laptop, this wonderful little machine. I’ve had it for a week now and already I’m feeling a kind of symbiotic relationship with it. It’s getting cared for properly, and in return I get to write and read a lot more.
A quick look at the future
What the future will bring is a bit hard to tell at the moment, but of course I do have some things I really want to do:
- Get back to blogging, the 300 subscribers goal is almost within reach. There was a moment last week that the counter reached over 270. I know you might think it’s wrong to obsess about some number, but to me it’s a clear goal and signal that this blog is growing.
- Continue the 100 items challenge, Earlier today I got rid of another two boxes of books and an old motorcycle helmet I forgot all about. I want to live the minimalist life, and to me that also means getting rid of everything that I don’t use. It’s just a part of minimalism, but it’s a great place to start.
- -Of course there is that online income thing that I’ve been wanting to get to grips with ever since I read the 4HWW back in 2008. I think I’ll re-read it. My biggest problem here is that I don’t dare jump in, afraid that I’ll fail. And if there is one thing that I still can’t stand it’s failing even though I know it’s the only way to learn. Just try to tell my subconscious that every time it has a knee-jerk response to me even thinking about setting up a minisite.
- Get organized, at the moment I don’t feel like I’m completely on top of things and I want that feeling back. It’s dreadful to keep bumping into deadlines you forgot about. Perhaps I’ll just have to go back to pen and paper again, at the moment I’m using google calender, which syncs with my Android phone, you’d say that was a good combination but somehow I don’t like the feeling of having to check a screen every time I need to know something. Last semester I had 6 sheets of paper on my memo board, each sheet represented a month and I wrote down everything on it. Works like a charm actually.
How to live the life
The previous blogpost here actually did hit a nerve with me. (Thanks again Everett) I’m not living the lifestyle I’m blogging about. It’s time to make some serious changes to that. Starting next week I’m going to … I’m going to….
What am I going to do.
How to get from here, to there. There are a lot of if only’s there, if only I gotten started sooner, if only I was a better blogger, if only I knew more about marketing, if only I was more mobile. Well, you get the idea.
What do you think I should do?
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