Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Since I’ve been loudly and proudly referring to the dim-witted imbecile apologists as “sheep“, many contacted me angrily questioning how I came to conclusion that I wasn’t one. Nothing could be easier to prove, so let me get right down to it.

Sheep are dim-witted imbeciles. More than anything else, they lack the ability to see the forest for the trees. With their noses firmly glued to the ground, it’s no wonder they can’t see the plains that stretch far and wide. All they see are stems of grass that fill up their entire field of view. But somehow they believe that being this limited comes with a license to nag. So nag they do. The more limited their field of view, the louder they nag.

The issue of child sex tourism in Cambodia or an outlook on how cheap Cambodia really is are great examples of how lacking their wits are. If you focus on a raindrop that’s right before your face so much you can’t see the ocean that spreads before your feet, and use your limited wits to argue with everyone that your shiny raindrop is the largest body of water in the universe, then there is no better way to address you than by calling you a dim-witted imbecile. But nagging at anyone who dares to tell you that your raindrop is nothing compared to the ocean, just because the majority are as limited in their field of view as you are, makes you a sheep.

Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Another great way to show how limited minds of the dim-witted sheep are, is by talking about Gypsies from Eastern Europe. I spent substantial amount of time in Eastern Europe and had a fair share of experience with them, as well as with people native to those lands. As with pretty much every place I’ve spent a lot of time in, I found reports on Eastern European Gypsies by other travel bloggers not only misleading, but downright dangerous. If someone were to truly believe what other bloggers are saying and adjust their behavior accordingly, they’d be setting themselves up for a walk down a mine field.

Photo: Screenshot from a YouTube Video Posted by the Romanian Police Who Filmed a One Legged Gypsy Beggar
Photo: Screenshot from a YouTube Video Posted by the Romanian Police Who Filmed a One Legged Gypsy Beggar

I don’t make a point at being politically correct – I make a point at being truthful. I’ve never downplayed anything and never offered half truths to avoid being called a racist, so let me do the same here. To put it bluntly – Eastern European Gypsies are incredibly dangerous, deceptive and always looking to take advantage of others. These nomadic people settled in Eastern Europe because it provided them with everything they needed to engage in a lifetime of crime and get away with it. Had it not been so, they would have moved on.

Generations of living at an expense of others made them expert whiners. They especially like whining to the sheep because sheep are many (significant majority) and lack the ability to see the forest for the trees so simple whinery is enough to fool them into believing that they are not criminals but victims. And guess what sheep do – I don’t need to tell you. You already know that by now.

Gypsies and Sheep

Sheep believe that presenting themselves as righteous warriors who fight for the rights of the oppressed somehow makes them god-like so they seek out the opportunities to prove themselves to other sheep. It’s sheepish to conform – individualism is frowned upon and usually results in exclusion which is what sheep fear the most. They forsake the ability to think for themselves and become expert brown-nosers, aka arse-kissers without a face who bleep when others bleep and jump in the well when others jump in the well.

There is only one thing that could possibly come out of a meeting between a dim-witted sheep and a professional manipulator. Sheep swallow every single bit of the fabricated story and spread the corrupted tale of it to the world. As a result, the ridiculous untruth about discrimination of Gypsies in Eastern Europe caught on and wrongfully painted Slavs as racist bigots. The very group of people who were the victims and themselves discriminated against became the target of international criticism all because wits-lacking sheep sided with manipulators. It’s the nature of the sheep to ignore the real issue if it lacks shock value (seen really well in the above described child sex tourism article).

There are many instances when I wish I could slap sense into a sheep, but when they take victims and label them racists, I just want to kick them in the nut-sack so hard they can’t bleep no more.

History of Gypsies in Eastern Europe

Would it surprise anyone to learn that history of the Eastern European (Slavic) nations is a history of peace? Slavs have always been non violent, hard working people who would rather sing folk songs and dance to beautiful music than march to war against another nation. This inherently non violent nature presented them with many challenges as other, more power hungry nations took them for an easy target, but it changed nothing on their desire to live in peace and grant the same to the others.

Anyone who’s ever worked with people from Eastern Europe can attest to how hard working they are. This can also be seen from how advanced and economically powerful countries like Czech Republic and Slovakia were before the 20th century world wars swept through their lands. Not even the UK could measure up to them at the time. And that’s despite thousand years of occupation and attempted elimination by the Magyars (Hungarians) who did everything in their might to erase their languages and identity from the pool of the living and turn them into Magyars.

This is the story of many Slavic nations – often attacked and oppressed for centuries, but never rising up to march against another sovereign nation to conquer it. They took to the arms when others tried to conquer them, enslave them or undermine their values, and through bravery and determination, they prevailed (sometimes with help from friends), but this only happened as a response to the outside aggression.

Then in 1968, Soviet armies moved in and instilled communist philosophies upon them. Private properties were turned public and everyone was guaranteed a house to live in and a job to earn a living with – unless of course they were found unable to work, in which case they would get monthly monetary support from the government. The government would also assist parents by awarding them child benefits for each child up to the age of 18 years old.

This worked reasonably well since Slavs are naturally honest and very hard working so everyone rolled up their sleeves and got down to work to help recover from the devastation caused by two major wars. Everyone except from Gypsies. These nomadic people saw the opportunity to get something for nothing so instead of moving from place to place like they’d done for centuries, they stopped where they were and started exploiting the system for their own benefit.

Since government paid so much money a month for each child a woman had, Gypsies started breeding in out of control numbers to get as much in child benefits as possible. And since government also paid for the disabled who were deemed unable to earn their own living even if job for them was guaranteed, they all started pretending they were mentally insane in order to avoid going to work but still have monthly income coming their way.

They would not entertain an idea of leaving Eastern Europe after it became apparent that they could get unlimited amounts of money if they just kept breeding and pretending they couldn’t work. So breed and pretend they couldn’t work they did and money kept coming. If they needed more dough, they just made more kids and voila – their monthly allowance increased.

As a result, Gypsies who didn’t spend one day working earned more money each month than Slavs who worked hard every day. You’d think these well funded Gypsies’d live in poshy palaces and wear finest clothes, given the money they got for nothing, but exact opposite was true. They took this money most Slavs who worked couldn’t even fathom and wasted it all within days on booze and drugs, leaving nothing for food or clothes for children.

Aside from looking slightly different owing to their ethnic background, Gypsies are also easily distinguishable from the Slavs by the fact that they always wear old and dirty clothes and their kids suffer from malnutrition. It’s not surprising that to the sheep, Gypsies would look poor, oppressed and neglected. Except that sheep never look below the surface because if they did, they’d see that Slavs, who always look clean, healthy and presentable earn less money than Gypsies get for nothing each month.

Most of the time, the real reason why kids of Eastern European Gypsies look so sick and dirty, and why they wear what looks like pre-war clothes with tears and holes on every fold, is because their parents never try to manage money properly and waste it as quickly as they get it. The use of the “Easy come, easy go” phrase has never been more appropriate. If Slavs can make it through the month with less money than Gypsies get and still look well taken care of, then there really is no excuse for Gypsies not to. But then again, unlike Gypsies, Slavs don’t own 20kg worth of golden chains and rings each.

Needless to say, what follows after all the monthly allowance was wasted is stealing. Both parents and their kids go out to look for supplemental income by robbing people who have to work for their money. Stolen money not only gets them through the weeks after their monthly allowance was wasted, it’s also a way to kill time. Since they don’t need to go to work, they have whole long days to look for something to kill boredom with and a little excitement victimizing natives has proven to go a long way. It also, at the same time satisfies their inbred itch to commit crime.

Gypsies are natural born criminals. They’ve stolen, pillaged, raped and murdered as part of their normal development for centuries, polishing the art of theft to perfection. And since Slavs are by nature non violent and hold a very negative stance on crime, they make for perfect victims. Faced with these professional criminals, the law abiding natives stand no chance.

