Crash Landing on Covid

The world is 95% cancelled. And perhaps the rest is for governments around the world keeping up. It’s the outbreak followed by financial tsunami. And in this episode, my innocent ass got caught up in the whirlwind of it all, like everyone else by now.  

In comparison to what I had been through since early Feb, I’m relieved to say that I am now somewhat in a better state than I was. My travel venture I had been more seriously committed to since graduating last year turned out to be outperforming all of my expectations. We’ve sent people to trips abroad and at home. This department has been basically the fat cow I was able to milk to keep my half-sunk ship afloat. The restaurant/coworking space my partners and I were supposed to open since 2018 had not seen the light of day ever since we’ve hit an enormous snag, and the decision to repatriate and pursue a life from my island home seems to prove my theory right, that my exorbitant degree in computer science was not at all showing a promising high returns of my investment. So life post-graduation was practically me busting my ass running around seeking every alternative there was worth looking into, asking and talking, sometimes begging, all that while trying to survive the boring adult money stuff. Even so, the digital agency is still well-managed and that we have happy clients. The foundation has raised quite sum of money to kick off our projects in Alor and Lombok. 

By beginning of year, it came to my attention that when an opportunity to put the most eggs in one basket for highest return came along, of course with a fair amount of experience and knowledge, it’d be a simple puta por que no. I sort of went all in in travel industry, but slowly but surely, with more and more signs of things going terribly bad, we started seeing a million cancels and refunds on routes in asia, australia and europe, in the middle of which I was so uncomfortably positioned. We struggled to issue tickets and to work around the challenges with airlines being pain in the ass. People chasing after you for something you do not have the answer to is the last thing I ever wanted in my life. They could get a little too aggressive on you. But you’d think it’s just that horrible episode you have to make through the day but no, this thing was continuous, waking up already filled with hate having to be the bad cop all over again while the other end of the problem not being helpful at all. I can empathise getting the feeling someone is fucking with your money. My desperate escalated from exchanging proper messages to involving a lawyer to help mediate. It was just suddenly so complicated to explain and too serious to not be taken unarmed. But that mini-episode was completed with a bit of a happy ending, now I’m still left with a few other episodes.

That’s the thing I’ve learned about business, you could never outsmart your bad luck. I don’t know, maybe shorting the stocks before the market crashed? Everywhere you look for a brighter answer, you’re left with another fuck-all. Airlines on the verge of bankruptcy, banks struggling, low income people are beginning to struggle for primary needs. The covid has put the world to halt. So I guess just cook tom yum and buffalo wings on sad days will help?

But above all hardships, health is the most, most important thing in this universe, however ugly it is today, your money, with the right dose of luck and hard work, can be earned again.

I’m sick of a lot of things I only feel like pouring all this great inevitable sadness into words. We may have crash-landed on Covid today.