My first 30 years...

As my 30th birthday is approaching I have decided to take this time to lay down a few lessons that I have had the good fortune to learn. So I am titling this after a ridiculously sappy country music song that I heard far too much one year. God I hated that song. I won't be talking about beer and lemonade, etc. so don't worry. What I did want to talk about was some lessons that I learned in the last thirty years of my life. I don't know dear reader if you care, or if you are looking for any answers in your own life, but I hope that you can take away something from this and possibly make your journey through life a little easier. Barring that, I hope you find a modicum of amusement.

Here goes.

1. Forgive yourself. I have made mistakes; God knows I have. But I learned only recently that I can't dwell on them. Hero worship is overrated. You will never live up to your heroes so don't even try. They may have lived up to theirs but I'm sure they wasted a good deal of time comparing themselves to people that they simply can't beat because they are either dead or they place them on so high of a high pedestal that it is unreachable. Screw it. Be the best that you yourself possibly can and move on. You will spend more productive time on yourself rather than wallowing in your own misery and self-doubt. Just get on with it. It's one thing to desire something but really most of life is about minimizing risk--failing that, it is about being as happy as you can with the day you are given.

2. If you are knocked down by life, get up and fight back. Life is hard, we cannot sugar-coat it. In times like these we are all starting to realize that we lived in a little bubble that was unsustainable. We were promised the world and told that we would have fantastic standards of living. But the party is over. Ivy League educated lawyers and hedge fund managers in New York, Los Angeles, and D.C. are now bridge-and-tunnel people looking for work at the GAP. Move on. Endure. We cannot sit down and let life just pass us by. When things look their darkest you have to stand up and fight. I have seen some pretty dark days myself (buried a brother, sister had cancer, layoffs, poor childhood, blah blah blah) but you can't make that define you. In life you have to get up and fight.

3. Act selfless but not stupid. For me this comes in the area of women. I suppose it all started with my first girlfriend who I let walk all over me. I thought I wasn't good enough for her or some such nonsense and it all culminated in me being with women that I felt like I could save because that is what "nice guys" do. Well I was in a very very bad relationship for four years and it taught me that there is no such thing as a sure thing. We need to fight for ourselves in this world. Hopefully someone will be there in the trenches with you and you can rely on them. But you can't really love someone else until you are happy with you. Just being a nice person without taking care of yourself is horrible for the other person because you become a burden on them. They feel obligated to take care of you and vice versa. Maybe you don't think this is a bad thing but ultimately is it not better for all involved if you go into something giving them your very best and continually trying to keep yourself in decent working order so you can help them when they need it? I mean look--if you are in a relationship with someone that says they need to seek help repeatedly and then keep putting it off you are in for some trouble. It doesn't matter if this person is someone who comes from a seemingly perfect family, well-to-do suburbia, religious leaders, innocent church-girls, any of it. You really are not helping them. If they know they need help and are putting it off to save face or something you just need to move on. Maybe they will get help in time and then you can be there for them, but you can't force someone to get help...you just can't. All you can do is help them through when they are getting the help if they ask. Like I said, be selfless but not stupid. Don't enable someone; you will only hurt yourself in the long run.

4. Take risks. I am writing this entry approximately 6,200 miles (10,000 km) from where I was born. I have lived in Minneapolis, Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Diego, Wales, Washington D.C., and now Beijing. I have few regrets other than I may have wasted some time with some women that I was speaking about in point 3. (But I suppose I couldn't have known that at the time.) Life is about experiences and going out and really living. Make a difference in something that you care about. Try. Find out what it is about your life that you may want to explore and just do it. This world does not wait for us; it only gives us the opportunity before we are called home to do something. So get on with it already. You never know where life will take you. You don't have to go far; you don't even have to go anywhere if you don't want to. The point is to find that one thing that you are afraid of doing (within reason) and just do it. You might surprise yourself. One of the greatest things for me was finding out that somewhere inside of me is an incredibly assertive person with the confidence to make the world meet me on my terms. But I am not special. I believe that inside all of us is the power to do what we most fear.

5. Be tolerant of others and learn to listen. Long ago I was a pretty judgemental person but over the years I have worked hard to change that. One of the greatest friends I have, in fact she is the moral compass in my world, is the exact opposite of me. But god we have so much fun together. I have learned more from her in ten years of friendship about myself and the rest of the world than a whole host of other acquaintances combined. That is what I am talking about I suppose. Find someone different than you and talk to them; try and understand them. Maybe you can't be friends but at least try and see why they see the world that way. Perhaps we as humanity cannot all get along and never will...but I have to believe that the trying is worth the effort. We should get something out of that at least.

And now dear reader I give these lessons to you. I hope you found something in them. If not, at least we shared a moment that hopefully wasn't a total loss.

Take care.

--A Wise Man in the East

There was a dream...

I miss you today.

