2012 has been a challenging year personally, professionally and financially. I happened to set the benchmarks very high last year. I neither could match them nor exceed them this year as I had planned. Apparently, not everything goes as planned. For the first time in Life, I ended up in situations where I had no control or clarity and all I could do is hope and pray. I actually started to believe in something called ‘Luck’. The year started of on a high note and things got fucked up by the end.

Bear the chaos with me….

The year started in conjuction with my last semester in college. Early in the semester, I got selected for an Internship with one of the Leading E-commerce companies in UAE. I was balancing college with work. It wasn’t easy. Especially when you are spearheading a graduation project team where you are responsible for over 70 percent of the work done. Days were long and tiring. I was taking on load which I didn’t even think was possible. I was balancing work, studies, my sites and few clients.

I made it through. I passed out of college. I am a Fucking Aeronautical Engineer with a decent CGPA. At the same time, I had a semi formal job proposal from the place I was interning at. They wanted me to join immediately. I was to burned out to accept. I told them I’ll go to India first and then come back and join. I flew to India soon after the exams.

Apparently, Folks had booked a very long vacation. The vacation started with a blast. I traveled by train alone ( Yes, It is a big deal) to Goa to meet my friend who was already there. Then we proceeded to visit Banglore. The time spent there were some of the best times of my life. I met people whom I thought I never would see again. I did stuff which I never imagined. I had a good time without worrying about anything. It was amazing. I then had to return back to Mumbai where I was going to stay for rest of my vacation. Unfortunately, the expectations were set pretty high due to the blast I had early in the trip. Mumbai was dull and boring. Lots of issues and nothing much to do.

During the end of the trip I was contacted by my Internship company asking me to join them full time. I was eager and was trying to prepone my tickets. Shit got serious when they went out of business overnight. I then happened to have a dispute with them which made it impossible for me to join their sister company which was still existent. All of a sudden I belonged nowhere. I had applied no where, I didn’t even have a proper CV. All of a sudden, I had nothing.

My sites and side businesses didn’t do very well either. I got fucked in a lot of my projects due to lack of time. Income levels were down by 70-80%.

Soon I realized, The job market was bad. All jobs had a mandatory prerequisite Vaasta . It basically means knowing someone somewhere in the system that gives you a clear advantage over other candidates. I had none. I am not very social myself and neither is my family. We know a limited number of people and none of them have much to do with aviation. It was sad.

After struggling and pulling strings for over 3-4 months now, I have managed to get an internship with another leading E-commerce company in UAE. This was due to Vaasta again. I knew the people on the team which made I application easier. I was interviewed thoroughly and was given the post on my merits.

I am seriously hoping 2013 will be better. I hope I get something that is well paying which would enable me to retire at 35. I am yet to have a concrete plan. This is mainly because I know shit ain’t gonna go according to plan. But I have a flexible guideline in my mind. I’ll be sharing some of my findings soon on the site. Lets see how it goes….

What do I have in mind for 2013 ?

• Get a Job ( Yes, I am saying this… )
• Increase Net worth by at least 100k AED
• Have a Proper Stock Portfolio of 1 lakh Rs ( All Invested).
• Get Some Profitable Internet Marketing Ventures Going.
• Reduce Weight.

I have a vague Idea on how I am going to do it but nothing full proof. You’ll be reading some in detailed blogpost soon about each of them.

I hope 2013 brings you a lot of happiness and all your dreams come true. Make it happen.

No Dream too big, No Dream too small !

I’ll tell you nothing pisses me off more than lucky people. People who get everything they want without working hard for it. People who are born rich or well off. People who just happen to know someone at someplace to give them the edge over others. People who break the rules by a bit and do not get caught. People who are not fighting the battle on equal grounds.

They say success is all about hard work ? Its bullshit. It is 70 % hard work, 20% luck and 10% whom you know. I work pretty hard on my projects. When I get to work, I am pretty serious with my shit. I have seen people “Passenger” their way to the finish line and get better grades than me. I am not complaining but that is just not fair and pissing off. The whole anger snowballs when it keeps happening again and again.

Lets be honest, for all I have made for my self  the involvement of luck is very little. I have worked hard throughout my college. I have worked hard on my sites. I have worked hard. Could I have worked harder ? May be. I really never could wait for things to happen, it just wouldn’t. I went out there and made shit happen.I took it upon my self to take action and accept full responsibilities of the consequences whatever they might be.

Maybe, I am just not lucky. Maybe, I don’t sense situations very quickly. Maybe, I am too slow. Maybe, I have to struggle a little more. I don’t mind. As far I can say I made all what I am without the help of others, I am good.

Failure is a very strong phenomenon, not everyone deals with it well. Often, there is no standard response to failure. Few people lose it, Few people give up, Few people find a less difficult alternative and some people try again. I really admire the last kind. It takes balls, balls of steel to stand up again. I truly admire people who stand up again.