Days of boredom on end allowed the Gypsies to form gangs and organize their attacks for maximum heist. Kids are often used as lures or agent provocateurs while whole mobs wait nearby to struck at the opportune moment. Heavily outnumbered, robbed victims are often beaten, or in the case of girls – raped. Not even children or seniors are spared. There is simply no line Gypsies wouldn’t cross.

Gypsies did not value anything they were given because it cost them absolutely nothing to get it. Government gave them houses for free so Gypsies destroyed them. Government gave them child support for breeding like rabbits so they wasted it all on booze and golden trinkets. And if anyone dared to stand up to them, Gypsies attacked every member of his/her family and threatened further violence should this be repeated.

The police were the once with the least leverage against Gypsies. It would be very rare for a crime to take place which was not committed by a Gypsy, but trying to bring any of the Gypsy perpetrators in resulted in whole gang of them coming together to complain to the international court that the arrest of their criminal friend was an act of racism and discrimination. They portrayed themselves as victims each and every single time making bringing them to justice virtually impossible.

Matters were further complicated by the fact that these huge Gypsy gangs would unleash unspeakable violence upon the family of anyone who would stand in their way. You lock one of them up and end up with five hundred of them setting your house on fire and beating your kids up to the brink of death.

However the biggest joke in all this are the sheep. All the while Gypsies oppress the majority and exploit their good will, they also take each and every opportunity to show off buildings they got new, but destroyed to let the sheep see what conditions they live in, they’d show their sickened, malnutritioned kids whom they haven’t fed because they wasted all their monthly allowance on drugs, but tell the sheep that their kids starve because nobody wants to employ them, and add a number of made up tales about someone attacking them because they were Gypsies and the sheep swallow it whole with cherry on top, get outraged and instantly label Slavs “racist bigots”. Could you believe the dumbness of those sheep?

Catch 22

Slavic nations opened themselves up to these people from afar, gracefully welcomed them among themselves but all they got in return was exploitation, abuse and crime. While the Slavs worked hard to keep the economy going, Gypsies beat little boys, raped little girls and robbed anyone they laid eyes on. 10% of population accounted for 90% of all crime committed but when anyone tried to point it out, they complained to the international court and the victims took the blame.

Gypsies utterly painted Slavs – some of the most peaceful people in the world – racist just to satisfy their ever growing greed and lust for criminal behavior. And how did the sheep respond? Unsurprisingly… by nagging and crying on behalf of those “oppressed Gypsies” whose life must surely be so incredibly hard in Eastern Europe. I mean, can you imagine never needing to spend a day at work and still get more money than any working man? And how about complete freedom to commit countless crimes and always get away with it because if they tried throwing you in jail, you’d scream “Bloody Racists” until the sheep trampled the system till you were freed?

Cause and Effect

It goes without saying that even the most peaceful nation, when pushed to the limit, would eventually stand up and say “enough is enough”. For 20 years of communist rule, Gypsies exploited peaceful, hardworking Eastern Europeans and never as little as said “Thank you”. Instead, they labelled them “racists” and framed them with lies of discrimination all the while their peers robed, raped and murdered the very people whose money they lived off of. Someone was bound to slam their fist on the table and attempt to put a stop to it.

When the police has their hands tied because each time they try to arrest a Gypsy, whole Gypsy community gangs up on them, threatens them with murder and violence against their children, and complains to the international court that they are racially targeted, then perhaps it’s time to look for solution outside of official ways.

The natural response was the spark of the Skinhead movement. Skins didn’t just come to exist because someone thought it was cool. They were a response of a nation to the exploitation by abusive invaders. Unwillingness of Gypsies to live lawful lives and respect others like others respected them forced oppressed individuals into retaliation.

It made sense – I mean, you can only rape someone’s sister, bully his brother and rob his parent’s so many times before he snaps and tells to himself: “That’s enough!”. Gypsies kept raping innocent girls, bullying innocent boys and murdering innocent workers for so long, something was bound to happen. And so the Skinheads came to be.

My Encounters with Gypsies in Eastern Europe

I visited High Tatras in Slovakia with an Australian girl I met in London, England. While we were there, minding our own business, we were abducted by a Gypsy looking to rob someone and draw blood. My companion was like all other sheep at first – she complained about racism towards Gypsies based on reports by fellow sheep, but when knife wielding Gypsy attacked us and threatened to kill us if we didn’t give him our possessions, she was forced to sober up and realize that the opposite was true.

There were people around, but since it was a Gypsy who attacked us, nobody dared to intervene. After decades of exploitation, people feared these criminals who operate in gangs and because they don’t go to school or work, they have whole days to improve on their gangster tactics. We were attacked within the train station in Poprad. There were people inside and we had hoped someone would come to our aid – but no one did. It was clear why.

We got off without being stabbed in just the last moment after the attacker ripped our bags we were trying to hold on to off. It was a terrifying experience and it wasn’t the only one. A few days later, in a public transport bus, a group of Gypsy kids boarded a packed bus and started pulling stuff out of people’s pockets. When confronted, the kids ganged up on the victim, spat on her, kicked her and threatened with violence. They always have bigger, stronger accomplices accompanying them so if anyone dared to not cooperate, they would get beat up.

Things like that kept happening absolutely everywhere and all the time. We saw groups of those Gypsies wandering the streets, always looking for trouble. During the day – when all locals were at work, Gypsies provoked lone, out of place individuals to pick fight with them. While all Slavic people were incredibly welcoming, peaceful and friendly, the feeling of safety was always gone when Gypsies were around.

And then we visited Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. Without realizing why, the tensions we used to experience before were suddenly gone and entirely replaced by feelings of complete safety. A few days later we realized that since we came to Bratislava, we have not seen a single Gypsy. We no longer had to always look around us to make sure no Gypsy was after us, or to be aware where they are so we don’t look that way because they could consider it a challenge and respond to it by taking their whole gang that’s been sitting around whole day waiting for something exciting to spark it up and jumping us to see what “our problem” was.

After traveling through places populated with Gypsies, by whom we were threatened, attacked, robbed and several times near killed, a visit to a Gypsy free place was an incredible relief. Turned out that Skinhead movement was so strong in Bratislava, they cleaned their city off Gypsies and no new ones dare to come. The citizens had enough of being pushed around and victimized and stood up for themselves, forcing crime away from their city. The police couldn’t do it, so the citizens took their own safety into their own hands. That allowed us to embrace that notorious Eastern European hospitality and friendliness to the fullest.

After we’d left Bratislava, the danger returned. Never from the ranks of locals. Always from Gypsies. They had whole areas donated to them by the Communist governments in which they built them houses and parks but Gypsies destroyed them all. We passed by several Gypsy communities and could not believe our eyes. Buildings literally ripped to shreds, surrounded with up to a meter of garbage, all windows smashed, doors burnt with burn marks staining the walls, horrible smell everywhere, disease literally crawling all over – it was plain and simple disgusting and they turned it into this mess themselves, after it was donated to them new and free.

We could often see Gypsy areas built next to areas occupied by the Slavs. Same buildings, same size and style, clearly built at the same time, just one occupied by the locals, whilst the other by Gypsies. Buildings in which Slavs lived were clean and well maintained, buildings of Gypsies were ravaged, stripped to bare walls. There was this saying that what was not welded against something unmovable, it would have been stolen by the Gypsies.

Everything the government gave them was ripped into pieces. Showing zero respect for property, Gypsies stole or destroyed anything that could be stolen or destroyed. Then once completely destroyed and looking as if a nuke was dropped on the area, Gypsies would show it to the sheep while forcing fake tears out of their eyes with a claim that that’s how they are forced to live here. The fact that the building was provided to them in brand new condition and that it was them who destroyed it is somehow never mentioned and the sheep don’t ask. They just see a whiny Gypsy living in a disgusting house so it must be the result of discrimination of Gypsies by racist Slavs.

