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2020 SUMMARY - - PART 2
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I’ve realized that I didn’t really give much of a summary of how 2020 was for me, but mainly just the charts and the ramblings. So, here are some more details
I will cover these categories:
- Relationships
- Location (living in Vietnam)
- Joy, Fulfillment
- Fun and Hobbies
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RELATIONSHIPS
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FRIENDS
Aside from my girlfriend, I haven’t made close friends here. The problem is that I haven’t tried much. I do have some acquaintances and, I guess I’d say loose friendships. I have some ‘coffee friends’ that I meet about weekly, and another that I see about weekly also. I have been intending to try to make more friends, but I don’t really do so. A large part of this is that it is not a problem for me to spend quite a lot of time on my own.
ROMANCE
I was dating a lot in Q1 - meeting many new women. Some of it was great, some ok, some ~boring. I gradually got into a serious relationship with one. It’s great in some ways, but with some challenges of course.
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LOCATION
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Vietnam is great, and I think the city I live in is one of the better in Vietnam. It has good:
- Landscape (along coast, nice beach, small mountains right nearby)
- Weather (for 9 months of the year)
- Cost of living. For a city this nice, it is extremely cheap
- Safety
- People are nice and friendly
The thing I dislike most about it is the air quality. There are other cities towards the south with better air quality (at least right now). But, for now, that doesn’t motivate me enough to move.
There are some other really nice things:
- The lower end of scales of things you can buy goes down further than in the U.S. There are apartment that can be rented for $50/month. I don’t want to live in one, but I think it is better for me, because now the kind of place I want to rent is around the middle of the scale, so there are many options.
- Transportation in Vietnam is set up nearly ideally for me. The vast majority is done on small motorbikes. Transportation methods in Vietnam evolved as walking — to bicycles — to small-engined motorbikes. Whereas in other countries it was more like walking — horses — wagons — cars. So now, in the wealthier parts of Vietnam, the vast majority of people get around on motorbikes and scooters (in the U.S., people would call them all “scooters”). The result is that roads take up less space. Parking takes up little space. Neighborhoods can be far more dense. Transportation is more efficient (perhaps in the U.S. the average to transport a person is around 20mpg/person. Here, a motorbike means about 50mpg/person alone, or 200-300 per person when there is a family of 4 on one bike.).. Cities here are built without large freeways. The speed is 50km/hr and under. So, in the medium-sized city where I live, any road can be walked across, and any road can be ridden on bicycle. There is rising car ownership, and if it continues, it will be a huge problem.
- Living happens more outside here. Places feel much more alive because people are out and about. Families go out together to the beach. Markets are bustling. In the U.S., people are almost always inside boxes. Inside their house. Inside cars. Inside buildings at work. You really don’t see people that much. Here, when driving, you see all the other people because you and them are sitting on motorbikes and close by. Sitting outside in a city, you hear things going on around you. A mom calling her child. Kids playing. Neighbors talking. Construction of a house nearby. In the U.S., when I sat on my porch, 98% of the city sound was cars.
- Labor cost is so low. If one wishes to outsource cooking, it doesn’t really cost any more than buying ingredients and cooking yourself unless you optimize your ingredient sources very well (by shopping at markets rather than a store in a building, AND getting good deals at the market.)
WEATHER
Most of the year, it is amazing here. Almost perfect, though a bit hot and humid. The winter rainy season was rough this year. I think it was the ‘worst’ year out of the last 20. It has been longer than usual, colder, and rainier. We had 4 or 5 big storms - one or two classifieds as typhoons (hurricanes). There was some bad flooding, but not in my city because it drains well into a river and the ocean. There was a long period of complete cloud cover. I lived in Portland for half a winter, and there it was better, because almost every week would have one full day of sun. But here during rainy season, we can go 3 full weeks without any sunshine. That weather impacted my mood more than being stuck at home by lockdowns. It has finally improved, and is now about perfect.
