Jennie S. Bev

It is the most wonderful time

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. Yes, it really is. Love Christmases, especially this year's.

2010: Year of Discipline and Playing Hard

I need to play really hard as I've been a bit stressed out this year. So I have decided to visit my faraway relatives and friends in 2010. I'll start with Portland, Oregon in January for a birthday party. Next, I'll be visiting Jakarta, Bali, London, Paris, Italy, and Australia. I'll visit NYC several times for conferences as well.

Party, party, party... Yeah, my life is a series of parties. I just work in between parties whenever there is time left. No more schooling in 2010, but I'll speed up with my GRE so it hits 1400. Getting ready to apply to a few good schools to make my mommy proud.

My life is just a big fat party. A party girl? You betcha. That's why I need all those glamorous gowns. Yay. :)

That's What Friends Are For

Discipline

The most successful people are the most disciplined. And writing is the most disciplined form of thinking. If you're a writer, at some level, you must be quite disciplined. 

I'm reading Cal Newport's How to Become a Straight-A Student. Well, I have been quite an A-student myself and I think it doesn't hurt to learn from fellow nerds. Perhaps I can write a similar book about my learning experiences or I can even apply those tips and strategies in the future. Perhaps one doc isn't enough. :)

Thanksgiving

Estates in San Ramon

(Images by NorrisCanyonEstates.com)

On Sunday, I went to Norris Canyon Estates gated community in San Ramon, California and was captured by its breathtaking hilly landscape. So close to urban amenities, including 30 miles from San Francisco, a stone's throw to Dublin and Pleasanton, and another 20-30 minutes to my existing home in Mountain House.

I loved the quality of the properties as well. Very well designed community and totally exclusive with security guards in  front of the gate. Manicured lawns and "living at the top" kind of feeling.

What a place for full-time retirement in 4-5 more years. Well, in such a beautiful setting, I should be able to write better books and columns. Perhaps a Nobel prize in literature is way out of my league, but a few best-selling books without much literary content should be doable. :)

 
(The Santa Barbara style I loved.)

Life quality

Should we bother too much about GDP? What about GNH and GPI? I believe in quality of life, but I also believe in the purchasing power of money, so all those three make sense except for some underlying paradigm that I won't be discussing here (it should reserved for an academic paper or a newspaper article).

It is probably too naive to think that we can have good quality of life with minimal amount of monetary reserve. Poverty cannot breed happiness, but so can't richness. And "wealth" is something else, which is a combination of many variables.

Personally, I believe in high reserve by being fiscally conservative and I also believe in overall quality of life, which oftentimes involve monetary expenses, such as "buying" the peace of mind of being healthy and taken care of.

I guess that's the underlying reason why I have chosen the path as an entrepreneur-writer (an eco-friendly one) instead of something else.

Humility or being comfy?

An Indonesian adage says that the higher we climb, the more humble we become. (Padi semakin berisi, semakin merunduk.) This contradicts the western concept of confidence: just be yourself and be comfortable.

At this point in life, I just be myself and be the most comfortable of myself. Sometimes some people think I'm overconfident or even arrogant. Others think I underestimate myself too much. Some people think I'm too successful, other say I'm not yet fulfilling my destiny to be a "great great" person.

Interesting comments. I notice that such comments come from people with different personality types (perhaps I'm just rationalizing here).

Should I bother? Well, I think about those comments and asked myself, "Am I really?" But then I said to myself, "Well, what I think about myself is more important than what people think about me."

Happy halloween everybody, I haven't bought extra candies. :)

Independence

Independence comes from literacy and abundance in these areas:

• Intellectual (reasoning skills)
• Legal (awareness of principles of laws and regulations)
• Financial (awareness of monetary and business policies and personal finance)
• Residential (where you live determines many things, including level of freedom)

This explains why I keep polishing skills in these areas. With abundance, we can live more meaningfully and more courageously. And these can be achieved with a strong belief of "yes, I can, I will, and I am."

Between ability and passion

I have no intellectual ambition, meaning I don't have the urge to be acknowledged as a top-notch "intellectual." I write things that matter to me simply out of passion and joy, which explain why the topics are varied. Clever ones and silly ones.

Sometimes it sparks a dilemma nonetheless: should I pursue something because I can or because of it is what I want? I hope I'm not disappointing my mother by choosing what I enjoy doing instead. 

I try to be conscientious, be aware of sources of suffering and pain, but still live to the fullest with happiness and joy. Thank you for being happy for me. Even though I might not reach my fullest potentials intellectually, as long as I'm happy.

C'est la vie.

[Note: I read somewhere that following one's ambition to be acknowledged as the smartest is following the so-called "ego." I'm learning to kill my "ego" by doing small and overlooked things. It's the intensity of doing small things that matter. Mother Teresa said, "We can't do great things, we can only do small things with great love."]