Occupation of Europe

Through criminal behavior and deception, Eastern European Gypsies are often incredibly rich. They promenade themselves in old, smelly, dirty clothes when sheep are around, but we got a chance to see a Gypsy wedding and I couldn’t believe how rich they really are. I was surprised they were able to walk with all these golden chains all over them. Must be a tough life for a Gypsy in Eastern Europe when all they own is $10 Million worth of gold jewelry each.

Another close look behind the veil of poor, discriminated faces of Eastern European Gypsies revealed an even more shocking surprise. Despite the fact that they never spent a day working for their money, many lived in incredibly poshy multi million dollar homes. Shortly after Velvet Revolution (end of Communism in Eastern Europe), they found out that Denmark and other Scandinavian countries had welcoming asylum policies and provided people who take advantage of it with more freebies than even communist governments did in Eastern Europe, so they rearranged their gang structures and spread the activities to other parts of Europe.

In order to be granted an asylum, they presented authorities with fabricated stories of discrimination in Eastern Europe and it worked. Foreign governments provided them with new accommodation, more money for nothing and daily rations so they could enjoy work free lives and focus on exploiting people beyond borders of Eastern Europe.

And so Gypsy gangs with international ties were formed and exploitation on much broader scale began. Seeing that deceiving people with begging tricks worked well, Gypsies from Eastern Europe whose numbers grew through out of control breeding (remember that they got so much money per child – the more children, the more free money) spread into every corner of the old continent pretending they were poor, sick, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged to get money from sympathetic citizen.

One Legged Gypsy Beggar

The video below was filmed by the Romanian police after they’d arrested a one legged Gypsy beggar. It’s Gypsies like this one legged beggar that cause sheep to cry “bloody racists” at Slavic people. Sheep simply can’t see past the tip of their noses so their response is to turn victims into bigots.

I call this beggar a “lying piece of shit” because that’s what he is but apparently, according to the sheep, calling a liar and liar is being a racist bigot myself, so that’s what they call me too. A liar Gypsy uses his race as tool of deception and sheep would jump down the throat of anyone who calls him out.

Good thing is – I know darn well how dim witted sheep are so being called a racist bigot by the lot of them is actually a flattery and a proof that I’m doing the right thing:

Why Is There No Looting in the Wake of the Earthquake in Japan?

On March 11, 2011 Japan was hit by what appears to be the largest scale natural disaster in modern history (link NOT safe for work!). If we take the data provided by the U.S. Geological Survey on their website as a reference, then the 2011 Japan earthquake was the fifth most powerful earthquake since the tracking started in 1900.

The devastation unleashed by this massive earthquake was only a beginning. The tsunami tidal wave that followed was easily the most ferocious in our lifetime. There is a lot of water in the Earth’s oceans and a good chunk of it has swept across the Pacific coast of Japan, destroying everything in its path. There is no way the force of such scale could have been contained.

The tsunami water made it as far as 10km in land in some parts of Japan. Yet as if that weren’t enough, the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami was not the end of it. The earthquake disabled the mechanisms powering the cooling tower of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and subsequent tsunami then knocked out the backup power generators, removing the possibility to cool down the reactor, resulting in overheating and explosions which could lead to the leakage of radioactive materials (how much has been leaked has not been confirmed at the time of this post).

So within a span of a couple of days, Japan suffered from the fifth most powerful earthquake since the recordkeeping started, quite possibly the largest tsunami experienced on this planet in centuries and a realistic possibility of a nuclear catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of people live in make-shift shelters, tens of thousands are unaccounted for, parts of towns have been entirely wiped out, transportation options are either limited or completely paralyzed, there is a shortage of food and a shortage of food in some areas yet there still have been no reports of any looting going on in Japan.

Natural Disasters and Looting

There are several interesting points to consider here:

  1. Almost all natural disasters that happened in recent history were followed by out of control looting. Whether we look at Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami in IndoChina, or recent earthquakes in Haiti or Chile – the looting seemed to have been a natural part of the aftermath.
  2. No mainstream media reports on the fact that there has been no looting in Japan despite it suffering from one of the largest scale natural disasters in modern history.

If you do a search on looting after natural disasters, you’ll find countless experts talking about and justifying the “psychology of looting”. I can’t help but ask – why do these experts ignore the fact that Japan is not experiencing any looting and how would they explain the inconsistencies in their theories?

Since I’m the first to bring this up, I’ll be also the one who’s gonna say it like it is. I take a lot of heat from internet tough guys for not holding back and speaking the truth even if it’s not entirely politically correct. But rather than toning it down for fear of offending someone – which as a travel writer I seem to be the only one to NOT do – let me get right down to it and say that there is no excuse for looting.

Japan vs Other Countries

Internet tough guys like to excuse inexcusable behavior of uncivilized people using the “necessity argument”. When a Cambodian thief robbed me, I called him a thief, but got bashed for talking badly about a person whose struggle to survive forced him to do it. Forced him to do it my arse. When someone is a rapist, perhaps it’s time to call them a rapist and when someone is a murderer, perhaps it’s time to call them a murderer. Instead of looking for the ways to excuse their unlawful behavior (and encouraging it from re-occurring), it’s time to call a spade and spade even if it may sound seemingly bigoted or racist.

Lack of looting in Japan is a proof of that. If you listen to what the prime minister of Japan tells his fellow Japanese, you will notice that he talks about rebuilding a new Japan. He asks his fellow Japanese to support him in this huge task and doesn’t hide the fact that it will require a lot of hard work, but it won’t be the first time when a Japan will have to rebuild itself from the ashes.

This rhetoric is entirely different from that coming from places like Indonesia, Thailand or Haiti after they’d suffered from similar, even though smaller scale natural disasters. Instead of appealing to their citizens to roll up their sleeves and get to work to rebuild their countries, people of those nations focused on whining about how poor they are and made their recovery a responsibility of others. Utilizing the “oh, we’re so poor” excuse, they sat with their feet up on the items they stole during looting, waiting for the people from the west to send money and workforce to rebuild their country.

While it goes without saying that Japan will receive assistance rebuilding, the Japanese will not sit with their feet up whining about being poor and needing others to fix their country up. They will be in the front line, they will be the first ones and the most hard working to see their country back up and running. Japan was the only country that had cities wiped out with the nuclear weapons. There were parts of it that were literally levelled after the World War II. Yet if you look where it got within a few decades from this total destruction, you’ll see that if you swap whining with hard work, anything can be achieved.

After the WWII, Japan was in a far more desperate state than many other countries. Yet they bounced back and turned into an economic powerhouse. If Japan could do it, then countries that had never been brought this low should find it even easier to recover. Taking that into an account – if Cambodia is still poor 30 years after the rule of Khmer Rouge, then there is nobody else to blame but Cambodians themselves. They can continue blaming Khmer Rouge for additional 30 years and then additional 30 years and so on and on and on and they will still be poor. Because complaining about the past long gone will not fix the problem.

The fix to the problem is in the willingness to roll up the sleeves and get to work. As is seen from Japan’s example (as well as an example of many European countries), hard work can turn a country from being completely depleted into being economically strong. On the other hand, there is yet to be one example of a country becoming economically strong after decades of waiting around and complaining about being poor. It only proves that you cannot help someone who cannot help themselves. No matter how much international aid is sent to Cambodia, it’ll end up being nothing but wasted resources. Supporting this culture of handouts is anti humanitarian and should be avoided. If you do want to donate, then support Japan where your graceful donation will not go to waste or to support the laziness.

Yes, it may sound bigoted, but we can either beat around the bush and look for excuses to justify their laziness, or we can say it like it is, and address the real issue. The Japanese people are not freeloaders. They are hard workers and through this approach they were able to resurrect their country from the ashes after WWII devastation. People with this type of respect for themselves and their homeland will not stoop to the level of a looter. If people of Cambodia, Indonesia, Haiti or other similar freeloading countries turned their whining into hard work, they would have as strong economies as Japan has. And this is the fact, as it is the way to explain why there has been no looting in the wake of the earthquake in Japan.

