Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 28oC, a little hot, sunny and slightly cloudy.
Tuesday, four days before my birthday, and I am still broke. I have R50 Reais to my name, basically U$10 US dollars or £8 pounds. This is an internal battle that I am facing at the moment, well, for a long time, to be exact.
Approaching 57 and living the way I am is not what I had planned when I was young. When I was young, I imagined myself to be reasonably successful at 25 and with a Ferrari at 30.
When I arrived in Brazil, I was considered a genius for my age in what I knew about the boat and the yacht-building industry. In addition to my knowledge of the industry, people commented on my drive and willpower to succeed and achieve my goals.
What went wrong?
What did I do wrong? Have I been fooling other people and principally myself all this time? Has it all been a joke and not realised it until now? Have I only now learned what is needed to be successful at almost 57? Have I been playing with my life all this time?
In the beginning, I was working with boats and had closed an important deal in Sao Paulo, and even so, it all went wrong. Not so much due to me or the project itself but to the person who had bought the project and did not know how to develop it properly.
It was a project that could have put his business to another level in the Brazilian market and in other countries. Still, he did not know how to appreciate and respect the professionalism necessary to realise its full potential, so it never took off.
And my beautiful and special English school: The Right Way English School Ltda. Why did I have a school/course? Why wasn’t I happy and content to just give classes and pay the bills? Why did I want to rewrite the didactic methodology?
Why did I demand so much from the classes, and why didn’t the school grow and expand? Why couldn’t I get to contract more teachers to work for me for prolonged periods so that the school could become a force in English teaching? Why wasn’t I able to do this?
Everybody who studied at the school loved the school and the classes. They loved me as a teacher; they felt that what they paid every month was fair and something serious, valid, and worth it.
They felt they were learning and did not want to go to other schools to learn. The school was very proactive for its pupils, combining a mixture of English and cheap psychology.
Many ex-pupils returned to study at the school after a long absence, saying that they either tried to study at other schools for some reason and couldn’t adapt, or they were used to my way of tuition and said that they only felt that they had learnt something through my way of classes at The Right Way.
So why am I at 57 without my own home, without a car, no bank account and wholly fucked now. The only thing that keeps me focused is knowing that my youngest daughter depends financially and intellectually on me.
What do I have to do at 57? What have I not been doing or doing wrong for the last 56 years? What a fuck up, and what do I have to do to change it?
The rest of the day was contemplation and classes.
In bed by 9.30 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading my blog. Check out my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments.
Richard