You were there and then you weren't. All that I had built, and had yet to build, you were a part of...and then you were gone. Like an evaporation of my dreams...why wasn't I enough? But that was never the problem, was it? The truth is that you were never strong enough to handle what you felt. You were always more concerned, and have ever been, worried about the expectations of those around you rather than listening to what you truly wanted. Your greatest fear was always the voice in your head that contradicted what you were told to believe. And I was just the person that wouldn't judge you for that...someone that would just listen. I feel so sorry for you; you were so unhappy so much of the time. I can't imagine that has changed or will change in the future until you make the decision yourself. I pity you.

You were there and then, inexplicably, you weren't. I miss you most in the hours when no one is stirring. And now, as fleeting as you were around, you are gone. Nowhere but in the back recesses of my mind.

I miss you today.

-N.C.

Sleep as a luxury

I never sleep. Those of you that know me, or have spent any serious time with me, know that I am constantly in a state of analyzing incoming data. This is my curse I suppose. When I was working in Washington I would spend countless hours going between news reports on Bloomberg while I read over transcripts from past hearings in the House Financial Services Committee and cross-referencing that with the text of laws that were past either years ago or were yet to be voted on. That was my life and I loved it. I was happy. Having a non-existent personal life; though I did have a girl who claimed to love me at some distant law school (a claim she later maintained but no longer desired the ring that I gave her prior to my moving to China; which of course any adult knows means "you're not the one for me"), did not seem to bother me that much. I was simply preparing myself for the future that I was destined to inherit. A future of building my company and changing the world on my terms. The girl, job, and Bloomberg turned out to be not that important. But the reading and the constant pouring over incessant amounts of information--like grad school never stopped for me--was.

As I slowly build a company, establish a network of contacts in China, and make myself useful to the world around me; these habits are turning out to be vital. But I honestly have thought for years that I am crazy. I just can't turn this damn thing off. I think about numbers and trade projections and debt to repayment ratios when there is the least amount of distraction for me: just prior to sleeping. So here I sit writing to no one...at half past three in the morning in Beijing. And there is no one around to talk to. All I am waiting for ultimately is a phone call from a bunch of rich people to tell a business partner of mine that they would love to give him a pile of money...which he will then split into smaller piles of money...of which one of them is mine. Sadly I don't get to spend the money on anything fun; but I do get to hopefully use it to help employ some people so that next Christmas they won't be as worried about money for presents for their families because they will be working in a factory that I helped get orders for goods and products from. See, to me that is the essence of giving. I will be working on Christmas day this year because I mistakenly believe all that crap that giving is better than recieving etc. Christmas day I will be having meetings with the Chinese because they call Christmas Day "Thursday." Next year it will correspond with the day of the week it falls on also. Hopefully I won't have to worry so much about other things next year and it won't be as bad. Only time will tell.

Right now I just want the phone to ring so I can have some peace of mind...not that it will be enough for me to fall asleep though. I can only think of a few times when it was easy for me to do something normal like fall asleep quickly. Oh well. Be well dear reader.

--A Wise Man in the East

With your whole heart.

The few, if any, of you that are reading this know that I am a man of great ambition. Unfortunately I was not born of great means. For this reason I love movies for their ability to transport me, and at times, draw inspiration from them. Guys like me--the dreamers, country boys, and silly-hearts--love movies like Gattaca and read novels like The Great Gatsby. From that we pull our inspiration that there really is, "no genetic code for the human spirit" and other such pre-packaged tidbits of capitalistic jargon. I am a capitalist and I make no apologies for it. I believe that we can do more by creating safe jobs in this world than we can by just handing people money and saying "there you go, have a dollar." I often, living in Beijing, see homeless people that want money and come up to me saying "Hello! Money!" I have recently started to give these people food from the local 7-11. You would not believe the shock. But that's just who I am. Once an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout.

So you may be wondering how all these things fit together? Well I will tell you. Capitalism is not good, nor is it evil. It is simply a means to get people involved in the process of making things, getting them from point A to point B, and then selling them. Taking those proceeds and using it to hopefully reinvest in the business to then help workers pay for the necessities of life. That is what we are to do in our system. But unfortunately we are living in a society that has gone a little nuts. Our quest for acquisition of wealth has made us convinced that we need to get Ivy League educations or something comparable and go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt in the hopes that we can get a high-paying job later on in life. We believe that if we do not have this magic paper then we will not be successful and get our American Dream. I admit that I was fooled into this. I have the student loan payments to prove it. But did it deliver on its promises? I don't know yet, honestly. For those of you that wish a billionaire's perspective on an over-priced education should read Michael Bloomberg's book. You may rethink all those student loans.