Job After Suicide

While I could say my mission to make a suicidal girl feel better so hopefully she’ll never consider killing herself again was successful, I found out two days later that both her and her sister were fired from the ice factory. Because of her suicide attempt, she was unable to show up for work and when their boss found out that she attempted suicide, he fired them both. Hard to blame him – who wants to have to deal with people with suicidal tendencies? Tough for the girls, though.

Suicidal girl went back home to the village, while her sister stayed to try to look for a different job. She was gonna start to learn English so she has a wider field of possibilities but needed to fill the gap while she was jobless and came knocking at my door the following day. My English class student who introduced me to her came along as an interpreter and it all ended up being one embarrassing ordeal.

She came to me to make some money and was ready to do anything to “deserve” it. My student explained to me that her father is still ill and needs money but now that both sisters are out of work, I was her only option, because I was the only foreigner she knew. Then he just got up and said he was gonna leave us alone and started walking towards the door. I had to vehemently halt him and explain to him that this is not gonna work and neither her nor him should have considered this an option. I asked him to translate this to her:

“I understand you need money for your father, but you will have to earn it with real work. And you have all you need to do it. Don’t give up, it’s just one job lost and that job sucked anyway. It was wearing you out too much and paid very little. It’s good you’re out of it, but now you need to collect yourself and get out there to find yourself a better job. In the meantime, I won’t give you any money because I follow a strict policy on hand-outs, and I want you to walk out of this door the same strong and proud woman you were when you walked in. But I don’t want you to be hungry or have nowhere to sleep. When I go to eat, you are welcome to join me and I will pay for food you eat. If you can’t afford to pay for an accommodation, I will pay for your room until your first salary. If your new job requires you to purchase certain clothes, we will go out and I will pay for what is suitable and fits you. But every day you will have to show me where you went to apply for a job and what the outcome was. You will also have to show me the plan for the following day so I know which other places you are going to apply for a job with.”

I do not do handouts. There are way too many Cambodians out there already who are used to getting handouts and as a result – do not do anything to even try to get a job and improve their lives. They make the skill of asking for handouts their lifetime profession. I follow an example from the bible. Instead of giving the needy free fish, I will teach them how to fish. Encouraging the culture of handouts does Cambodians a great disservice. What they need is someone to teach them how to be responsible for their actions and pro active about their future.

The girl who came to sell herself out – quite possibly for the first time in her life – was saved from her own mistake and sent to become more successful than she’s ever been before. She scored a well paying job the very next day and I hooked her up with an English class for beginners. All this was possible without losing her dignity, she only needed someone to kick her in the right direction, instead of making her used to getting money the easy way… no matter the cost.

Unlike her sister who went back to the village, this girl stayed in Siem Reap so I got a chance to meet with her on a few occasions again. We had this common understanding which went without saying that we will never talk about the day she came to me and will treat it is if it never happened. I’m positive that she has a good future ahead of herself and I wish her the best of luck.

Cambodia – The Laziest Nation in the World

There is something to be said when it comes to the laziest nations in the world. Most publications associate laziness with what people do (or NOT do) in their spare time, after all duties have been taken care of. To me, that’s a fundamental mistake and doesn’t reflect on the laziness at all. People who bust their butts off so they can have some time for themselves are not lazy. True laziness comes to play when an entire nation can’t get the work – the necessary duties done because they can’t be bothered to get off their soft motorcycle seats. And this is why Cambodia is the laziest nation in the world. Everywhere you go, any time of day you will see hundreds of people of all ages idling in the streets, doing absolutely nothing just killing time by hanging loose. You will be wondering why they are all out here doing nothing. You will be asking yourself – shouldn’t these people be at work and kids at school? How can a nation sustain itself if nobody can be bothered to do any work? Those are all legitimate questions and anyone who pays attention will undoubtedly have them cross their minds upon their first visit to Cambodia.

Photo: Lazy Cambodian Youth Killing Time With Their Motorcycles
Photo: Lazy Cambodian Youth Killing Time With Their Motorcycles

History of Cambodia – The Laziest Nation in the World

It comes as a striking contrast when one visits the temples of Angkor Archaeological Park and sees the megalomaniac structures Angkorian era civilization was capable of constructing. Could the laziest nation in the world built the world’s largest religious complex? Obviously, Cambodia a millennium ago was different from Cambodia today – aside from being a culture of violence, as Cambodians are as violent today as they have always been.

So Cambodians were definitely not lazy back then, back when the temples of Angkor were built, but what happened? That I guess is as difficult to explain as is the abrupt end to once powerful empire. Ancient Khmer rulers were on top of the game and controlled the region but then something happened and Angkor was abandoned. Everything about the Khmer people, everything – including their approach to work has changed. The end of Angkorian era was the end of decent Cambodia. The empire failed and so did the people. People who were once capable of building monumental structures are nowadays capable of nothing more than idling and doing absolutely a great deal of nothing. Unless verbally and physically abusing foreigners can be considered an activity. Luckily the former can be done from the comfort of their motorcycle seat…

Photo: Once Capable of Building Monumental Temples, Now The Laziest Nation in the World
Photo: Once Capable of Building Monumental Temples, Now The Laziest Nation in the World

The fact that Cambodia is the laziest nation in the world is not something I am the first person to notice. When the French entered the area and colonized the country in the 1800s, they noticed that Cambodians are incredibly lazy and never get anything done. No matter what they’d tried, no Cambodian could be bothered to get off their ass so the French were left with one and only option – go to a foreign land and bring the people from there to work in Cambodia. Vietnam was the closest and since colonization of Thailand was never much of a success for the French, Vietnam it was. Obviously, it wouldn’t matter where they’d go as any normal nation will have many people who can get the work done, it’s only Cambodia where there was absolutely no one who could be bothered.

Cambodia – Still the Laziest Nation in the World

Today, centuries after the French learned the hard way that nothing in Cambodia gets done because Cambodians are extremely lazy, the situation is unchanged. Cambodia is still the laziest nation in the world but the French are no longer the only ones to know it. Following the industrial revolution, many multi-national companies moved much of their production to Asia and have factories in countries surrounding Cambodia, but none of them is in any rush to open one in this country. Now why would that be? Obviously, they know something that prevents them from making a grave mistake of investing in Cambodia and employing Cambodians. It’s their money and money of their shareholders that are in stake and as such, none of these companies will ever consider opening a factory in Cambodia because they know that nothing would ever get done.

You will find countless garment producers, such as Nike or Adidas, or electronics makers, such as Samsung or Siemens in surrounding countries (Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.) but none of them would consider opening a factory in Cambodia. So why is given that cost of labour in Cambodia is often lower than cost of labour in any of the surrounding countries? Why would they not consider opening a factory in Cambodia if there is a prospect for them to save money on wages? Do they know something we don’t know? Yes they do. They know that no matter how (seemingly) inexpensive the labour is in Cambodia, because people here are the laziest people in the world, at the end of the day nothing would get done.

See the Laziest Nation in the World for Yourself

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Cambodia is the laziest nation in the world. Anyone with marginal observation talent will notice that people here can’t be bothered to work. They just sit around whole day on their motorcycles, hiding from the sun in the shade, grouping up with buddies who are as lazy as themselves, killing their time they have too much of by verbally or physically abusing the foreigners. This laziness is present on every corner of every street in Cambodia and it is one of the reason why Cambodia is so dangerous. Because vast majority of population is not involved with their lives, they are not busy looking after their families so they seek excitement from the comfort of their motorcycle seats.

Those who spend an extra time in Cambodia will notice that progress in everything is extremely slow. When there is a construction going on, you will see people sitting around and chatting instead of getting the work done. That’s why every serious firm looking to open a retail shop or a hotel will contract foreign companies to built the business for them. Contracting Cambodians would mean the business will take forever to start.

Photo: Common Picture in Cambodia - Instead of Being at Work, Lazy Locals Just Sit Around
Photo: Common Picture in Cambodia - Instead of Being at Work, Lazy Locals Just Sit Around

Laziness however exists in all walks of life in Cambodia. Kids don’t go to school because they can’t be bothered to learn or do the homeworks. Are you kidding me? A Cambodian kid learning at home to maybe become someone more than a tout who makes abuse of foreigners their life purpose? This ain’t happening.

