It's 5am on the morning of the day where both my children will start school together. I wish I could say that I'm up early because of the excitement. I'm not. I'm up late, thoroughly entrenched in my ego and worrying about our finances.
According to Eckhart Tolle, 'Finances', good or otherwise are considered content and the ego always identifies with the content of the mind. He says if we step back from the content, and just see it for what it is, then we will be able to attain some kind of peaceful mind. That's my very simple understanding at the moment anyway.
But it's difficult to step back. Ex did the books for the pub for December and he's running at a small, but not insignificant loss. We've got some money still, probably enough cash for 2 months worth of expenses, 3 if we really tighten up. So he's looking at other options, but in this global economic downturn, options are few.
Ex's skills lie in problem solving. He's really, really good at solving technical problems. He's a programmer by trade, self taught rather than qualified. He wanted to go back to programming a while ago, but the people he approached (a partner in some software he wrote) said no and ended up buying him out instead. That money is almost gone and is what we've been living on for the better part of the last year.
He's been offered a number of opportunities but according to him, none of them worthwhile, until this pub offer came along. So he's taken that but it's not looking viable. His staff (2 girls who serve the customers) have proven to be problematic and one actually quit on New Years Eve while she was high on something. He was going to downgrade her to part time anyway because she wasn't doing her job properly. The other girl is quite good but lately she's been having 'personal' problems too. Doesn't sound good to me.
Ex was talking to me about this and ways to increase his income just yesterday and was toying with the idea of marketing himself as a technical/business consultant whose speciality is solving problems - tech, logistical, system problems, that sort of thing. It sounded good to me and I tried to be positive and supportive. He also talked about getting his web site going again, a community based forum type web site. It's been there for years now but he's never really done much with it, so he's thinking people could advertise their businesses there and come and find out all the news etc. I thought doing the two things together sounded feasible but today he seems to have changed his mind and wants to concentrate just on the web site as well as getting our amazon.com affiliate site going again - I'll tell you about that next blog entry.
Oh-no! I don't think it's feasible, but I'm too scared to say so because then he'll think I'm being negative. I think I'm being realistic. I can't see how he's going to generate enough cash by doing this. I don't think, in this low tech town, people will see the need to advertise on an unknown web site, especially when Malaysia is on the brink of a recession (or so I've heard). Stuff like this take ages to build up and we've got 2 months at the most, if he gets going today! The amazon.com thing is another thing that's not guaranteed - we once earned a lot of money from that site, then Google changed it's search algorithm and that was it (it's a long story). The waterfall turned to a trickle and has never been the same since. That's what our main income was supposed to be when we moved here, but it wasn't to be.
So the whole point of this blog entry is - what if the money runs out? Then what! The ONLY option that I can see is for me to come back and start teaching. I can teach here, but there's only so much money I can make - probably about 2K if I work full time. And that's not enough.
So now I'm thinking - JUST LET ME TAKE THE KIDS AND GO HOME!!!!!! At least I can get government subsidies to help me. At least I can work for a worthwhile salary AND pay some money into my very small Super fund. At least I'll have family around that can help me! Blah, blah blah and on it goes, around in my head, the ego perpetuatng the victim scenario, which it loves so much.
Yes, it's hard to see this situation as 'it just is', when down the track, all I can see are empty bank accounts. Time to sleep and think positive, I hope.
2 comments:
i think your plan to have the family together over-rides the thing about money. you can always ALWAYS find money, enough to manage. but (and this is me just throwing your argument back at you) the children won't have their father with them if you come back here. and this is the reason you are there in the first place.
being a single parent here is hard, really hard. you get so stressed about everything and you can't parent in the way you want to. you feel like you are running a marathon each and every day. and i was in a good position, ie owned my own property to live in, was very employable and had good family around. so, so hard.
just playing devil's advocate a bit.
x
Thanks Melba, for playing the devil and sharing your experience. Sometimes I do need reminding as I tend to lose focus and only think of what I think I want. The kids would essentially lose their dad if I was to move back and I know that ex would never, ever forgive me for that. The money come from somewhere, as you say. I'm starting a new English class that's different to all the others and if it goes well, I can earn enough to pay for at least half the expenses, if not more. thanks.
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