Easy Money

It’s never easy. Wherever you go.

Some have to commute for three hours or more just so they can go to work, busting their ass off, putting their skills to use and spend the little time left to rest their mind and body on the weekend. Almost nothing left for their loved ones.

Some bankers I know who hate their job more than they hate the idea of war. Some people who are told to pursue their dream but have ‘0’ chance to even start the engine like a few lucky folks could. Some self-proclaimed freelancers who end up having no ‘free’ time for themselves, going to hipster cafes to work but often lose the time to immerse oneself in the joy of interacting with other human being. Some entrepreneurs who give talks about their fun journey while having plain rice for dinner. Some students who walk the extra mile by taking part-time jobs but have no hour to enjoy the fun of being stupid while growing up. To me, there are two acceptable currencies when dealing with choices: money and time. Maybe I’ll know more in the future.

While in some rural parts, most fathers and mothers need to farm just as early as the commuters in the city and earn so little. They take loans to survive and catch up with the increasing needs of being human in the world we live today, leaving them with crazy interest rates they have to pay and responsibilities to raise their children. Some worst moments, you’ll hear someone at a village can’t afford health care or simply can’t take the person to the nearest health centre and breathe her last breath on the way there, or maybe, at home with no one offering the help she needed.

It’s hard. The only option left is to embrace the life we design to live. You may travel to 1,000 places in the world and try to find and make peace with yourself, but if you can’t find it, you’ll be the same guy who left his home years ago. It’s somewhere in you, not in those places you google and cry, wishing to visit one day. It’s within you. You just need to listen to your own voice.

Making money is hard. Being wise is harder.

Trading our skills with $ that can get us something we desire can be incredibly challenging. I guess I’m not the only person who’s been terribly crushed by financial issue. Though my problem isn’t about making it, because I know very easily how to make a mint with talents I’ve honed for years, it is about being wise about what I’ve worked hard for. I know the formula to suffice myself. I know what kind of lifestyle I choose to live and things I should invest in. I also hope that I know damn well how to keep up with a balanced life.

That balance thing. It costs a lot, especially if you’re going to school, working three jobs, love to send children to school and sailing in the same boat with entrepreneurs who build empire out of nothing. Like what happened to me recently, I’ve exercised ‘saying no’ to things that may seem so great. I was very fortunate to have been offered a few MC jobs at four events in Jakarta’s luxury hotels, each came with really good money, which made me think twice about rejecting them. Saying yes to these offers could have been a good way out for some of my financial struggles (if you feel me, say yea). On the other hand, I had a life full of schedules I’ve planned, people whom I couldn’t wait to greet in person, and places I’ve promised to visit. I guess I could’ve said ‘hey sorry I’ll take a rain check’ to these people and places but it wouldn’t be fair to them. I take their time very seriously even if I have a bigger fish to fry. I simply lose my respect to assholes who don’t take time very seriously and think it’s the world that needs to adjust with their time. Let them learn. Amen. Aamiin.

I’m arriving at that point where I get to say this, very gently:

“Fuck money. It can always be made.”

And yes. I’ve personally proven one theory: there is no second chance of giving up all of your money for something you deeply care about. There is nothing you can do to get that moment back. To that, I have the luxury of growing up in the middle of supportive environment of people who are dying to keep children at school, to ensure the refugees get the right vocational trainings and some women who dedicate their lives to giving health care for disadvantaged people. I know I’m following the right trail.

I don’t have a hobby of burying thousands of dollars in my bank account so that I can start something good one day while I can start it right now. With the money I’ve earned, I don’t mind – and never will – investing a big chunk of it in flying to see my loved ones, to speak to the people I admire, to learn without hesitate and to give for something I believe in while I can. Yes, I’m young and I see no point in waiting for the right time because, hehe, there is no such thing. I don’t want to be one of those people who think twice about giving their $10 to a suffering old woman in the street and blame the government when they always have the chance to make another $10 or $100,000 tomorrow.

My time is expensive, just like yours and I choose to continue buy the time to enjoy my life. I invest my time in people I deeply care about. I respond to messages quicker than speed of light now (I swear I look like someone who has nothing to do). I smile more than I used to, even through text, to anyone, awkwardly. I’m down for anything, especially for people I can help with everything I have. See? These are the things that make me learn about being human after all. Be human.