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Why am I here?

sivers.org

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Re: Why am I here?

#61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why am I here?" "Because my daughter loves it here." Seems to fit in with what he was saying to me.

Right, but none of the author's reasons seemed to revolve around anything but his own desire to focus and work on his products. In the context of raising a family, that's hard to justify.

I don't aim to be thorough when blogging. They're just succinct little tidbits.

Of course there's more to the story, and of course it was a whole-family decision. In fact my wife kinda led the decision even more than me.

We hope to move back to Singapore when our kid is a bit older, but he's still just a baby, so I really want him to grow up outside surrounded by nature, not inside shopping malls.

Re: Why am I here?

#62
post #35

Derek, I did the same thing 6 years ago. I ended up north of you by just a tad bit, in Takaka. It was a long and winding 90 minute drive to get to Nelson, but it definitely felt like the "big city" compared to Golden Bay. When people ask me how my 3 years in New Zealand were, it's hard for me to answer. A part of me was working hard, so I spent most of my hours behind my desk, at home, looking at the paddocks across…

Mussel Inn also make a delicious Manuka-flavoured beer.

As an NZer, I have the opposite feeling than the original article at the moment. After visiting a few cities that have 4-5x the populatation of my whole country I'm itching to live somewhere with such a large base of people. I'll probably end up back here in the future but as an underpopulated island nation, the combination of low(er) wages and high relative living (esp. housing) expenses + expensive imported goods is not helping at the moment.

Re: Why am I here?

#63

What if you don't know the answer to this question ("Why am I here?")? What if your answer is that you don't understand why you're still here? When your passion for everything and anything in life has waned to nothingness. When you feel like your body is in a constant state of physical and mental fatigue, bordering on a grinding, gnawing pain? When you feel like a passenger in your own life, stuck in the rat race, st…

What if it didn't matter if you have all the answers right now? What if it was OK if you accepted your current situation for what it is (i.e. simply a mixture of circumstances and emotions that are subject/likely to change)? What if all of your reasons haven't even been born yet? What if it was OK for you to be where you are with no reasons whatsoever?

My point is you can start by asking yourself different questions. I noticed that your questions centered on potential negative outcomes. Try flipping that around. "What if it was OK for me to feel this way right now?" "What if I don't need to change anything within myself right now?"

Better yet, take a break from asking questions for a bit. Take a few long, deep breaths instead. I have trouble remembering this sometimes, but life goes by one moment at a time. We don't have to live it all in one breath. We don't need to bear the burden of the next 60 years of possibility in the next 60 seconds of life. Take it a step at a time.

Try to not fight the feelings you're having. It's a battle you can't win. Accept them, let them be. The more you fight them, the more they'll consume you.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. You're only human. You'll never have all of the answers.

Finally, take everything I suggested with a grain of salt. I don't know your exact situation. I'm not a professional. I only know what's helped me get through tough times. Hopefully some of it can be helpful for you too.

I second the comment re: depression. If you've never spoken to a professional about these feelings, why not give it a chance? If you have, and it didn't work, why not try someone else? If you can only do one thing, speak to a pro.

I'm happy to share my own experiences/challenges with you if it helps. If you want, email me the things you're afraid to tell others about for fear of being rejected. It's my username at my username dot com. There's always someone willing to listen with an open mind, despite what you might think. Even if it's just some random stranger from the internet :)

Re: Why am I here?

#64
I suspect this won't be popular, but: Lucky you, Derek. You have the resources, and more important, the experience to be able to do that sort of thing.

Why am I in the US? Because I was born here.

(But people are friendlier in other countries, and life is less stressful.)

But I don't have the resources to just fly away.

(...Oh. Right.)

Re: Why am I here?

#66
post #39

I always felt that Singapore just doesn't seem like the right place for someone like Derek Sivers. It's a beautiful and wonderfully located place, but the stated or unstated reasons many US expats give for moving there are narrowly selfish -- in the sense of irrational selfishness vs enlightened self-interest -- low taxes, clean streets. Yet Singapore's culture is strongly communitarian: there may be low income taxes…

> If you plan to have kids, be ready for corporal punishment in most schools and even some junior colleges, and (far more burdensome and soul crushing for an individualistic soul) military conscription

For US expats raising their kids in Singapore, there is the option of sending them to the American international school (http://www.sais.edu.sg/) instead of the public Singaporean school system. As for military conscription, that only applies to citizens, so if your children take US citizenship instead of Singaporean citizenship (US practices Jus Sanguinis, so I think this is possible), they wouldn't have to worry about military service (I'm not Singaporean or an immigration lawyer, so don't take my word on that). In short, expats can totally avoid having that reality hit them. Expats tend to live in a totally different world than the natives of the countries in which they settle.

Re: Why am I here?

#68
post #5
post #2

I don't ask this too hard, because not only do I know ahead of time that I probably won't like the answer too much, I don't have much reason to suppose I'll get it 'right' next time, either. Without any one all-consuming passion in life, the best I can do is change stuff and see what happens. Also, it's unclear what Mr. Sivers' financial independence status is, but I think that for most of us, wherever we go basicall…

Mr Sivers is very transparent about his financial situation: http://sivers.org/trust Summary: CD Baby was transferred to a trust then sold for $22m, the trust pays Mr Sivers 5% per year. In his own words he has "enough".

[deleted]

Re: Why am I here?

#69

What if you don't know the answer to this question ("Why am I here?")? What if your answer is that you don't understand why you're still here? When your passion for everything and anything in life has waned to nothingness. When you feel like your body is in a constant state of physical and mental fatigue, bordering on a grinding, gnawing pain? When you feel like a passenger in your own life, stuck in the rat race, st…

How old are you? Too young to be having a mid-life crisis but too old to be experiencing teenage angst, is my guess. There is hope and something I say may help you but really the only one that can save you is your self. My reply depends on your context. Details needed.

Re: Why am I here?

#70
That was brilliant. Said something important. Got the message across clearly. Did it quickly.

It may have seemed pretty trivial, but I think it was brilliant.

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