December 2007

It was a glorious day in Sydney yesterday.

But instead of a smile on my face, as I looked at the Harbour Bridge I was blinking through tears.

On to a glorious 2008.

Well, the US Primaries are starting in just a few days now. It’s an interesting race when both sides are selecting candidates in the Primaries. The Republican field is still split so wide open that noone can have a good guess as to who would win it.

On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton will probably win in a canter for mine. Much has been made of the recent rise of Obama but the tendency of people go to with safety over unpredictability should see Clinton win the nomination.

Obama’s campaign, one would say, is much more about 2012 or 2016 than it is 2008. Obama’s the kind of politician that people will side with more and more as people become jaded with politics.

If Bill Clinton’s administration is anything to go by, Hillary’s will be repeatedly rocked by scandal. Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to believe in anything besides the idea that she should be President. She’s the least principled of the Democrats. On the Republican side this title falls to Giuliani and possibly Romney.

In the Democrat primary I would vote for Obama.

In the Republican primary I would vote for Ron Paul.

If I had to choose between Obama and Paul I would choose Ron Paul 10/10 times. I have been looking at a lot of his campaign over the past few days and he’s an extraordinarily different man to your average politician.

You get the sense that it’s not about him at all, it’s completely about his beliefs and his desire to do the best for the United States. He’s a Libertarian who believes that the IRS should be abolished.

I agree with him on some points - such as the IRS - but not on others, such as Iraq, although I most certainly respect his arguments vis-a-vis the Middle East because they have solid foundations.

He’s been an absolute sensation on the internet and I finally decided to watch one of his YouTube videos the other day and kept on watching for about 3 hours. He has a certain kind of charisma, but he also - at the age of 72 - comes across as a bit of a doddering old fogey on other occasions. He needs to improve certain areas such as directly answering the question from the interviewer and avoiding going off on tangential rants as he does basically every time a question is posed to him.

He has a pretty attractive political philosophy which includes Right-To-Life beliefs - quite uncommon amongst Libertarians. Although he’s polling single digits for the Primaries he will hopefully have an influence on the Republican discourse - like the Liberals, they have lost their way.

If he manages to bring up a protege with the same beliefs but who is younger and better at answering the questions in a direct and concise manner, I think his beliefs have a chance of catching on.

Well tonight I got what’s known as ‘the interrogation’ and it showed that I really need to be able express my future plans and ambitions with some more cogency than I am currently able to do.

To other people my vision of the future looks messy, insecure, unprepared and not very well thought through. The way I see it is obviously different, but when I am asked the question “what are your goals?” I haven’t even had a ready response !

I see my future to be like a cake that has four layers. Each layer is about supporting and propelling me to something higher. I might do several things at one time - as I am now - to try and support my march towards several different goals. This is just a case of building a foundation now for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years into the future. This is a case of having a vision for my life and building the foundations of a tall building.

1. First layer : work.

I currently work for V-Line. Work is something that very few people want to do but most have to do. I am willing to work hard to break out of the cycle and try to live a life without regrets. I can’t do that without taking risks! And risks are by nature risky. There’s no way to get around that fact. Pretty much every successful person - well, successful in my view - in history has at one point swum against the current of common sense. Common sense leads to mediocrity - no-one ever did anything great trying to fit in!

In any case, I feel like I have succeeded enough at work to know that I am safe there. The promotion that I have turned down many times is worth $85k per year, with 4 weeks annual leave every 9 months, and 11 days additional paid leave per year, redeemable on application, and 15 paid sick days. Sounds like a good job, right?

Even if I couldn’t come back to that, I could become a Police Officer, an Air Traffic Controller, a Sheriff at the DoJ and any other assortment of well-paying government jobs that do not require tertiary study. Or maybe a Travel Agent. And get this - those are the kinds of jobs I would actually want to do. There’s not one job in life which tertiary study specifically qualifies you for that I want to do. Given secure employment in government is such a push-over to receive, I don’t think that a university degree delivers any extra security.

Layer 2 - Business

Jonk’s Bargains is the one that people know about. The shirts as well. What people don’t know is that in October I came so, SO close to quitting my job because I was actually making enough money to live off. Natalie doesn’t even know this, I nearly told her and then Google smashed this website and Jonk’s Bargains and it all came to nothing.

The lesson I learned from this is I have what it takes to make money, but I need to diversify my activities to ensure ongoing security. Because if you’re working for yourself, you need to have a plan if you’re relying on a ranking from Google for your income.

I could actually quit my job today and just get by but I want to save for Spain. And I don’t make nearly enough money through the internet to have a good lifestyle OR save for Spain.

Whatever the case, I have the skills and ingenuity - no doubt in my mind - to succeed on my own. Now, once I am able to support myself properly, I can move to the next level.

A couple of thoughts about business:
1. The actual failure rate of business is much lower than the oft-quoted 80% within 5 years. This is actually made up and not based on any genuine studies.
2. Even if it was 80% how could that possibly be a bad thing! How many people today will be doing exactly the same job in 5 years as they are doing now? 10%? 20%? So that does that mean their failure rate is 90%? 80%?
3. The rewards of business are much, much greater than the rewards of full-time employment. I’m talking mainly about personal satisfaction but money also helps. The number one employee in Australia today is not even in the top 100 income earners in Australia. Think about that. The number one income-earning employee in Australia today - Sol Trujillo - will not be making as much money as the top 100 people in Australia yet the number of people who are employees far outweighs the number of people who employ !! (By a ratio of more than 20:1!)
4. If I succeed ‘only’ 20% of the time that means statistically I need 5 attempts to become successful in my own right. I’ve already passed attempt #1!

3. Missions/community/charity work

If I had my way, this would be Search316 without a shadow of a doubt.

Even the best made plans get laid waste so we’ll see on this front. I have a couple of other things in this area I have never told anyone. This is a thing more for the future but I really do hope that people latch on to the vision of Search316.

Level 4 - Politics.

This doesn’t necessarily require level 3 but my plan is to achieve something so strong in the community via Level 3 that this then propels me into politics as someone who is credible as caring for society in a genuine way.

Politically what I want to do may not be feasible. What I WANT to be is a cross-bench member of the Senate representing my own self or a small-government-type party. What’s more feasible is entering through the Liberal Party into the Victorian State Parliament.

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So those are the layers. If I do not make it to level 4 that is ok. Because I have levels 1, 2, 3. If I do not succeed in level 3 that is ok, because I have levels 1, 2. Etc.

Learning Spanish won’t just be a wonderful thing to do - people view the learning of non-native language as a significant indicator of intelligence.

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I could fail at everything. But failure doesn’t bother me because I have failed before and I have learned so much from it that I am even more willing to take the chance of failure again until I reach life’s rewards. Another reason is doesn’t bother me is it’s that easy to get a job to support yourself.

Trying and failing is ok.

But not even trying…? How could I live with myself. How could I look into the eyes of my children and tell them they can do anything they want when I chose not to….

That’s not the life I want.