I used to look back at my 20s and think of all of the opportunities that lay there to create a better future for myself, but that I just wasn’t aware of them, and now there gone.
That was the “old me”. That version of me that looked out to the world and blame everything and everyone for all of the opportunities that I missed, that were no longer there. In a future post I might explain the transition that I went through, but for now enough to say that this isn’t me anymore.
So why write this post, in which I lament all of those opportunities that lay there waiting for me? Well, so that kids in their 20s now might realise where they can do better and build a strong foundation for their lives.
I turned 20 in 2004. At that point I was doing the mandatory military service I was required to do in my country of origin. My base was close to where I lived, so I got to go home every evening, so it was more like an office job than anything else. But we didn’t have internet access at home.
So online income was not a possibility at that point. I couldn’t work because you’re not allowed to work as a soldier, even though they only give you the equivalent of about £70 ($90) per month. However, getting home at about 7pm every night, what could I have done?
Well, I could start asking around about small accounting/ law practices that needed help with some administration/ office work or even cleaning the offices. I couldn’t set up a business for that, but where I come from there’s a strong culture of people paying less than market rates by paying in cash without receiving an invoice. Technically, I would be breaking the law, but the worst penalty I would have received was spending a couple of weeks at the base without leave to go home. It would have been worth it.
But I didn’t have the vision required to do that, and no-one pointed me in that direction, despite both of my (divorced) parents being in dire financial straits.
Moving on. I got out of the army shortly after my 21st birthday, and at that point my mum had recently bought an old computer and got connected to the internet. Hooray! We were in the 21st century.
Well, I was so out of what was going on, that I had no idea what you can do with an internet connection. I worked at a gas station for the three months between my leaving the army and starting school. That meant I got up at 5am every day, but by 2pm I was home after an 8 hour shift. At some point I started a night job as a security guard in the city where my uni was – about two hours by bus.
I take a lot of pride in my work ethic, and at that time it stood the test. There were days that I would work the night shift (leaving home at 8pm), finish at 7am, get the bus home, take a 2-hour nap and go to work at the gas station until 10pm. I worked myself off – but it was for minimum wage.
Looking back, it would have done me so much better to learn how to make money online. Sure, it was much harder at that point, with many of the websites that exist nowadays for teaching not being around back then, but if I had looked, I could have found people making money and ask them to teach me how.
I also could have taken the payout every soldier got at the end of their service, about £1,000 ($1,300), and learn how to invest it in the stock market.
It might sound to you like, I needed to know that these things existed in order to look for them and learn them. But I had tonnes of free time. Most days, I’d come home from the gas station, have lunch with an episode of The Sopranos, then go to bed for 2 hours, wake up and basically just sit around doing nothing, or going out.
I had so much to invest in myself, but I didn’t have the vision or the self esteem to do it. All the money I made working hard at the gas station, I wasted away playing pool and drinking almost every night, eating loads of junk food out and not even investing in proper clothes – I bought my clothes at the supermarket.
So when I think of it, even before I started school there was so much opportunity that lay before me, I just had to reach out and take it. You just need to have some vision, maybe a guiding hand, someone to tell you that anyone can do it and that includes you.
I hope that I can do that for someone.
Join me for the second part of this journey, my years at uni.
Hope that helps.
Jon
Human Action 