Cambodia – Most Expensive Labour in the World

When you look deeper into it, you will realize that the cost of labour in Cambodia is one of the highest in the world. Average monthly wage could be only $90, but given how extremely lazy Cambodians are, you will get at best 2 hours worth of labour per person per month. So by paying a Cambodian $90 a month, you are basically paying them $45 per hour. Normal Cambodian is so lazy they will not produce more than 2 hours worth of labour a month and do not forget that that’s only upon excessive supervision and investment of extra 10 hours of your own time to fix up what they had screwed up during their 2 hours worth of work. One really needs to put things in perspective before jumping to conclusions that Cambodians are underpaid. I could only wish I got $45 per hour for my work.

Photo: We Were Hired to Work, But Can't Be Bothered to Kick In
Photo: We Were Hired to Work, But Can't Be Bothered to Kick In

Supporting Cambodian Laziness

Shockingly enough, the world approves of and supports Cambodian laziness. With each dollar donated to Cambodians, with each piece of merchandise that makes it to Cambodia, the laziest nation of the world remains assured that they don’t have to try to change, that it makes no sense working hard for a dollar. If doing nothing lands them free money and things, why would they even attempt to work? Work has been excluded from their lives for centuries and there’s never been more reason to stay lazy than there is now. The philosophy is simple:

Let us do nothing and enjoy our lives without worrying about work, because work requires sacrifices and is tiring and distressing. Instead, let others go through the hassles and tension of employment. Let them work hard their entire lives, struggle for decades to eventually make it up the ladder, renouncing their spare time, their families and friends, let them dedicate the best part of their life to working for the man, instead of spending it with their loved ones, because by wearing themselves out working, they will eventually manage to save a few dollars up and that’s when we enter their view and have them send their money, the money they worked so hard for to us. That’s it – if you are too lazy and irresponsible to work, just whine about being poor and you’ll end up getting money from someone who was brought up being responsible and sacrificed their best years for work.

Photo: To Be Fair, Here Is a Picture of the Least Lazy Member of the Cambodian Society
Photo: To Be Fair, Here Is a Picture of the Least Lazy Member of the Cambodian Society

It is no secret that countries with strong work ethic are successful on an international scale. Lack of work ethic often means lack of character which is something that anyone who pays attention notices shortly after entering Cambodia. Most Cambodians will prefer to look and stay poor so they can get free stuff by getting sponsors to pay for them or donors to give it to them. An alternative to this is to roll up the sleeves and start to work hard for your money but that’s work, isn’t it? Why work if you can get stuff for free by whining out loud? Cambodia is without doubt the laziest nation in the world. You can see it everywhere you look, but it’s also proven by no interest in Cambodian labor from any multinational corporation and historical records of people who tried to make Cambodians work but failed. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

How a Prostitute Works

Ha really needed to make some money so she can buy food for her daughter, but because she was an alien in a foreign country, her options were slim. All she was left with was prostitution. Because I had evenings reserved to getting some computer work done for myself, I had to leave to her to look after my job during which time she said she would go back to the Temple Club and “work” the way prostitutes “work”. Because Siem Reap is not a sex tourism destination, chances were that she would just spend the night looking pretty but not scoring any paying customers. I knew very well how prostitutes work and how they get treated and was not happy knowing Ha was going to put herself up on the market again, but this was her only option at the moment. I told her she could come stay the night with me again after “work”. I had actual shower and could keep the room at a comfortable temperature level. Plus the beds were comfortable so at least she could get decent sleep.

Ha gave her daughter good byes and lay her in wooden plank bed to sleep. Then we left for the Pub Street so she can promenade herself at the Temple Club and so I can sit in the Khmer Family Restaurant and do some work on a computer. Again, I wasn’t too happy Ha was forced to sell her body out, but I didn’t have the funds to support two more mouth myself and she didn’t have any other options either, so work of a prostitute it was.

This was a rather sticky situation, but I did all I could to offer assistance. I provided Ha with shower and sleep facilities at no charge, took her out for meals with me and bought treats for her daughter. I think I made their tough lives a little bit better without resorting to giving them the money.

I was done with my work at around midnight and briefly popped in the Temple Club to meet Ha and see how her night went. I was ready for the possibility that she may not be there – which would indicate that she may have scored a “customer” and is “working” to earn money. Horrible feeling but it was the fact of her life at the time.

Oddly enough, I went through all of the Temple Club and didn’t see Ha anywhere so I left. I was sort of happy for her, hoping she scored a whale who would pay her a lot of cash for her “services” but at the same time I was sad to have to go home alone. Even though she did not do the “work” with me, I enjoyed her company and loved talking with her.

Photo: Temple Club Where Ha Went to Work as a Prostitute
Photo: Temple Club Where Ha Went to Work as a Prostitute

As I was about to leave the line of Tuk Tuk drivers at the beginning of Pub Street, I felt someone jump on me. Warm embrace and lovable laughter gave Ha away. She said she’d been at the Temple Club whole evening but no luck scoring any customers. She didn’t see me either, but one other girl who also works at the club noticed me and remembered me from previous night. Knowing I was looking for Ha, she let her know that her man just went through the club obviously looking for someone, but hasn’t found her so he left. She must have thought I took Ha with me the night before to have sex with and was looking for her again to do the same thing this night as well. Being a nice fellow-prostitute, she let Ha know and that’s how she caught me just before I would have disappeared in the gloomy darkness of the street that leads to the Prom Roth Guesthouse.

This was good news. I really didn’t want any men abusing this wonderful girl and at the same time I wanted to enjoy her company myself. On top of it, I wanted her to get decent sleep and be able to take decent shower so I was glad she didn’t score a customer that night. But that also meant that she wouldn’t have any money for her daughter so I would have to support her somehow. I was gonna do it like this:

Get up reasonably early in the morning to see whether it’s a nice sunny day again. If the day was going to be nice, I would sit on a bike and ride to Angkor to visit the ancient temples at last. Because the entrance fee to Angkor Archaeological Park is very expensive, there was no way I could also take Ha with me. This meant that if the weather was nice, Ha would have to go her own way while I’m at Angkor. We would still meet in the evening, but wouldn’t be able to spend the day together.

Whereas if it rains, we would just go ahead with an alternative program which wouldn’t involve me going to Angkor, because I wasn’t gonna waste $20 for not even being able to take a picture of any temples because when it rains in Cambodia during rainy season, it really comes down.

Either way, I would take Ha to have a breakfast with me and would buy large meal so she has left-overs to feed her daughter with. This way I would still support Ha and her little girl without giving them money directly. I needed to eat before heading to Angkor so this step would be unavoidable and since she was spending the night with me, she could come along.

This plan went pretty well, except from one thing – we were forced to get up much sooner than I would have liked. Because Pchum Ben festival was still underway, Preah Prom Rath temple which was just outside my window started playing really loud Khmer music out of their old loudspeakers. Music was so loud, we were virtually wide awake shortly after 6am. I have originally appreciated the fact that Prom Roth Guesthouse is so close to one of the main temples in Siem Reap, but the fact that you won’t get enough sleep because of proximity to that temple made it a bit crappy.

This same thing has repeated every day for the rest of the Pchum Ben festival. I’m not an early bird and I work until late at night because I find working at night more productive and more creative. But with the noise from Preah Prom Rath temple early morning for a few days straight, this was becoming excessively difficult.

Regardless, I was excited to go see Angkor Wat at last. The weather was gorgeous and I knew this was the day. I was woken up sooner than I would have liked, but I was excited to go see my most desired site in the world so I sprung out of bed, shook Ha to get up too, we got dressed and headed to Wat Bo area to have nice traditional breakfast in one of the locally owned and operated restaurants. I had to say my good-byes to Ha right after, but that was only for the day. I knew I was gonna see her again in the evening so I did not waste any more time, and rode off north, towards Angkor Archaeological Park.

