I don't have to do anything

Say that to yourself the next time your mind goes "I have to..."

Since I've been born, my life was dictated by the things that I was expected to do. The things that I had to do.

That I had to be a good son.
That I had to be a good worker.
That I had to be a good student.
That I had to be a good human being.
That I had to be a good Buddhist.
That I had to be a good friend.
That I had to always be patient and tolerant.
That I had to be realist and know what to expect.
That I had to be a good brother.
That I had to be a good relative.
That I had to be responsible.
That I had to be good to others, regardless of what they did to me.
That I had to choose a good job to earn my living.
That I had to go to school.
That I had to be a good boyfriend.
That I had to be a good husband.
That I had to be...

Should I even start on the many things that I should NOT do?

Those are all good things. We should follow all this, or risk having a society drowned in anarchy. But I've been noticing that all of those "I have to" and all of those "I can't" are usually fueled by what others expect of me.

So one day I asked myself: "Well, why am I doing all this?"

And the answer was... that I was doing that because IF I DIDN'T DO IT... I'D DISAPPOINT SOMEONE. Oh, what would they say if I wasn't a good son/boyfriend/friend? Oh, what would they say about ME... would they say bad things about ME? Will they call me disloyal? A bad friend? A bad son? Will they be disappointed at ME?

For so long, I have been living my life based on these "values" and these "I have to"... but... what do I want to do? What's my feeling towards all this? Before the whole mountain of "I have to" started to make me crawl instead of walk... what did I want to do? WHAT DID I WANT FOR MYSELF?

Did I want to be a programmer?

What were my wildest dreams? The dreams that were drowned because the world would disapprove?

No wonder I usually look at the skies and feel that I'm not doing anything with my life. I was never listening to myself! What do I want? What do I like? Who do I want?

I'm tired of putting myself down in order to please others. In order to just "fit in" with society. In order so everyone I know will think good things about me.

Now nothing makes sense to me anymore. Everythign that I have, they are good things. A career, a good family, good friends.

But what about me? Am I doing all of those thigns for me, or for other people? Am I sick of it? Do I want to go away?

Life has given me many things. I have achieved many things. Ok.

What about inside myself?

This is not about rambling about how the world opressed me and i'm the poor lonely victim. No, it's not about that. It's about me, what do I want? Who do I want to become?

I feel that everything I ever believed in is shaking, trembling... breaking.

Being a good friend. Being a good professional. Being a good son. Being a good person. Hoping to have a good family. Hoping to be a good father.

These are all good thigns. But... how do I feel when I do those? Do I feel good? Is this what I want? Am I doing all of these things, being all of these things, because I WANT TO... or because I'm EXPECTED TO DO IT...?

If it's the second... then, what do I want for myself?

I need a break of everything. I need some time to think.

It is time to do a mental cleaning. What do I want to keep, what do I want to throw away.

Forget all the "have to"'s.

I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING.
I DON'T HAVE TO BE ANYONE.

Unless I WANT to.

So...

What do I want? Not what I have to do. But... what do I want?

Without caring about "what would other people think of me?", I want to answer this question. To be truthful to myself without caring about others.

Why is it OK for me to put me aside, my wants and needs, but it's not OK to put what OTHER people want and need?

Fernando. What do YOU want? What do YOU want to do?

I shall break all of these rules within myself. All of the things that are expected of me.

I want to be myself, doing the things that I like to do, that I want. Feeling my spirit free.

My mind shall find the ways to achieve the things that my spirit wants.

Right now, my spirit is put aside, having to believe and do the things that my mind says it needs.

I don't want to be a good person so that people will applaud me.
I don't want my sons to look up to me.
I don't want to be a hero.

First and foremost, I want to be ME. And slowly achieve all of these things.... because I want to. Because I'm happy to.

Rio for 2016 Olympic Games

Waaaii~~~ Right now it's between Rio and Madrid.

