Finding yourself

I read Po Bronson's famed book on finding your passion and I often recommend it to people. It doesn't solve anything or attempt to give you the answers which is the brilliant thing about the book. It is simply a way to connect w/ others on this planet and feel you are not alone in your search.

Now this may not help you find yourself and your career though, but it at least lets you realize its common to struggle w/ your goals in life. In this regard being married having a baby, etc is easier because sure, while you sit at midnight while the family is sleeping and ponder what else you could have done w/ your life, you really don't have a choice. My old manager said this too.. that even at his level he doesn't really have many choices, he goes where the family needs to, where the job takes you, etc.

Its only people like me who are truly free. But freedom comes at a price of being lonely. Not in a sad pathetic way, but in a zen kind of way, because to be truly free you cannot have things holding you back and limiting your freedom.

Anyways the actual topic was around him keeping w/ the bank job, or going to start a business in some sense. I said for me, I'm a corporate man. I'm better just sitting back collecting a paycheck and taking my 4 weeks vacation a year. I think it all depends.. if you are making $50k/yr then yes you should take a shot at starting something. At $250k a year, one would have to think hard at what you can do to make the same money w/ little risk and less stress.

Tonight I will try to sleep and start the week fresh.

Next steps

For now I have a few goals.

1) Get promoted, get to next level of career path
2) Save a bit of money / invest
3) Enjoy life find new passions
4) Stay healthy, get healthier.
5) Find new girl

I think thats the order I will try to do it in.

Let me review this list in a few weeks and see how i'm progressing.... there is another 6 months till promotion cycle so I need to focus. God damn.. work is tough.

The Magnum of Love's Destination

I consider myself fortunate -- I've been through various types of relationships.

Yep, I've been in the boring and simple, the naughty and difficult, and etc etc. While I am happy to be have been fortunate to explore these lives I can say I am not sure now if settling down is right. Things change all the time.. can I really be happy forever w/ someone, esp given the ugly side of people I've seen in my past few relationships? Well.. maybe I'll meet a less selfish and more giving type of person. But in Tokyo.. I have my doubts.

One thing I was talking to Gae-Ho about is how he has such a simple lifestyle. He lives in his small apartment w/ his new wife and while they could upgrade and buy a house or bigger apt, they choose to live simple because it gives them the ability to travel and do other things rather than just worry about mortgage/rent. Well done.

I must say I'm the opposite. I'm creating an environment for myself that is getting more and more frivilous and expensive as the years progress. Lets see my rent is like over $4,000 a months now, I started hiring a bi-weekly cleaning lady ($60 per visit), and am thinking of weekly tennis lessons which are about $90.

I need to recalibrate my life oneday. I'm like 36 now. Holy shit. To some this is the primetime of life. To me, it could be, but I gotta get into shape or something to really enjoy it. Been working non-stop recently and its killing me.

Failure

Damn, i had an interview 3rd round at this bank.. and I failed ! I actually did pretty well in the end.. so my theory is.. i misplayed it a bit. Its actually a slight step down for me anyways, so i guess if I wanted it, I needed to downplay the management tasks I have and play up the hands on hardcore developer/architect portion. My strategy was to play both and hope they will be okay with (a) paying me alot, (b) maybe revising the role to fit me (ie, bigger role), rather than have me move a bit down.

In the end, I'm not sure if that was wise or what. I do realize though if you move up the chain.. then the opportunities are less and less. If you are a developer you are generic but in high demand because a project needs just 1 architect or lead, but maybe 5 developers. The sole proj manage/lead/architect can scale bigger as well, but you can never have enough good developers.

It makes me wonder if I should stay super technical or not. Life as a simple engineer is maybe happiest.

I kind of like management in the sense that its leadership but you don't actually do anything. You just set the plan and make decisions. I'm getting better at decision making. I'm also getting better at being strict about deliverables. My hawaii attitude makes it such that I am "whatever goes" and that doesn't make my managers and user happy.

Back Online.

I gotta end this blog soon... i think.

I looked at my financial picture. I am now at about the same net asset value as september 2007. So 2 years were lost. If I didn't take an enourmous hit on a few bad trades I guess I would be in pretty damn good shape financially since the market didn't recover those loses, I put money in from saving! Instead I'm doing OK financially.

I guess not quitting is a good idea. I must milk this cash cow until the bitter end. 2-3 more years of this and maybe I can break the next plateau.

But in the end, is money important? It wasn't, so I was blowing cash fast. But now I think it is important again. Funny when I was gonna marry someone with virtually $0 to their name it didn't matter much maybe I was blinded? but I still don't think it matters that much because in the end if you are compatible you would have the same ideas on life and money shouldn't be an issue.

My Next Move

Its amazing I was able to keep my work going during my months of trauma w/ the ex-gf.

Now I am a bit more focused and suddenly I have like 10 people on this project I am in charge of. I can barely keep above water now, I dont know how I did it before. So I guess I should focus, right now my project people are not working directly for me, but it is a step towards managing my own team. Right now though managing 10 fricking people in different regions on a project is way more work than managing a team of 3 which is what I would prefer to do.

Anyways I think back to the ex-gf Miss Korea at times. Was it clear from the start that it was trouble? I think so.. lack of reasonableness and ability to compromise and discuss things. Some things she didnt like and that was final, she didnt like it. I think I tried too hard to smooth things over because I never had an unreasonable gf before. But in the end, some people cannot be reasoned with, and that problem never goes away. Another obvious sign is her poor relationship with her parents.

The good things were that I thought she was adorable, good cook, clean, and yes she was a porn star in bed. I think the adorable and porn-star qualitities are dangerous ones to bank a relationship on. People all get old and lose cuteness. Peoples sexual drives also change. What you can rely on is their good nature, good values, and family upbringing.

Anyways I will clearly seperate the LT potential from the trash going forward. Will try not to mess w/ the trash, but I am in a trashy town so its hard to sort it out.

This is Saturday. I gotta go get a new cell phone! Wooo... shop your way to happiness?? There was an article on how trauma/stress incites more spending on lavish items. I maybe will buy a $10,000 rolex next.