Donating Pet Supplies to Edmonton Humane Society

I knew that Edmonton Humane Society was a pet shelter that accepted stray animals in, but I wasn’t sure whether they would also accept donations in form of pet supplies. The only way to find out was to get in touch with them so I called and was told by surprised lady on the other end that they absolutely accepted merchandise donations but they never get anything because people automatically assume that all they accept are live animals. I was told that they would much appreciate any of the items I had mentioned because they were in dire need for fish tanks and always short of cat food.

I had most of my stuff stored at Dave’s and only had one more load to take on Thursday evening. I thought of combining it with a drop off of pet supplies since office of Edmonton Humane Society was on the way to Dave’s. Since I only had a few more items I needed take to Dave’s, most of my car was available for fish tanks and other pet supplies and I had no problem fitting it in. The only challenging thing was one of the fish tanks – it rather large and heavy so it was extremely difficult for one guy to move it out of the apartment and fit it in the car. Despite of all the difficulties, I’ve gone through the struggle and somehow got it all done without help the previous night. I was gonna drive in a car to work and take off immediately after so I get to the Edmonton Humane Society before they close at 5pm and then I’d have the rest of the evening to drop the rest of the stuff at Dave’s.

The day after my intended drop off was the day I had to return my rented car so I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. I had to be at work until 4pm and car had to be back at Hertz by 5pm otherwise I’d get charged for an extra day. Given crazy traffic that hits Edmonton at rush hour (4pm), not only would I not be able to do anything with my rented car on my last day, I would actually have to rush it to make sure I get all the way downtown by 5pm to avoid extra charges. It was gonna be tight, but I have previously done some overtimes so I had hoped my supervisor would let me leave 15 minutes early to get to Hertz before 5pm.

But this wasn’t until the day after. Today I still had one last drop off to do. First at Edmonton Humane Society where I was going to donate all of my pet supplies and then the rest of my items at Dave’s. I left work exactly at 4pm to make sure I get all the way to 50 Street and Yellowhead Trail where Edmonton Humane Society was located by 5pm so I don’t miss people at the shelter with whom I made arrangements anticipate me. I drove swiftly but roads were congested so it took a while. I got to 50 Street just minutes before 5pm and pulled over by the door only to find it shut locked with a sign on it that Edmonton Humane Society had moved.

Their new location was at the opposite end of town. It would take me an hour to get there from where I was. They must have moved just recently as I have been at their original location only a few months prior. I could not believe the lady I spoke with about donations on the phone has never hinted me that they were at a new location to make sure I don’t needlessly drive to the wrong spot which is too far away.

Needless to say, I would never make it to their new location from where I was before everybody is gone. Giving it a try never the less was making no sense especially since by the sound of it, it would take a while to find it (that area isn’t very easy to navigate through). Plus I had Dave expecting me with my last load and I really needed to get to him before it’s too late so I don’t needlessly keep him up.

I was in a pretty tight spot there. I struggled the night before to get all of the pet supplies, including that giant fish tank into the car all by myself. Now it looked like I was gonna have to get it out of the car all by myself because the following day I had to return the car right after work which wouldn’t give me enough time to drop the items off. I was definitely not happy that I wasn’t hinted about shelter’s new location. Afterall, I was doing them a favor – I was intending to donate, give them some of my possessions for free and cover the cost of driving to get it all to their location. Was it really that hard to let me know that they had just moved so I don’t drive to their old location which puts me at the opposite end of the city?

The premise of removing that massive fish tank from the car was not very appealing, but there was no chance I would make it to their new location from work and still make it to Hertz by 5pm. But I was having hard time simply dumping all the hassle I went through when I moved that fish tank into the car all by myself in the first place. Seeing how all that struggle would have been in vain if I gave up on donating was not an easy thing to accept. So I’ve decided to keep it in the car and see if I can pull off some magic.

I drove to work on Friday, my last day at work before the departure to Siem Reap with all of the pet supplies still in my car. It was a beautiful summer day. I spent my day at work committed to my duties but had asked my supervisor if he would dismiss me an hour early stating that I had an urgent matter to attend to. I have never asked for early dismissal before but have gladly stayed longer when we needed to catch up with things so I didn’t expect it to be an issue and in fact it wasn’t. I was allowed to leave early which gave me hope that I would eventually put my pet supplies to good use instead of just dumping them.

I phoned the Humane Society during the day explaining why they never saw me come the day before as I had promised and insisted that I was gonna give it one last try but they better be expecting me so unloading goes quickly because I had to rush from there through heavy traffic to get to Hertz downtown before 5pm. I was promised that someone would wait for me but as it goes with larger operations, it wasn’t the case.

I got to the new Edmonton Humane Society location, quickly walked in and told the receptionist who I was believing she would be aware of me and have staff ready to move the items from my car. She had no damn clue so I asked to point me at the office of a lady I spoke with over the phone but she wasn’t there. I started walking around aimlessly, desperately trying to find someone who would know what needs to be done but since there was no one and I was running out of time, I simply told the receptionist that I was gonna take the items I am meaning to donate and leave them right there on the street for them to pick up when they get a chance. When lady who spoke with me over the phone shows up, she can then take care of it but I needed to act.

This was overheard by an elderly gentleman who was sitting nearby. He followed me outside and offered a helping hand which was great because that big fish tank was a difficult task for one person to handle, but not a big deal for two. We moved everything out of the car and just as we were done, the lady I spoke with over the phone walked up to greet me. I told her I needed to go but all of the items I wished to donate were right there on the street so they could do whatever they wanted with it.

I sat in a car and only just about made it to Hertz in time. Luckily Hertz is a professional company that deals with their clients on a professional level so the return of my weekly rental went smoothly and without headache. This has concluded my necessary preparations for the big trip. I only needed to pack up and be ready to board a plane on Monday. However I still had my bicycle which was too big to fit in a Toyota Corolla but since days were beautiful (whole summer of 2009 was beautiful in Alberta), I had no fears. I knew I could easily ride to Dave’s on Saturday and catch a bus back home for my last two days in Edmonton.

Early Retirement Planning

It was early Summer of 2009. Weather in Alberta has vastly improved which was great. Winter was long and tough this year – temperatures did not go above -30 Degrees Celsius for two months. Having summer with lots of sunshine and steaming temperatures felt uplifting. Meantimely, my mind was on a rollercoaster. Resumption of travel after many years of having been nowhere brought breath of fresh air to my thinking. My body was back in Canada from Iceland, but my mind was still on the road. Within a span of last few months I travelled to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Iceland, Toronto and the Rocky Mountains. I loved it to bits and continued travelling in my mind. My time off work was spent on the computer, discovering places I would like to visit next.

I wanted to travel more. I needed to travel more. And now that the value of time and the idea of early retirement became well defined in my mind, I started to plan my exit from work and entrance into the world of travel. The way I saw it was that I needed to come with a strategy to quit work as soon as possible while causing as little uproar and talk as achievable. At the same time, I was gonna dedicate maximum of my off work time to the growth of my websites that bring the most revenue while entertaining offers for sale of websites that were more popular, but brought little revenue. I needed more positive cash flow which could be done by focusing on 20% of my revenue generators that generate 80% of my revenue and eliminating the costs associated with ownership of low income generators. And among all the essentials, I needed to find time to figure out where to go to start my tour around the world while keeping the cost of travel as low as possible.

Traveling frugally is not difficult at all. Average person could spend thousands of dollars for a vacation, but smart traveller will find a way to spend one quarter of that but will get four times as much. I laugh at people who pay retail prices for plane tickets, hotel reservations or car rentals. They are voluntarily ripping themselves off. It doesn’t take much. Scoring awesome travel deals is really easy, but I will elaborate on it in more detail later.

