A five year plan

I recently realized that I didn't have a solid five year plan. I had a ten year plan, but it was very vague in going about it. I have a couple of goals that I would like to achieve but nothing that warrants creating a plan for that far into the future. I believe that it is impossible to know what circumstances will be a week from now let alone five years from now. I do think that I want to have a plan just for reference to see how much I changed. So here we go!

1. Have a successful blog with tons of viewers and followers ~100,000

2. Be good enough in singing so that I can join a choir or a band. Maybe start a youtube channel based on me singing covers.

3. Start a weekly or bi-weekly vlog on youtube, it will be based on my thoughts, musings, and perhaps some comedic routines.

4. Achieve mastery at my job, with enough information and knowledge to describe a satellite inside and out.

5. Have finished at least half of my novel that currently has 10 pages. My goal is to create a trilogy.

6. Be working a successful side-gig that allows me to tap into my creative spirits

7. Achieve a good knowledge of stocks and trading to profit from boom times.

8. Do at least one new thing every month

9. Be master of time and space

The last one will take more than 5 years, maybe 7 or 8. :)

So what will you be doing in five years?

Media Blitz

A while back I posted about wanting to be a media mogul. The reason that I want to be more in tuned with social media is because of its synergistic capabilities to expand my skills and ideas to others. In this hyper-connected world, we are all networked into the "system." There are so many people in the world now-a-days, that it is incredibly difficult to for people to get an idea of who you are.

I would like to believe that by being interconnected it serves a greater purpose by allowing people from anywhere to share ideas and expand on world views. Recently I have been or a personal marketing frenzy, promoting myself across many different platforms and networking sites. It started with the need to grow this blog at first, but then after a bit of researching, I found out the huge effectiveness a large social media presence can have on a person.

People that have a big social media presence (High Klout score) have the ability to receive perks and discounts. Essential businesses look at people with high scores and see them as walking advertisement, with their ability to twitter their likes or dislikes of a business. So it's in the best interest of the business to impress and reward them primarily on how many people they can influence.  

Now perks are great but for me, it is about the advantage I would gain in the specific industry that I am working in. As you all might know, engineers in general, are not too interested in growing or developing their social media presence. Most engineers think that its an irrelevant activity that has  very little benefits and rather focus on things that are important. I know this from personal experience as well as many of my college and work peers. It isn't a priority for most of us to gain followers and/or twitter random things. Even now, I have not tweeted things random things that I find curious or interesting. (maybe I should?)

So the advantage is that I have exponentially more exposure to the "world" than others that have little to no online presence at all. This can benefit me when it comes to marketability of my skills and documentation of what I have done in the past. It also allows people to gain a sense of who I am as a person as well as my work ethic. Anybody that sees my posts and their content can instantly form a opinion about me even before they even meet me. They know a bit more about me than another engineer that has no online presence, thus giving me the ability to tailor my message to the viewer. Now of course it comes with a caveat, things that you talk about must form a positive opinion, which is a lot harder to do.

There are just not enough ways to let people know who you are as a person these days. It is harder and harder to distinguish yourself from the rest, there is simply too much competition. The only way to stand out is to find a missing critical aspect and work that angle as much as you can. Social media is my way, but it is not for the faint of heart, creating a good unique brand for yourself is incredibly difficult and requires plenty of time and energy.

So what is your Klout score?

Does money makes people happy?

As I ponder this question out loud rather than silently looking up and holding a couple of fifties in my hand, I think that all depends on your frame of reference. There are many studies that have been done to try and conclusively prove that money makes you happy or makes you unhappy. It all really depends on how you frame the question and to whom you are asking the question to in the first place.

If you give people money when they're on the street and hunger and ask them if money makes them happy, then it is a no-brainier. This also applies to any person who suddenly has a windfall in cash, like winning the lottery or getting a raise, people take the money and are happy at least for a little while. Or you could have the opposite scenario, where someone who makes a lot of money but is unable to cope with the money and eventually lose it all, like some high profile ex-NBA players. Another example could be a person who is rich but going through problems in other areas of his life. One thing is for certain, money in itself is not the reason why people are happy or not it is always how they view it in life that determines it's "power." 

