Mind the Beginner

It won’t have gone unnoticed by now that my posting frequency has dropped dramatically. There is a high correlation between this phenomenon and the hours I’m spending on my homework. Take this weekend for example, I’ve been working roughly eight hours spread over the last two days trying to solve SQL queries. Problogger warns against this type of post but I’m still going to put it up: I’m sorry for the lack of posts and I must confess I don’t see things lighten up in the next weeks.

So here’s the new plan:

You will get at least one (1) proper post from mere on this blog every week! I’m temporarily backing down a bit. After all, the real world still is just that bit more important than the online world. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s just that I’m working on a sure fire way to have a good income through the 9-5 way. It’s everything we lifestyle designers are against but blogging about it, or blogging in general will never support my life. I have to find better ways, and more importantly, safer ways.

I’ll be more than happy to spend weeks without working, knowing that I can get a very good paying job quickly than linger in the online world kicking against that evil wage slave world while I can’t seem to sustain myself. I’m hoping to set up some sort of side income through the online world, but I don’t (realistically) expect it to ever make me enough money to fuel all my dreams. But that’s okay, I know there are a lot of lifestyle designers out there that make it and earn more than they can spend while traveling all over the world. I’m just not one of them (yet). It’s all because I chose a different path, a traditional one and one that I want to finish before I try all sorts of crazy/insane/brilliant ways of generating a side income.

Seeing as most passive side incomes are generated through internet and I do have a soft spot for this type of income (who doesn’t) it’s not more than natural I will try this in the future. At the same time I’m currently learning all sorts of new computer skills (new to me at least) through university and I expect to be able to do some simple programming within a year from now. That alone will generate an income. Blogging will chip in a bit when I move over to my own domain.

But as things stand, this blog is put on a slow simmer with an occasional proper blogpost. After all I’m still a quality seeker and I’d hate to flood you with all kinds of bad blogposts just so you have something to read.

Actually it’s a trait I’ve been seeing develop on more blogs in this area of the sphere. Less frequent posts but the ones that do come out are good stuff. So my dear reader, that’s what you can expect on this blog the oncoming weeks/months. Less posts but “still kicking ass with a zen twist”

You might have heard of this one. The quarter-life crisis is a phase you go through somewhere in your twenties or as Wiki puts it “a term applied to the period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence, usually ranging from the early twenties to the early thirties.”

It’s a phase where all kinds of insecurities develop. Again, Wikipedia provides us with a nice list I’d like to share:

• feeling “not good enough” because one can’t find a job that is at one’s academic/intellectual level
• frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career
• confusion of identity
• insecurity regarding the near future
• insecurity concerning long-term plans, life goals
• insecurity regarding present accomplishments
• re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
• disappointment with one’s job
• nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life
• tendency to hold stronger opinions
• boredom with social interactions
• loss of closeness to high school and college friends
• financially-rooted stress (overwhelming college loans, unanticipated high cost of living, etc.)
• loneliness
• desire to have children
• a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you

There are a few here I confess suffering from. Although I don’t feel the need to have children I do feel “not good enough”, an underachiever and the sense that everyone is doing better than me. With one foot I’m in the adult life, after all, I’m 26. But on the other hand I’m going back to university this September and hopefully will be busy with that till I’m 30 something. In the mean time all the kids I grew up with are now engineers, run their own practice or are lawyers and have been doing so for a few years now. I feel left behind.

I know there are more people out there suffering from this. After all, there is a term for it right? We feel we missed the train somehow and got left behind.

Advantages of the slow life

But taking things “slow” in this way has offered me with a perspective few other have. I doubt anyone who by the age of 26 is fully tied up in a dayjob and a social life, perhaps even with kids would have a chance to break free from it all. Let’s just say I didn’t get suckered in when I was not fully conscious about it and now am in the position to choose if I take that step and settle down.

Yes there is a downside, my monthly income is laughable to anyone working full time. To anyone working actually… I don’t own a car, all I have is a motorcycle I bought for 200 euro’s and maintain myself. (If you’re wondering what a 200 euro motorcycle looks like, follow this link.) I don’t own a fancy laptop/macbook pro and I don’t run a highly successful business. I do however have a lot of free time on my hands at the moment. I have few obligations and if I want to get up somewhere around noon that’s just fine. Sure, I have gaps in my resume you couldn’t fill with a dumptruck but who cares. That damage has been done already. I’m not successful according to most people, I stopped being that as soon as I decided the first major I took in University wasn’t for me and I dropped out for the rest of the semester. It took me almost six years to complete my training as exercise therapist which should take only four years. Again, failure. (Or look on the bright side: persistence)

Crystal mind

You know what?! I actually don’t care about all that. Yes I suffer from a quarter life crisis but it’s not stopping me. It’s actually my source of strength. The ideas on what I want to do with my life are crystallizing perfectly inside my mind and I have concrete steps I know I have to take to make these things come true. Take that you soon-to-suffer-a-midlife-crisis-former-classmates! You might have that nice job right now and the nice car (did someone say Ferrari?) but I’ve got a life philosophy, I’m writing a bucket list and I’m setting up a freedom business. None of these are signs of success in the traditional sense so I’m also working on that master’s degree to rub in their faces and learning skills I deem essential to become a Location Independent Professional (or LIP for short). The rubbing in is only a nice benefit by the way, I really want to learn those skills.

I’m 26 and I’m ready to take on the world, on my terms!

How do you feel about your life? Please leave a comment, I’d really like to know.

[update 20090611] I just stumbled across a blogpost that seems to fit in nicely with this post “I am a failure – The Biggest lie out there” and I would really like to share with you. Got it through @scottbradley[/update 20090611]