How do you like your Mondays? I realized as we grow up, we tend to hate Monday on default. I remember my Sundays are full of watching cartoons on TV and the day after I have to wake up early not to be late coming to the school. Most of the time, I had to wake up around 5.45 to catch a breakfast, shower, and to actually go to the school.

On my uni days, things started to change since I might have classes on Monday or in some semester I might not. Even if I had one, it won’t be as early as going to the school. When I started Talenta, I think the “hate” returned. Our first office was at Mayapada Tower, Sudirman (thank you Grace Tahir!) and to arrive on time, I had to leave my place quite early.

Luckily during COVID, we don’t have to commute now, and since it’s WFH — you don’t have to look proper while working.

This is a weird twist to the post but I feel that Monday, when done properly, can set the tone to the whole week. If you can have a great Monday, you can (most likely) have a decent week. I try to schedule meetings mostly on Mondays for internal so I can get to work the rest of the week.

I have been in a long distance relationship for 46 months (almost 4 years) now and I’d never write about this if it wasn’t for Om’s post — The Pain of Distance — it feels like a sting in the gut. I kept evading this pain or feeling but reading the post made me stop and put me in deep thought.

My girlfriend is Korean, there is a whole backstory on how we met (that’s for another day), but before 2020 — we’ve never been apart for longer than 2 months (8-10 weeks). It’s either me going to Seoul, we meet in the middle (Singapore, Taiwan), or she went to Jakarta.

This COVID changed everything as we haven’t met for 17 weeks and counting (went to Korea end of February until early March when COVID was growing like crazy there). There’s even a chance we might not meet again this year.

Indonesia government closed the border for foreigner without KITAS/KITAP and Korean government is making visa request exceptionally hard, and even if you got it you have to be quarantined for 2 weeks with 2,1m KRW (~23 to 24m IDR). With a max of 30 days stay, that is simply outrageous.

There’s this feeling of helplessness and pain and it just brought you back the reality that we have different nationalities and separated by distance and borders. I wished that she’s Indonesian sometimes or perhaps, I’m Korean. But we’re not. And it’s excruciatingly hard to process.

Financially Independent, Retire Early

IF there is 4 words that I like more than hearing I Love You, Joshua from my girlfriend is these words. Over the past few years, I realized that I don’t think I can survive going on multiple sprints in order to become “rich”. Rich is a very relative to each person’s limit but that’s why I didn’t like the race.

One of my inspiration in this world is Derek Sivers. He exited his company for $20+ million and instead of buying lambos and big mansions, he gave it all to a charity. He now live a very simple life and up to this year, he evaded any publicity, read a lot of books, and just have a minimalist life with his son.

I would like to think that I prefer that route too, while my friends around me always like to say: think of money you spent to socialize as an investment to get richer; I prefer to do the opposite and have set personal goals to decrease my burn every few months — to answer: How can I live with minimal cost? Can I survive with UMR?

Two reasons why I picked this route:

I’m in control: you can control what you buy/eat but not all the opportunities that you will have if you “invest” your money. If I can control myself by having less “wants” in life — I’m in control of the outcome that I need: to get to FIRE.

I’m not in control: in life, there are multiple incidents and accidents that can happen. Whether to yourself, to your family, to your loved ones. At the same time, to your business, or to the business that you’re working for. If you are spending substantial amount each month — depending on everything being okay — then you’re pretty much fucked if any of these went wrong.

What about you? Do you prefer to get rich/financially independent (stressing the OR here) by making more money or by spending less?

We say this probably a lot of times. And a lot more as we get older. I feel we underestimate it. I feel generally we underestimated time as well. Just because we are not paying or not getting paid for our time spent outside work, we spend it mindlessly.

The last post I did in this blog was more than a month ago. And it feels just like yesterday. I actually feel disappointed at myself for not being able to commit to write. I always am and wanted to feel as a writer and so not being able to commit to writing frustrates me.

In the world where all we do is consume content, whether it’s meme from 9gag or imgur, Instagram Stories, clickbait from a cheap news story. I’m trying to consume less content and just let my mind rest more nowadays.

I hope I can do more post this month

I find it hard to consistently churning out blog posts even if it’s just at a 100 words length or two paragraph length on a regular basis. I realized it might be me expecting some kind of ‘reward’ – such as comments or tweets, validating that someone read my posts.

I used to write more often for Tech in Asia, obviously for the money as a reward. I also have managed to switch my lifestyle almost dramatically this year, I never hold my hand up if anyone asked “Are you a morning person?” — yet I’ve been waking up at 6-6.30, slept at 10pm, and did a morning walk to clear my mind and focus on what I’m gonna do that day.

I have also managed to do intermittent fasting on weekdays, and I feel the reason I have managed to do it more consistent than writing is that I feel the effect right away. My sleep quality and my effort to fall to sleep increased by far.

I’m trying to push myself to do more personal posts but also launching a professional blog regarding SaaS/subscription soon enough. Hopefully with my career on the line, that can push me a bit further. Here’s to another awesome week!