But I don't WANT a job!
A very good friend of the family, who lives somewhere in the Phoenix metropolis (I forget which exact city) is up to his old tricks and trying to get me to partner with him on business endeavors.
He's a Filipino-American who also served several years in the military. He served in the army while I was in the marines. In fact, he was stationed about 20 miles from my last duty station and I didn't even know it until after I retired. I am a ninong (godfather) to one of his daughters (maybe two, but I forget and would have to ask my wife to verify it). His name is Paul and he's originally from Cebu City, Philippines.
I haven't been avoiding Paul for the last year, but I haven't been making an effort to stay in touch either. My wife called his wife yesterday, for various reasons, and Paul just happened to be at home and wanted to talk to me. I feigned that I was extremely busy and told him he could IM me if he wanted to, which he did later.
I've been tied up for hours chatting with him by IM. Paul is the quintessential entrepreneur, getting involved in ventures that will make him both direct and passive income. He works from home now, raising his youngest daughter. He tried to sell me on the idea of a US/Philippines partnership because he wanted someone he could trust. This is what he said:
"You're already in the Philippines. You're a reliable person. There's a lot
of services that you can provide because you are there. The problem is how
to get customers and I'll take care of that.Are you turning down money?"
I responded with something like "I'm not turning down money, I'm turning down work." I explained that if I wanted to work, I would have remained in the US. I had a very good, well-paying job that I gave up just before the sale of my house was completed. I further explained that I have a full-time job now and it's called blogging. It's not really a job and it's not really work, but it IS very time consuming.
He hasn't been to the blog yet — I haven't given him the URL. I figure if I get popular enough with people we mutually know, he'll find it on his own. Not only that, but he hasn't asked for it yet!
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dude, the guys name is Paul. Do you need much more to NOT trust him with even a dollar?
Hehe… the money has NOTHING to do with it.
Work is overrated. I work full time, run a business and play in a band. At times I wish I didn't have to do any of them!
Hope you won't mind a counter-opinion. I'm actually surprised that
somebody who is as young as you are are actually retired. I know you
love blogging, but how long can you stay before the tube?
I personally hope that you get an interesting career and continue
contributing your skills outside blogging as well. It's too early to
retire and I hope you'll have more interesting experiences in your
life. Undoubtedly you are such a talented person as I know from your
writings – I think you shouldn't waste them in retirement or
semi-retirement writing a blog full-time. Yes, blogging is wonderful,
but I think there's life out there to be experienced. I am a lot
younger than you are, but I thought I should share my thoughts on
this.
I appreciate your thoughts, Hari, but I'm at a disadvantage here in the Philippines. Anything other than manual labor has severe age discrimination in place and it's not illegal here. To get a good job, two things are required: 1) A college degree and 2) You have be 35 years of age or less.
My options in this country are extremely limited. I have two brothers-in-law and a sister-in-law's husband that can't get any work but manual labor when it's available because they're all over 35. Even if I had a degree, my own age would stop me.
The only work I can get is to work for myself as an independent entrepreneur. The partnership with Paul, who I mentioned in the article, is not that at all. I can't go into detail, but I have to make sure you understand that I'm not in this position 100 percent by choice.
Yeah, I understand that circumstances play a role there. Anyway, the situation needn't be the same say 5 or 6 years from now.
Anyway, the best thing is to enjoy life while you can, and if you're doing that at the moment, then that's the most important thing.
You're right again. The day will come when I'll find something that I'll enjoy doing more than this. It happened before so it will definitely happen again.
[...] thoughts about blogging, to his thoughts on Piracy made me wanna read more of his blog post, which is conveniently ordered [...]
The concept of being a Full time Blogger is hard to understand for most people. Blogging is not considered a "Regular job". I am happy that you are happy with what you do. I am trying to make a shift from being a full time employee to self employed. Thanks for the story.
One of the most frustrating things about being heavily involved in the internet industry is that friends and family are constantly bombarding you with business ideas that you just "can't pass up." It gets really old after a while.