COVID IMPACT
Vietnam has been perhaps the best country in the world for Coronavirus response and control. For the vast majority of the year, people here have been able to live as normal without any fear or risk.
It has been great living in a place where the government is acting effectively in the best interest of the people (at least, with regard to Covid). IMO This also ends up working best for the economy.
I think this has resulted in me having a far better year than I would have almost anywhere else. Even in other SE Asian countries - most have not done as well.
Now in February, the 3rd or 4th outbreak in Vietnam started. This one is the largest so far. It is mostly up near Ha Noi (400 miles from me). The timing is bad because it started just before the huge Lunar New Year holiday. I declare that if they are able to eliminate this outbreak and get back to zero again, I will mount a Vietnamese flag on my rooftop terrace.
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JOY, FULFILLMENT
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I’ve been happy about many things here. Lots of good days and good moments. I have an easy life in a cozy place. I made my life extremely simple. I pared things down a ton in order to move around from country to country. Then I stayed in one. So, at times my life was too simple. I was bored, or, more specifically, felt unproductive. As I felt more sure I would stay here a long time, I made changes that have helped - getting more hobby equipment, and building some relationships.
Those equipment includes gardening supplies and plants, a decent motorbike, a good gaming PC, and mediocre home coffee equipment. Plus I have the pens and camera gear that I brought to Asia.
Now, most days I spend 3-12 hours doing something that I feel is productive (gardening, reading, exercise, investing). That is important for me personally, so, lately, I feel better about my life.(See the next section, “FUN & HOBBIES”, for more detail)
I’d rate my current level of satisfaction with life at about 7/10 - so, quite good.
**A note - I had written the above sentence about a month ago. Since, I have been re-reading the ERE book, and one or two sentences in the book caused me to think about how I have used my goals and measurements a bit wrong. Generally, I have set my goals ‘by feel’, and have made a habit of populating goals always starting with similar categories (Financial, health/fitness, social, etc.). I’ve at times felt that I have too many different things listed as goals. I’ve even forgotten them for significant periods of time. From work experience, I learned that it is possible and usually better to focus goals only on things that really need to be changed - NOT to make goals for all categories.
My long-term measurements have been quite specific - what I would consider PPIs, or sub-measurements. Like net worth (in year) or SWR.. or bodyweight and body fat.. or time to run a mile… I thought that I should start using some more top-level wellness measures for myself, and narrow my goals to the ones I want to improve. I made up an initial list and will probably start updating them at least monthly. They are quite subjective, things like feelings of:
- Financial success/security
- Health
- Fitness
- Joy/Fun/Excitement
- Feeling of progress
- Social/relationships/love
I would give these subjective ratings 1-10 scale.
It's possible that an evolution of this journal will include less sharing of financial data, and more of this kind of thing. I’ve already shown you plenty of money info, charts, etc. There isn’t really anything more to show unless I make some significant changes, and the list of measures above are more important.
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FUN & HOBBIES
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The hobbies I’ve been doing lately are:
- Gardening
- Reading
- Exploring on motorbike
- Learning about Vietnamese culture
- Going out for coffee
- Coffee at home among rooftop garden
- Going to the beach or mountains
- Playing games on computer
- Time with girlfriend
- Time with friends/acquaintances
- Exercising
- Writing with fountain pens
- Investing work
- Watching sport online (MMA)
GARDEN:
For the garden, my apartment is great. I have a small room, but plenty of outdoor space: about 500 square feet of outdoor area, with some of it covered. So far, I have ~70 different plant species. Many of these are ones I can clone, and I enjoy cloning a lot. Currently, about 1/3 of the plants are ones I’ve cloned (plus another 100 small succulent clones that I’m not counting in that number). I’ve been meaning to share pictures, and perhaps I will fairly soon. The garden can help with other goals - providing a better place to sit and work than inside my apartment, and making a better area for having guests/dates/girlfriend to come hang out in.