Planning my early retirement was fun. I had a lot to take care of, but it was fun. It was as if I had a giant catalogue of the universe before me and my job was to pick what adventure I’m going to have next. This was the feeling of freedom. I was in charge of my life giving everybody else no chance at controlling it. No one had any say at what I should do tomorrow. It was me who decided what I was going to do and I did strictly what was in accord with my plans. The world of adventure lied right before me. I just needed to polish up a few tiny matters and then… the journey itself.

Positive Cash Flow

You’ve heard me mention Positive Cash Flow number of times during previous lectures on Early Retirement. Positive Cash Flow is the key to retiring young. As someone who understands the value of time, it became clear to me early on that the goal is not to score big financially. Aiming for a big payday puts everything into way distant a future. To retire rich, you may be faced with decades of tight lifestyle before hitting jackpot, but to retire early, you may need as little as positive cash flow of $50 a day. The former will keep you stuck in the office until you’re too old to enjoy yourself to the fullest, the latter could send you on your way to endless adventure in a few months.

My Positive Cashflow

I got my positive cash flow out of the websites I’ve been running for years. I set up my personal photography website back in 2003. In 2004 I added ten more websites to my portfolio but they were each more of a hobby, rather than a business venture. I had a little bit of income through promotion of affiliate networks, but it only amounted to about $50 a month. As years went by, I learned a thing or two about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), learned a little bit of web programming and by 2006 I already had a network of 20 sites running.

I’ve been working on them diligently every day and come 2007, the popularity of some of them grew to a point that a server upgrade was needed. I was still only making pennies a day even after investing a lot of work into them on daily basis. I was doing it because I enjoyed it. There was a little bit of money, but hardly anything to reasonably compensate for the work put into it. Continuous growth resulted in complete necessity to switch to a fully dedicated server in 2008. I was getting a lot of traffic but kept failing in monetizing on my sites. The cash flow was vastly negative at this time as my monthly cost for the server was $199 yet income from my sites was only in the $100 neighborhood.

As the traffic kept growing, I was forced to upgrade my server once more in the beginning of 2009. This time my traffic amounted to half million unique readers a month and that required more powerful server with more available bandwidth. Monthly cost just went up another $100 draining $299 out of my pocket each month for just webhosting itself. Negative cash flow ruled, but I kept financing it out of the money I was making at my government job.

My life was awful. I spent whole day in the office, then when I got back home I worked on my websites. Yet cash flow remained negative. At that time I started to travel again and the phase of my spiritual awakening was initiated. I started to question the premise of going to work until retirement and bit by bit, these pieces of scrabble that combine into a complete picture as presented here in my blog, which opens you up to the life of enjoyment and abundance came together and made me see things I was brainwashed to ignore. I realized that I’d wasted too much of my precious time as a corporate slave and started to work my way to early retirement. There was one and a half month lag between full awakening and my departure.

I used most of that time securing myself with positive cash flow. I knew the websites with lots of traffic were there. After years of putting so much work into them I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. I’ve realized that 20% of my websites make 80% of all the money. The rest either didn’t make any money, or only very little but together amounted to very high server costs. The idea of getting rid of those websites was extremely difficult to swallow. I put years of work into them and believed that they were on their best way to make it big. If I only stuck with them for a bit longer, I could really hit the pot of gold and become financially secured. But that was exactly the issue – there was a possibility of it happening one day in the future. And as I have come to realize, focusing on future instead of this moment makes you waste your precious time. You don’t live, you enslave yourself because you believe that one day in the future you will get the reward.

I understood it clearly. Happiness is a journey, not a destination and this 20/80 principle is something that accompanies everyone throughout their lives. I worked really hard to get those websites to grow and become popular and now I was playing with an idea of dumping them. I had an option to stick with them, continue doing what I’m doing and look forward to one day in the future when someone with lots of money notices my sites and offers me several figures just like that. Or I could just let them go, quit waiting for something I hope will come, render all the work I put towards them over the years useless, but gain positive cash flow that could set me out on a journey of a lifetime within a matter of weeks.

Since you are reading the blog about Early Retirement with entries from my adventures around the world, you know what came next. With biggest sites gone, my server and bandwidth costs decreased significantly and my negative cash flow changed into a positive cash flow literally overnight. But that’s not all – those biggest sites that were eating most bandwidth and bringing least money were also biggest eaters of my time as maintenance of such busy sites required a lot of dedication. By freeing myself from the clutches of busy but negatively performing sites (in terms of cash flow), I gained more time to focus on sites that previously made 80% of the money.

Within days, I was able to end my $100 negative cash flow and turn it into a $300 positive cash flow. One and a half month later, I quit my work and sat on the plane to South East Asia. During initial weeks of my early retirement I lived frugally but not cheaply and I put some work towards my money making sites, increasing positive cash flow to $1,000 a month. And I just went with it from that point on.

The only trouble was, that my life instantly turned from this miserable rat race in the office to an exciting adventure that never ended and I was enjoying myself every day to the fullest. Early Retirement rocks. But because of that, I’ve been only putting a few hours a week towards growth of my online business so my positive cash flow has not increased significantly since I’ve reached the $1,000 a month net income. My monthly Early Retirement costs fluctuated between $600 and $700 so the cash flow remained positive even after all of my expenses. And this is all I could need. I’m having the best time of my life. I’m enjoying myself every day. If I did not go for it, I’d be in the office right now, doing what my boss tells me, fixing other people’s problems. Then when the paycheck comes, I’d go and spend it on something because that’s what consumerism we are brainwashed into by the media is all about. We enslave ourselves by dedicating the best days of our lives to working for corporations and end up spending our compensation on material things we don’t actually need to be happy.

I don’t own that much right now and I’m way happier than when I owned all the crap in the world. I have my laptop, my digital camera, few things to wear and a whole world to explore. Would I be better off if I continued focusing on retiring rich when I’m 65? No way. I’m perfectly healthy right now, I’m enjoying myself while I still can. The whole world lies before my feet and I explore it unhindered every day.

My goal is to increase my positive cash flow within the next 6 months so I have enough back up and I would also like to diversify the activities so I have some positive cash flow from different sources. Retiring rich puts the lifestyle you desire in indefinite future. Retiring early enables you to get the lifestyle you desire as soon as your positive cash flow reaches the level that meets or exceeds your comfort level.

The quest for cash is a fool’s errand. Rich people can become poor on any given day and all you have worked for will be gone, but once you have the positive cash flow happening, you don’t concern yourself with whether you’re rich or poor. But that still doesn’t matter, because if you build up the positive cash flow and use it to retire early, you will have lead rich and fulfilling life full of amazing moments to share with your friends and family. Don’t save your life’s enjoyment for the end of your journey on Earth. When you are on your death bed, you will wish you had spent less time with your boss in the office and more time with those who matter to you. The life is now. Instead of giving yourself reasons why you can’t, give yourself reasons why you can and make it happen. Go with confidence in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

“The minute you choose to do what your really want to do, it’s a different kind of life.”
— Buckminster Fuller

Retiring Rich

Most people associate retirement with money and want to retire rich. And I can’t blame them. Before I embarked on my journey to early retirement, I used to think that in order for someone to retire, they must have certain amount of money or else their retirement will stink. Back then, the rat race through life was all about retiring rich, all about this coveted life that’s supposed to come one day in the future. Questions about retiring rich and how to achieve that goal seemed perfectly valid, but it only lasted until I realized the importance of asking the right questions. “How Much Money Do I Need to Retire” is a fundamentally wrong question because as most wrong questions it implies that possession of something (in this case “money”) is necessary in order to retire. But that’s something I have already covered in my How Much Money Do I Need to Retire Early article. So why am I coming back to the same topic you ask? Because I believe it is important to realize that retiring rich should not be the goal, otherwise it will lead to the rat race. Hunt for the riches can cost you a lot of time, the commodity you only have the limited supply of. If you waste your time trying to get rich, trying to achieve a goal that you believe will bring benefits in the future, by the time you are a baby boomer you will be so short on the time left, that even if you have accumulated riches, you will have little time to enjoy them to the fullest. And that doesn’t even take into account worsened health you will have developed by the time you have reached that age.