Every time you fail, you tend to invite a lot of criticism for yourself or your actions. The number of times you fail is directly proportional to the amount of criticism you receive. A good percentage of people are scared of failures because of the criticism by their peers and themselves. Its a hard task. Its hard to not give up when there is so much said.

Failure and criticism are not often not perceived well. They tend to get a lot of negative feelings with them. This negative feelings tend to make you feel miserable and depressed. Being depressed sucks. Depression leads to a lot of other bull crap. It prevents you from living the life you are supposed to live. It prevents you from being your 100%. It prevents you to be at your full potential. It prevents you from making the choices you need to.

I remember being depressed when the first girl I supposedly ‘loved’ broke up with me. It was hard. I thought it was the end of the world. Apparently, It wasn’t. Never did I know that I would fall in ‘Love’ multiple times again. I carried my self out of it. It took some time, but I was there eventually.

Next bout came when I just joined college. It was a new world. I was among people who were way richer than me. I hate to say it but I was kind of intimidated. In that duration I broke up with supposedly ‘ Girl of my Dreams ‘ . I kind of blamed it on me being broke (Its funny how a support system works). I worked through it. Within a year, I was making enough to cover my pocket expenses. Another Year, I was earning enough to pay my own college fees. I was proud of what I had done for myself. Maybe, a little egoistic. Now I had entered the mode of ‘Not giving a fuck’. I was not intimidated by anyone anymore.  I worked this one out too.

Another bout was during my driving exams. Oh god that was bad. I failed my driving test 4 times. Learning driving in this country is expensive. I was unlucky with my trainers. I spent a lot of money on this. I never failed any exams before this. It was a bad bad bad feeling. It took a lot of courage to pick my self for each attempt. I made it. I made it in the 5th attempt. I remember that feeling. The feeling of being useless.  I remember seeing pathans who were in their double digit of attempts. I seriously admire their spirit of coming again and again after they’ve failed. It takes more than a man to do it.

Now to the current bout. Last semester of college, I got internship with one of the Ex-Leading E-commerce company in Dubai. I was lucky to get my self into the Marketing depart of the firm. It was something I liked doing. It was almost certain that I was about to be full time there once I would graduate. After my exams were done, I left for India. I had it all figured out. The week before I was supposed to land, the company closed down. All calculations fell apart. The amount of money I was making through my sites had also come down due to being shit busy with college and a series of google updates. I was nothing now.

I am not only jobless now, I don’t also make much money now. It was a major blow to my ego. I feel miserable. I had burned bridges at places where I could be employed. Not like my batch mates are working, but they’ve had their interview and are currently on hold. Their employment is almost confirmed. I am no where. I am upto no good. Its another one of those phases, when I don’t really look foreword to tomorrow and I don’t really know what I could do to make it better.

At the moment, I am just a fat ass who sits at home all day and makes no money and has not got a single call for interview yet. It doesn’t feel good. I am not used to this. I could use a change. I don’t know what or how. I just need to push through this and make it work again. There is another added pressure. I am a kind of guy who wants to be financially secure by the age of 35. All this time wasted now is just not helping me reach that goal. It stinks to be serious. I need to make money and make it fast. I am helpless in the current scenario and being helpless sucks.

Things are pretty shitty at the moment. I am not sure how things are going to turn out. I am not sure about what I am going to do tomorrow. I am not sure if I am going to do something tomorrow at the first place. Picking my self up and getting work done seems to get difficult by the day. I am pushing through but I am slowing down. Its kind of bleak at the moment.

Lets hope for the best and keep going.

As per my previous post about the 30 days challenge for October , I was supposed to go for a walk everyday. I failed. I did manage to follow the intent for the first 5 days and then I managed to badly scrape my knee. Basically, walking became an pain.  It would hurt. Hence, I had to let go of my resolution.

I don’t feel good about it but I had to do what I had to. I am going to attempt it again for the next month and this time I am going to make sure, I don’t end up scraping my knee again.

I think from next month, I’ll dedicate atleast 2 hours a day to my health. Geeks are lazy people and don’t really like physical exercise. This is going to be hard and demanding. Lets see how it goes…..

Let me be honest, I don’t like to shop. I don’t like to buy things what I utterly don’t need. I don’t like to buy things to look good to ‘please’ others. Hence, I hate shopping for clothes. I possess a very limited wardrobe. But the point here is when I go out there to buy, I like to be in total control of the transaction.

I hate salesmen. They try to peep into my area of control and feel they can influence me into buying their product. Its not going to happen. I am the buyer and by default I have the upper hand here. I am not going to buy something just because you pointed out its merits and why I always needed a product like that. Thank you, I am not buying it. Neither, Should you.

Salesman are tricky people and trick you to buy stuff you don’t need. Sometimes, its with the money you don’t even have. Be very cautious. Very CAUTIOUS. I always entertain all their calls and requests as it helps me stay updated and entertained for a while. I pleasantly decline after I’ve heard their pitch. If it gets too annoying, I just ask them to get me off their list.

Stay in control. Its your money. Start buying and stop being sold to !