Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 18oC, cool, rainy, grey and stormy.
It is Monday, the last week of the month. It has been an extremely positive and profitable month for which I am grateful.
I have received my Brazilian ID, which allowed me to open a new bank account and get a credit card. I also set up a savings account with four sub-accounts for specific purposes, such as saving for a motorbike, retirement, and Jessica and Yasmin.
I plan to buy a motorbike or a big bike in 2024. Retirement is retirement, and the earlier, the better. However, I am extremely late for retirement due to life and a lot of stupidity. My daughters, Jessica and Yasmin, receive the same amount from me whenever I can put money away. In one month, many things have changed, and they still need to change much more for the better in the future.
I have also opened a cryptocurrency account. I bought a small amount of cryptocurrency. I know it may seem ridiculous, but like with savings accounts, I regularly put small amounts in because these tiny values will eventually become large one day.
It is like going to the gym – you do not see the effects of your exercises on the 1st or even the 5th day, but you will see the difference over time. A giant oak tree comes from a little acorn.
I have also noticed that the euphoria wears off quickly when we achieve a goal, and the recent achievement becomes normal. The novelty of what we have achieved wears off.
If we relax too much, we could fall back down the hole we have just gotten out of. So, we must continue moving forward. We cannot stop. We must continue setting greater goals, achieving them, and reaching even greater heights.
I know that, materialistically, I am a failure. Living in Brazil has not led me to the fortune or the capacity to build an ample patrimony that I had expected in the past. Until now, I have only been able to survive and make sure that my daughters turned out to be decent, good human beings, trying to prepare them for their lives ahead.
Even then, there are no guarantees, and as parents, we are limited in what we can do. Sometimes, we must let everything go. You have done what you could. The rest is up to them. I know it is not easy to say this, but in some ways, it is true.
If we are good parents, or at least we try to be good parents, we try to prepare our children for the future with love and education because the world and its reality are brutal.
We live in a cruel world, and Brazil can be very unforgiving if you are not careful. A judge I know believes that luck plays a significant role in our lives. While hard work and studying are essential, a certain amount of luck is also necessary to succeed.
Realising this, we should not have overly high expectations in life. Keeping our expectations low is crucial. We should embrace whatever comes our way, good or bad, with all our heart, as the truth is, this is all we have.
If it is good, great, thanks! If it is bad, it is still good because it is a learning curve, and better things will come eventually. I spent the entire day trying to resolve the problem on the contact page of “The Long Gringo” website. The site receives external emails through its accounts but not through the contact page. It is a communication problem between the page and my email account. I am sure it will be resolved this week.
The only thing that is upsetting me at the moment is Yasmin. Our relationship has deteriorated a lot in the last couple of weeks. Sometimes, I think it is getting better, and we are recovering, and then something happens to set everything back to zero.
She is intentionally trying to make me feel bad before going to England. I know that she is an adolescent, but even so, it is not easy. I feel wronged. But what can I do? She is my daughter; I love and want the best for her. Let’s see.
Classes are proceeding as usual, with small tweaks to the websites. I am making adjustments all the time between classes.
In bed by 9:30 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