Rio's best pitch is definitely how the olympic games never made to the South American continent, which is true. Madrid claims that it already has over 70% infrastructure still there so it'd be "easy" for it to host the olympic games. Also, after a request from former president of IOC in favor of Madrid, closing it with the whole "I'm near the end of my life" line, it probably bumped the chances for it to host the games.

Give me a break.

This is a world wide event, not to be decided upon the final death wishes of someone. This is about the world coming together and competing in sports, not a favor. Keep the child stories and all that "yes we can" attitude at home. This is not about any single nation. This is not about a touching personal story. This is not about a death wish.

This is about the entire world.

Brazil has a strong pitch - really, how come the games were never hosted in South America? Certainly does not seem fair. The decision is to be made at any time now, but I have a strong feeling Brazil will get it.

I'm not too sure it has the capital and the safety structure to ensure that the players will be safe though. It is afterall, Brazil we're talking about... lol

But I'd be willing to bet that there will be very few, if any, terrorist attempts in Brazil. Come on, we never had that thing happen there... as a leader of a terrorist group put some time back in the only interview he gave...

"Brazil is the only country where neighbours from different religions at war in other countries, live in harmony".

Can't stop the Brazilian fire.

GO RIO~~~ GO RIO~~~ GO RIO~~~~ hahahaha

Coffee is not water

I've just realized that for the past week my water bottle here in the office has been dry. That means I haven't drank a single drip of water - instead, I've been drinking coffee. Now, that can't be good haha!

The day is crazy beautiful, weekend plans are set - going camping with my sweetie and her friends. Nice...

I've just realized last night that my life now is crazy good. Yup, that good :)

I've requested more information on Pennstate's MSIS program and it looks interesting. Once I get more info about the course load I'm planning to apply and start it next year. It will be 39 credits of courses. They say I can finish in 2 to 3 years, but I'm sure that's taking a course load heavier than I can probably do. We'll see. But yup... finally going for my masters! I decided that I've waited too long for the "perfect masters degree" to present itself so I am going for it. Not sure what's next, not sure if it's the best one, but I know this - it is the only program I've read and actually felt excited of being a part of. And I'm going to go with that hunch.

Hopefully when I apply for financial aid, FAFSA people will see my financial situation and cry over my salary and concede me awesome grants. Yep grants, not loans haha. Maybe I can apply for a scholarship based on... my work performance? haha!

Miki has been doing good and is again following me around the house... that's good! I missed having that little devil following me everywhere I went haha... but he lost a lot of weight due to the blockage... so now I've been feeding him closely (he likes when I'm there watching him eat... go figure) so he'll be gaining his weight back little by little. Then he'll get too fat and we'll have to cut some of the food haha!

I've been slacking at going to the gym!!! Haven't gone there in a month! Yikes! Probably even more! No good Ferny!! +_+ in my defense, I have been watchign what I ate... although that 320 calorie muffin I ate last night was probably not a good idea... or that Ruby Tuesdays night... oh crap haha

More good news, The Big Bang theory season 3 is here!!! Tune in CBS (I think it is CBS) Mondays at 9:30 pm to watch it!

A Goal From Long Back - Achieved

I don't know if you remember, but some time earlier this year I had made a commitment to myself that I'd do something new every week. Remember?

Well guess what. IT WORKED! I'm out of the dump I found myself in months ago! I just realized that as I was reading Bum's entry about him not having to do anything on Saturdays (sorry Bum, but we'll do something heh)

Now I always have something going on during the weekends, so many that I often have to push things to the following weekend, and that's just completely awesome. I got to know better two friends who made all of this happen as I was introduced to their friends. You both have become special people in my life and I hope that we can still share many laughters together.

I was looking at pictures taken around Felix and Ana's wedding and I remember telling Fiona that I had lost weight and she had agreed (maybe she was just trying to make me feel better haha) but now I look at them and indeed, I have lost weight! That's great news! Wahoo~! Clearly, not where I want to be at yet, but I shall keep pushing. That reminds me that I have to go to the gym today.