The one thing that Capitalism can do, unlike any other form of monetary distribution, is reward winners and losers the most effectively. In fact, it requires everything of you to be incredibly successful. If you want to live the dream you have to give it your everything--hold nothing back. There is the essence of our system. Living in China you notice that there are some hallmarks of Capitalism that are happening today that exist in Advanced Capitalist Societies the world over: homelessness, hopeful youth, a driven workforce, wealth inequality, rapidly increasing skylines testing the limits of gravity itself, and row after row of new cars. Many Chinese today are critical of their peers, saying that they are spending too much and not saving enough (average savings rate is 40% for the working generation and 60% for their parents). With these new savings the Chinese are learning the value of truly "living the life." But this lesson is an old one, really. The nouveau riche of China are working 70-80 hours per week to afford these new toys and luxuries. They are marrying later which is making their parents more and more concerned. The birth rate is state-controlled but even without that policy the urban Chinese are having less and less children. Why? Because they are working and want to spend money on themselves. Sound familiar?

I titled this blog "with your whole heart" because I am in some way asking us to forgive Capitalism for something that it does not mean to intentionally do--cause immense harm. Capitalism is dependent on continued consumption to survive so destroying all available firms participating in the process would be pointless. Capitalism produces churn naturally; meaning that firms are created and destroyed by the business-cycle. This is important because without this shedding of ineffective firms you get stagnation like was experienced in the former Soviet Union. Really, you must separate Capitalism from the passions of greed. Greed is what drove this economy into the gutters...but it is also what just might save it. The human need to want inexplicably more things is tied to our desire to make our lives better. If you want to make your life more efficient, and you can afford it, you go out and buy something that will increase your work output. Unfortunately with credit cards people bought on the assumption that they could postpone repayment at an undefined date. Credit card companies then in a 1996 Supreme Court case (Smiley v. Citibank) were given the right to argue that fees and overdraft fees could be considered as money earned. Also, any restrictions on the amount they could charge for late fees were lifted. Did the banks force these people to take out credit cards? But also, being from modest means myself, I can understand that in life things happen and you have to make the tough choices. So where does that leave us? Is it the fault of Capitalism for providing the environment for this to occur? If you would argue that point then I would say this same horrible environment is responsible for most, if not all, of our modern technological and medicinal marvels in the last fifty years. So is it fair to call it "evil" by its very nature?

Finally dear reader I must point out that until we learn to control our passions; to temper them in some way, we are doomed to continue this cycle. Country boys like me have dreams of success yes, but we can either turn out to be Andrew Carnegie or Bernard Madoff. The outcome depends on whose dreams come to fruition. Carnegie was written off until he came to this country and worked his way up. Madoff said that he started with $5,000 from doing various outside jobs and then used that to start his investment company. But, and I ask you this, which of these two men will be remembered for their giving? I'd bet it's Carnegie, the man that built thousands of libraries. And here is the essence of my point: In giving away everything, he may have gained everything. The good book says that we cannot buy our way into heaven; but it also says that money for money's sake is the root of all evil (1 Timothy, fyi). In short, the morality of the individual is what we should be assessing here. We all love the tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge not because of his acquisition of wealth and his business acumen, but rather because of his great conviction to charity found in the end.

Capitalism allows for an environment of incredible good and bad simultaneously. Until we allow these capitalists to put their whole hearts into their work we can never reap the benefits of what they so lovingly sow. Conversely, we can also never bring down the harsh rule of law on them either until they are set to work. It is up to us as a society figure out the best way to reward the virtuous profiteers from the vicious ones. In short, we need to set better guidelines. But that much is obvious to even the most casual of observers.

But that is just one man's opinion. Be well dear reader.

--A Wise Man in the East

Exporting "spin"

Today we all learned a valuable lesson in the form of Chinese bureaucracy...it is ever-lasting. I have to hand it to China, they quickly picked up on a valuable lesson it took us years to learn in America--spin works. Recently, according to Bloomberg, the Chinese government will no longer suppress news reports. In lieu of this the Chinese will work to control the message. In short, "spin" the message. And here is the genius of their bureaucracy--they have now gotten new purpose.

Back home, in the US for me, we have the NSA (National Security Agency), and somewhere there are tens of thousands of government workers listening to telephone calls and reading emails across the vast expanse of American telecommunications. So too, apparently, is something like this in China. Well, in China these people now have the ability to do what we in the US so far have not--read everybody's mail.

I say this because I used to do this for a US Congressman--I read his letters from constituents and answered them. Well, if there was a vast uptick of particular questions about a particular problem he addressed it. So too can the Chinese. If there is an army of people reading your communications every day--and there is--those people have access to your hopes and fears. In a world where consumers and constituents can complain on so many mediums why not use this information for social stability? I mean if you already have no problem with the fact that you are being listened to, and apparently the Chinese do not, then why shouldn't the government use this very tool to address populace concerns?

In short--the old bureaucracy of listening and suppression can be the new bureaucracy of message spin. Why not take all those wonderful bureaucrats and have them put together reports on the "chatter" going on domestically? See where people are most concerned and in what areas of their daily lives they care about the most. I mean, if you already have no problem with Big Brother than why not at least let it help people a little bit, right? I mean they are paying for it after all.

And that is just one man's opinion.

-A Wise Man from the East