Home and diaspora

Perhaps I'm destined to have several homes. One at heart, one in mind, and one high above somewhere in the clouds. I have a home and a couple more. But I have a closer one.

One inside.

My home is wherever I'm at peace with myself and the world. And wherever I find The Greater Self.

One somewhere. Where love is.

Blessing of losing

Losing can be a blessing if we see beyond the loss and the process of losing. It can become something much greater. It could be completely spectacular and amazing.

Losing is a blessing. I believe so, as it teaches us the complete cycle of having and losing. Just be grateful for the time we have spent with the one we lost, the many years we were together. Not the one day that we were parted.

Losing is a blessing. It really is.

Inner independence

Everything we do is based on choice. It is the best thing in life, indeed. Inner independence is what is needed to make the most appropriate and wisest choice. God grant me Your wisdom.

Saving earnings

Ramit Sethi's book "I Will Teach You to Be Rich" is easy to understand and doable even by a financial novice. I've read it and give it a two thumbs up. Next step would be joining his "scrooge club" named The Scrooge Strategy. Been thinking seriously to join. [Hey Ramit, if you happen to read this posting, you've got yourself a big fan and I might write about you.] :D

Traits

It has been a while since the last time I work and breathe among academics. For years, I have been starting and managing my own businesses, so I have been dealing with demanding executives, business attorneys, business owners, and irritated customers. I also have many friends who are business owners and high-level executives in Silicon Valley and other parts of San Francisco Bay Area.

These impressive people talk and think extremely fast. They carry the orders of multi-million dollars. They are superbly confident, not very humble in words and behaviors. They project a sense of urgency and marketability. They shake hands with force and give out their business cards with conviction.

For a few weeks, I have been surrounded by knowledge workers, who are mostly academics. While I have taught a few classes both online and offline, I haven't been completely immersed in "academic lifestyle." The ambiance is clean and manicured, but it makes me a bit sleepy.

The people are bright and highly structured, and sometimes make something sounds grand and superbly important. They also tend to "profile" and place their impressions into typologies without any specific reason, other than just for the sake of doing it. They tend to be "neutral" and quite "indifferent."

Those are two different traits: outside and inside the academia.

From both groups, I learned a lot about how to approach things. The first group (outside academia) tend to work strategically based on importance and their bottom-line (profit oriented). The second group (inside academia) tend to work based on typologies and structure, sometimes not based on importance (not based on what's important in the first group).

Both groups have very different priorities. One should change traits (or better yet, personalities) to fit in in either group and perhaps one group would think the other group quite interesting, if not mind boggling.

Which one do I prefer? I love industriousness and liveliness. My close friends are chatty, super confident, super positive, and strong go-getters. They speak up their minds. They don't care what people think of them. And this kind of people can boost my spirit at any time. No sadness, just momentary reflective moments. Then, back to work! Everything is simply a business decision, so no feelings are attached. They never get sentimental and they focus on here and now, the tangible things.

Perhaps because I'm a reflective person, that's why I need to be surrounded by people who are hands-on and work with tangible things. I need balance!

Being surrounded by thinkers keeps me in a deeper water, while what I need is a few moments of floating above water or even vacationing on dry lands. I love my sweetheart because he is very tangible and physical, not too reflective. He doesn't want to bother by thinking too much. He wants to get things done.

In conclusion, perhaps I'm just rationalizing why I don't feel fit in an academic setting and why being surrounded by hands-on go-getters is my kind of place. :)

Retirement mindset

Already semi retired but why is it so hard to enjoy doing nothing?
Where is my retirement mindset?

Enjoy the sun, enjoy the air, enjoy the crowd.
Entertain myself.
Be happy, be joyful.

Don't worry, The Force will take care of the rest.

Letting go and replacability

It's never easy to accept the fact that we're losing an important piece of our lives. I'm losing it, soon. I fought for it but it might not have been sufficient. Sometimes we have the system to blame, sometimes we have the people behind the system to blame.

My good friends have laughed it out loud, they no longer cry. I'm no longer crying either. I need to accept it and let it go. 

It's easy to say, "If you love someone, you set him (or her) free."
Now that it's something so meaningful (but not as much as a loved one), why is it hard to accept and let go?

It's time to let go. It's time. We can always find another. It's just a thing, so it's replaceable.

It's replacable, but the memories aren't.

Ordinary person, extraordinary live

Enough said. :)

Rainbow and pot of gold

Sometimes we forget that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Keep walking and persevering.
Look upward and downward.
But walk on earth and fly away whenever possible.

Goodwin Street

We love the address of our home: Goodwin Street. It's catchy and punchy. It sends out positive vibes. My house is my home.