I'm starting to get all hopeful and positive again. I look outside and yes, nothing has changed. But at the same time... everything has changed. You guys know what I'm talking about :)

Alrighty, time to kick my life to the next level. With a prospect of starting a business in my family, all these changes are pointing to a very promising start.

There we go again, Law of Attraction works once more.

Now if I can attract the powerball.... :)

Life makes a turn for the better

I get home and see a piece of paper filled with calculations with big numbers and dollar exchange rates. I look at the numbers and know instantly what happened. I go to Dad and my suspicion turns out to be true: we sold that house! Wohoooo! After many months of back and forth (trust me, it was SUPER stressful) and trips to the Brazilian Consulate, we finally did it. The house is sold, fair and square! Phew! (to my Brazilian friends, chillax, it's not the home in Sao Paulo).

So a big congrats is in place for Dad, who took all upon himself to finalize the deal. At times the stress was so great that I'd worry about his health. Thankfully, he can now sleep better at night.

Until the crazy novel of selling the remaining properties resume. My oh my. However, those should be easier :)

In any case, now that we have the cash, I was tempted to press for the new car since we were already planning on getting rid of the beloved (and very famous) 99 Corolla. However, upon further weighing the options, I believe it'd be in the best interest of our family if we took this chance and opened a business. Opening a business needs capital (duh) and we should take this opportunity and slowly make our break from weekly paychecks.

As Robert Kiyosaki puts, invest in your assets. A car and a house are not assets. Unless you sell cars and flip houses. But at least from my point a view, a car is a big liability, since it requires maintenance costs and it does not make me money.

So I was thinking about some possible investments. Those are fine, but I think we need a more active income. We can't rely on market fluctuations (even if we're talking about a portfolio with high bond exposure) to bank for growth. Also, we can not take the risk of having a portfolio with a high beta. So that puts investments out of the picture. (Unless I win the powerball, then I'll def. invest that thing and just live on the interest hehe)

That leaves us with investing the money into a business. Until now, that seems to be the best alternative. Now unfortunately the sum of money is not extremely big, so we'll have to use it all. Ideal scenario would be to divide the money in 3 parts (not necessarily equal portions) and have them distributed into the following:

1. Business
2. High bond exposure portfolio or MMA
3. Growth oriented porfolio --> filled mainly by maxing out traditional IRA's.

The reason I thought about using IRA's to fund a growth oriented portfolio is that it is money which is not taxed. In a growth portfolio, you are mainly investing in more volatile stock, which can be a mix of midcap stock and international stock and other things that I don' t know of haha.

The more you put in, the more you will gain in case of a market spike. You want your money to go in tax free because you want to maximize the amount of money going in to give you the most growth. Also, in case the market turns bad (which is usually the case now) you'll be losing less money permanently. In a traditional scenario where you'd be using post-tax money, you'd be losing your money as well as a portion that was paid in taxes, which you will never make it up even when the market tuns up again.

Of course, the ideal scenario here is to not have to pay taxes in any investment portfolio. Not sure if it's possible. However, if you're caught in a situation where you have to choose between ONE of them, I'd save the tax free advantage to fuel my growth portfolio. I'm no professional planner so take it with a grain of salt. Actually, with a LOT of salt haha

Now we're looking into business that do not require a high initial investment and a steep learning curve. That rules out the food industry as a whole, I think.

The industry which suits these two key requirements is the services industry. We perform a service at a reasonable cost. This can vary from dry cleaning stores to some sort of home improvement such as hardwood floor installation. The initial cost is considerably smaller than a traditional business and the return is as fast as you can get the job done well.

So another thought I'm having is to install hardwood floors in my home and take pictures and show to family friends who are interested in having the same service performed at their house. We'd all keep our day jobs and have this be a word-of-mouth kind of business. No need to build fancy websites or to do advertisement.

Word of mouth is, as learned in my previous company, the best kind of advertisement you can get.

Now that's an idea.

And to start, in order to keep your status as a member of the LC, you will have to allow us to install hardwood floors in your home. Bwhahahaha :)