I think money is a curious thing, it is completely made up so that people don't have to fight each other for food all the time. Yet it gives us great power and comfort if we have a lot of it, but we can't do anything with it by itself, we must trade it away in order to gain something that makes us feel happy.

My views on money is just what I described, a means to an end. I want to live a life that is based on living a life as freely as possible, if that requires a lot of money then so be it. If it doesn't then great, I can relax and take my foot off the gas petal of life. :) Money is not my goal, rather it is the life I want to live. I think that most people get that confused and associate happiness with lots of money. The thinking is that if I have money then I will automatically be happy, which doesn't quite work, at least most of the time.

Does money make you happy?

Inspiration for life

One thing that constantly inspires me is the hope for a better tomorrow. I think that people do what they do because they believe deep down that there will be a better future for themselves and others. I mean what kind of world would we live in if we didn't believe in working towards something grander in life. Sometimes it is big goals such as getting rid of poverty or hunger, sometimes it is smaller like starting a blog.

This blog has become a conduit of inspiration in the last couple of months. I have spent countless hours thinking and crafting about what it will this blog will become. My hope is that in the next few years it will be one of my grandest achievements in the internet age, a personal collection of my thoughts recorded in cyberspace forever. I want to have a my life in little small moments such that when I am 90 years old, I can still see what I was like as a 25 year old just starting out in life. A historical literary file of all my thoughts, ramblings, and craziness over the course of a lifetime. The pictures that are posted will long be broken links but the words I suspect, will last throughout the ages.

I would like to write a least once a day now to try and make this a habit, although I believe I have to do it at least 21 days before it sticks or maybe not. Anyways, it is a lofty goal that I will be hard pressed to accomplish as it is really tough to overcome writers block on certain days. This blog will be a small but significant way for a better tomorrow in the next couple of years.


Inspire your way to a better tomorrow...

Entitlement R US

I believe in hard work. One of the greatest things that I learned from my parents is that with enough hard work you can get anything you want. They always told me that if I worked hard enough that life would be easier. I grew up knowing that working would bring me closer to being financially free. So I did. Worked my ass off in school and focused on both hard and soft skills to bring me closer to my goals. I knew that nobody was going to help me and so I did it myself. So when I meet someone that does not want to work hard and expects the whole world to give them a handout, I naturally have issues with that.

There have been many clamoring that this is the entitlement generation, where all of the Gen Y'ers are all mooches and that we have been completely spoiled by their parents. I tend to agree with that statement on a whole. Of course there are exceptions to each rule and there are a couple of outstanding individuals, but from my experience people from my generation are not as hard working as they could be. I rarely if ever hear some say "I'll just work harder next time," they just drop whatever they are doing and move on to the next thing that excites them.

I think my peers just do not value work for what it truly is and that is to make life meaningful. It is viewed as nothing more than a way to make money to do other "funnier" things. I believe that if we are dedicating our time and energy into something like a degree, it might as well provide both some enjoyment for the career you are going into. I have a twisted view when it comes to working, I like it! I mean I really like what I am doing each day, I feel a great sense of doing something for the greater good of all. I help make satellites that provide TV, radio, and internet to all that pay a fee to their subscribers, how can that be bad? It is certainly better than building weapons and bombs.

The point is, I am frustrated at those who just don't care about the work and just want to coast by. It makes people like me feel invalided because all that hard work that went into getting where I am now, is not being taken seriously by others and that is not okay. It is a tremendous chip on my shoulder to go through life working for everything only to see others get handed things that is undeserving. I've seen it all my life and I am sick of it.

There is no master conclusion or ending theme. It just is.

Life as a dream

 Most of my dreams have been very vivid and detailed as far back as when I was a teen. I could remember certain small details like time on a clock or even whole cities during a flying dream. I think at an early age I started to realize that my dreams were a path or conduit into a world that never existed, if not in my own mind. Dreams I believe, when properly understood can help one understand themselves better.

I have often tried to interpret my dreams by remembering as much about the dream after I had woken up. This proved  difficult and challenging as in a foggy sleep-like state, there were very few times that I wanted to put it down on paper, opting usually to go back to sleep. But when I did remember bits and pieces of the dream, I would look it up online to see what the different meanings were.