Retiring rich should not be the goal, retiring soon, preferably now should be. If you make retiring rich your goal, you will set yourself on a long path using the best years of your life working like a slave. Whereas if you make retiring now your goal, you will look towards the ways to establishing a cashflow that will set you free from shackles of corporate slavery and send you on your way to enjoy life.

Forbes Magazine has a list of Rich People. According to their definition, a rich person is someone with annual income of at least $1 Million. This is Forbes’ definition of “Rich” – their understanding of “Rich” has everything to do with the amount of money. My definition of “Rich” would be vastly different as what Forbes considers rich people are simply people with a lot of money to me. Just because they have heaps of money, it doesn’t necessarily mean they live rich and fulfilling lives. But that’s not the point at this time.

Given Forbes’ definition of rich, if you wanted to retire rich, you would be aiming at gathering at least one million dollars before you retire. If you happen to score a good paying job, let’s say one that pays $60,000 a year, you might be able to put away $2,500 each month towards your goal of retiring rich. If everything goes without obstacles and you remain diligent and never fail at putting away $2,500 a month, it will take you 33 years and 4 months to reach your goal and retire rich.

Now – if you take into account that you won’t score a job that pays $60,000 a year right off the college, you may not be able to start with such savings until let’s say – the age of 27. This means that my the time you have saved enough to retire rich, you will have been 60 year old. Great – you’re an old vegetable. How does it feel to retire rich?

Why would you want to make retiring rich your goal? It could condemn you to lifetime of servitude as corporate slave, wasting the best years of your life in a cubicle or wherever your workplace may be so you can have the retirement you desire when you are 60? Let me remind you of the fact that to live it up as though you have retired rich, you do not need much money in your bank account. As matter of fact, you don’t need any money in your bank account and still be able to embark on a journey of a lifetime. What do I base such bold statement on? I base it on a fact that I personally know a guy who retired in his 30’s just like that – myself.

Not only did I not have any money when I retired, I was actually $30,000 plus interest in debt. Yet I’ve wasted no time and set out on my merry way to early retirement and never looked back. How could I do that? Cashflow and belief that I can do it. That is all you need to retire young. Or simply retire at any age. If I could do it, anyone can. Get rid of the notion that you need money in order to retire and quit focusing on the size of your bank account. Because if you keep asking yourself how much money you need to retire, you will be putting your retirement off into the future. And what you put off once, will be put off again. There will always be obstacles, challenges and changes in your life. At one point it will be more money that you need to retire, then completion of the project you are working on, then fill in the blank. If you see it in the future, it will always be in the future. Future is the destination, but that’s not where happiness lies. Happiness is the journey.

Let me recapitulate again why the idea of working yourself to exhaustion so you can save enough money to retire rich is a silly one and why working to save money for the future is a fundamental loss:

  • Being employed provides you with security of a steady paycheck, but at the same time it is the type of income that’s taxed more than anything else and offers little control over how big a chunk of your hard earned money is taken off as tax
  • Going to work requires dedication of your time to job tasks and time is the most precious commodity you have
  • Employment doesn’t come with significant fluctuation of money earned. In order to earn more, you’d have to either work more (take overtimes or second job) or work harder
  • Employment has little or no residual value. You get paid for work performed and/or time spent at the workplace. In order to get paid again, you need to do work and/or spend time at the workplace again

Does the idea of spending your whole life being a corporate slave with the goal that one day you may retire rich still sound appealing to you? Being an employee is to be the most underprivileged member of society. You will be taxed near 50% of your income and you will only have the after-tax left overs to pay your rent with. But the worst thing is that you will spend the days of your life while you are able bodied doing anything but what you want to do. Days you have only so many of before your time is up. If you are going to invest it towards securing your retirement, don’t do it with the goal of retiring rich. Invest it into getting some cashflow happening for yourself so you can retire now, whatever your age and start spending your precious time doing things that matter to you, things that excite you, things that fulfil you. This way, when your time comes and Grim Reaper knocks at your door to end your journey on Earth, you will feel rich. Not Forbes rich, but content with the way you have led your life. You’ll leave this world happy and fulfilled.

Retire in Your 30s

I’ve been talking about Early Retirement for a while on the pages of my blog in attempts to put on paper what was going in my mind when I decided to quit work so I can travel. Today, for the first time I’ve decided to search the internet for websites that talk about how to retire in your 30’s to see what they have to say. I found out in horror that their recommendation and strategies for early retirement are way different from the path I have followed. Based on that, I came to conclusion that unless one is a risk-taker of unprecedented proportions, they should follow the slow, but safer road to early retirement. Afterall, articles on those websites may have been written by professional Early Retirement tutors where as I am not one. I am merely a person who took control over his own life to make it enjoyable and fulfilling.

In brief, according to other Early Retirement websites, in order to retire in your 30’s you should start thinking of it by the time you’re in your 20’s and steadily grow your bank account and plan investment strategies while ensuring low spending and very stingy lifestyle so by the time you are 30, you will be safely set to move to the country of your choice and enjoy early retirement with all its benefits. This is all nice and all as it provides near bulletproof blueprint of retiring in your 30’s. I believe that if you can, you should consider this safer path. It involves less risk taking and as you know, there is a reason why word “risk” is part of the phrase. Otherwise they’d call it “sure thing taking”.

While I in no way disagree with recommendations on other websites, I did not follow their pattern because it was simply not an option for me. I am 34 year old, I’m already in my 30’s. I can’t roll back time. I went through my 20’s having the best time of my life, then in late 20’s I was lead to believe that I needed steady work so I can buy a house and a car, instead of sleeping under the stars and wandering around as a free spirit. After much persuasion, I gave in to the family pressure and became a corporate slave. All that was free in me was suppressed and instead of working my way towards retirement in my 30’s, I succumbed to the life of modern luxuries and debt that accompanies them. I’ve missed my train to retire in my 30’s by the means described on other websites.

However, when I realized the value of time, even though I was already in my mid 30’s, I still wanted to make the best of the rest of my journey on this planet. I wanted to make sure that when my time comes and I’m on the stretcher with grinning death staring at me from across the room, that I have no regrets for the life I’ve led. There are so many beautiful places around the world I would like to explore, so many activities I would like to take part in and I’ve done none of that in the last decade of my life. Whether proceeded by 10 years of preparation for the retirement in my 30’s or not, I took a deep breath, went over my priorities and embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. Just like that.

I took cold-turkey path to Early Retirement, because there was a lot in stake – my life. When I meet with Grim Reaper, I want to have the pictures of me watching the sunset in the Maldives before my eyes, not pictures of a fancy car I worked so hard for. I want to see the slideshow of my trip to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery in Bhutan, not the road to work through the concrete jungle of my hometown. I want to hear the rhythm of the drums I was dancing to with my new friends from a native tribe deep in the jungle of Guyana, not the sound of latest MP3 player with bass enhanced base station.

Even though I didn’t secure myself with safe passage to the retirement in my 30’s, I could no longer waste any more of my days working as corporate slave. I’ve realized that spending whole month by going to work so at the end of the month I can buy a new TV as per carefully fabricated advertising by multinational corporations makes no sense. Why would I want to spend money on a TV to watch documentaries about places I long to visit, when I can instead not buy the TV and go visit those places in person. To see them with my own eyes, to breathe the same air and hear the sound of wind that frolics through these plains.

By buying the TV, I’d be paying with more than just the money. I’d be paying with my own life which I would have voluntarily given away, for the more possessions you own, the more you are stuck in one place. Yet the brainwash by those multinational corporations doesn’t end. Their clever marketing methods are time tested and work well with psyche of those who don’t ignore them. I was stuck in that rut for far too long, wasted too many of the best years of my life and realized that it’s now or never. Ready or not, risky or not – I’ve set out on the path to adventure. A path with unlimited horizons. A path on which each day is different from the last one, a path on which you feel alive, not just living. I’ve retired in my 30’s.