I go to this "dream dictionary" and basically type in what I saw and it would tell me what it could mean in my waking life. It compiles the different means from a few sources and tries to put it all in one place. Now obviously it is not an exact science and there are many ways to interpret things in a dream, but in my case, I have found common themes in most of my dreams.  I have had several dreams of flying through the clouds and traveling around high skyscrapers.

In the dream dictionary, it says that flying "signifies a sense of freedom where you had initially felt restricted and limited." I find that quite amazing since moving out of LA and starting a new job has given me a greater sense of freedom in my life. It could be that moving to a new city has had a freeing effect on my mind. That is one way I could interpret what I saw in my dreams. Another would be that given my recent increase in traveling frequency, I could be dreaming that I am the plane passing over cities.

Whatever the reasoning is, I find it interesting to try and decode what occurs when I go to sleep. I really want to figure out what it means to dream and why does it even happen. I can only surmise what others have thought, which is that dreams are a way our subconscious mind tries to communicate with the conscious one. 

Keep dreaming my friends...

Saving for Tomorrow

Due to some recent events, I have decided to tighten my belt with my finances. In a previous post, I talked about budgeting and how you can use tools to plan your financial outlook. In this post I will talk specifically about why I want to start saving more and how I might go about it. There are 3 reasons why I have now made saving a priority.

The first reason for my version of austerity has been the increasing amount of traveling that I have been doing the past couple of months. My new job has given me an opportunity to go places that I didn't dream of going a year ago and as such I have been addicted to flying to more and more exotic places. Upon a closer look at how much I spent, airfare and travel expenses have revealed that I tend to be a bit careless especially on food. I really need to start saving more and budgeting for travel expenses in order to continue to travel without worrying about money.

Second reason that I am going on thrifty diet is that I want to save for a house someday. I talked before about the rising cost of living in Silicon Valley. I would have to save almost +100k in order to pay just a down payment on a house. With housing prices in the +500k, I don't think I will be buying a house anytime soon, but I do want to plan for it. It is really depressing to think about how much I would have to save for the chance to pay a mortgage, just a chance. Inventory for houses in this area are very low. People are overpaying for the ability to get their kids in a great school district and competition for houses has been quite fierce.

Lastly, my parents are currently in the process of buying a new car and they want me to help them with a down payment. I have been using their car for many years without paying them and now that I have a job, it is time for me to give back to them. It’s not a problem except that I didn't really plan it in my finances to give my parents this money. It will be tough to allocate monthly payments to them presently.

Some of the ways that I have been think about how to go about saving is to cut all unnecessary expenses. I recently stopped a magazine subscription that I had for 3 years to save about a $100 bucks a year. I was rarely reading these magazines that are just sitting on coffee table and I would get one every week, they would pile up and be stuck in a corner somewhere, forever. I am also looking into sticking with my planned budget for eating out. I have always had my limit for food expenses but I would routinely go over that amount, I have to be more disciplined at following my own budget.

As a work around to saving more, I could also focus on earning more. The reality is that one can only save so much before there is no more money to save. I have been actively trying to find a part-time job that can provide me with some on the side. So far it has been rough going as there are a lot of jobs that either doesn’t fit the time constraints or the experience necessary.

I will update you guys on my saving progress as well as new ventures that I am planning for the future. If you have any ideas on saving and budgeting, feel free to leave me a comment below.

Save well my friends…

Grow Fearless

I want to take risks head on, much like the kid up above. Being fearless is more than just conquering physical challenges, but mental challenges as well. I define fearless as having the ability to stay strong and on course when doubters and criticizers try to tear you down. It is a belief that above all else you stand apart from the rest and follow your own path.

I've had many occasions where I had to defend myself against the onslaught of people that would love to see me fail. They probe, question, and attack me for doing things differently from what "Normal" people do, whatever that means. Sometimes I feel as if people are just plain mean and hate everything that they don't understand. I try to see it from others point of view but it gets difficult when I tell people about what I do and they think that I'm bullsh*ting them. I always get a "yeah right look," when I tell people I sing and blog.

One of the worst thing to go through is when people do not take your passions seriously and dismiss it, whether you do it as a full time job or a side gig. To be fearless is to stare your opposers down and stand firm on your position and not give them a chance to fill you with self-doubt. I won't let others block me on my way to accomplish what I need to in life. I will blaze my own path and be fearless along the way.

Be Fearless.