What if Money didn’t matter?

IN Dark Night of the Soul
Amed Bali
  • Updated:7 years ago
  • Reading Time:5Minutes
  • Post Words:1209Words
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

How would you spend your time, your life, if money were no object?

I recently came back from a short (12 day) trip from Bali and was trying to get “back” into work-mode and finding that I’m not getting motivated or any satisfaction from what I’m doing anymore. I’d start, and then get distracted, or go outside and “think”. I couldn’t get into it at all and now a week has passed with barely anything achieved, which is “so” not like me at all. I’m used to tackling many projects at once, and now I can’t seem to get motivated to do even one thing in an entire week.

Amed, Bali, Indonesia

I think it’s time to re-evaluate my life..re-evaluate my values and make sure that I am following my dreams.

I thought that I was already doing that by having an internet marketing business, but the main reason for starting the business was to travel and coming back to it, knowing that I’m still not travelling.. I dunno, the passion for it is gone.

It was different when I was just working on my own sites – finding out new marketing techniques and applying it for my own sites – I was obsessed and engaged in researching and applying what I had learnt, testing everything, buying everything, seeing the results – seeing success, but ever since I decided to apply what I had learnt to other people’s businesses, I’ve found myself spending the last couple of years struggling and spending 10-20/hrs a day on a computer, and not with a big smile on my face.. it’s not “living”, it’s not a life.

I skip friends dinners because I have deadlines, I choose clients over my partner and family, I’m no longer “part of the world”, I barely leave the house except the weekly grocery shop, I haven’t been to a cinema in years, dinner is rushed – I used to love poker and I’ve only played a live game “once” in the past couple of years and even then I found myself feeling guilty and wanting to get home to work. Being in business for yourself – is much harder than working for someone else.

I should’ve focused MORE on passive income but local business marketing was the path I chose, mostly because I knew that I could really help people and it made “me” feel good.

For many years, I thought that if I could have a business that could be “run from a laptop”, and totally online, that I could live anywhere – travel anywhere, and have freedom. But I’m “chained” to this computer like a slave, and there is no joy anymore. Coupled with the fact that “local business marketing” does not really suit a travellers lifestyle.. local businesses like to meet in person or at least over the phone – they are not “skype” people and they don’t trust people who live offshore.

I had more joy when I was trying to earn a “passive” income, one that didn’t require sales, explaining technical terms, or reporting to others, etc.

I love helping people but with the mass amounts of seo “consultants” out there who have ‘done wrong’ by ripping off their clients making them distrust seo companies altogether, or by clients choosing smaller once-off packages then questioning why they aren’t number 1 when they didn’t follow your customized recommendations for them in the first place, you have to first get past all these objections, and spend all your time educating them on what they need, and it’s a lot of work and effort, and when I look at how much time I spend on each campaign, huddled over the computer, never seeing the outside of my room.. I’m just … kinda over it. It’s easier to work for other marketers cos they at least know what they need and know I can do a quality job for them, but the white label project I started didn’t pan out either as I tried to expand into outsourcing to be able to keep up with demand, and found noone up to my standards, and it ended up being much faster and better for my clients if I just “did it myself”.

So, while I sit here, re-evaluating the past 10 years of my life, figuring out what to “let go” of, which sites I should delete (I have over 70), should I just get rid of everything and start from scratch? Or should I just re-focus my energies on that which will give me “joy”. I’m no longer motivated – I’m overwhelmed and stuck with a burning question again.. “what should I do with my life?”

I do think that I could still make the local business work somehow and travel, but maybe I should put my energies into businesses of countries where I travel to instead of keeping myself “stuck” here in Australia. Or re-focus back on passive incomes instead of having anything to do with the public. Either affiliate marketing, CPA or maybe even webinars/training/membership sites, etc.

It’s funny when you meet locals in Bali – the Balinese, all they want to do is live in Australia, whereas from my perspective, they already live in paradise – guess the grass is always greener on the other side? :)

Early Mid-Life crisis?
And so this week, I’ve started to notice comments & status updates on Facebook as well as doing several google searches on trying to find your life’s purpose “and all that kind of stuff” this short video was posted by a friend on Facebook and got my attention and my brain-juices flowing and made me realize that I need to question what I’m doing and whether it serves me or if it’s “keeping me a slave”.

I started finding others who are “living my dream”.. working online while travelling the world.. they are not “stuck” 10-20 hours a day struggling to get work done for a pittance, not struggling to pay the rent and they are not still “dreaming” of travelling like I am.. they are living it. Some of them make less than I do and they are still doing it. Some of them are half my age and yet they are doing it. What the heck am I waiting for? The world is my oyster, I need to just do it, spend a few weeks figuring it out and then just do it..

Amed Bungalows

Seeking other entrepreneurs who are living the dream, working online, passive or active and travelling the world, I need to connect with like-minds so that I can stay focused on what I really want. I’ve found quite a few in the past couple of days, if you are interested, here are some links to others who are travelling & working online:

I’ve only been looking for like-minded souls for a couple of days and am still in the process of reading all their blogs, listening to podcasts and seeing what they are up to – do you have any recommendations for others that I should check out? Please comment below if you do! :)

How would you spend your time, how would you enjoy your life, if money were no object?

Penny (PennyButler.com)
Penny (PennyButler.com)

Truth-seeker, ever-questioning, ever-learning, ever-researching, ever delving further and deeper, ever trying to 'figure it out'. This site is a legacy of sorts, a place to collect thoughts, notes, book summaries, & random points of interests.

9 Comments

  1. Melanie Croft says:

    If I had money, I would take care of my family and help out others who need a boost!

  2. April Lessi says:

    If money were no object hmmm… I would live on a luxury boat that I do not have to drive myself, with a chef and a helicopter.

  3. Di Burrows says:

    When there’s something you want, fight for it. Don’t give up – no matter how hopeless it seems, even when you’ve lost hope, cause years from now you’re gonna look back and wish you gave it it one more shot, cause the best things in life don’t come easy.

  4. Eddison Kornfield says:

    Hello! I want to say that this post is exactly the kind of thing I’m going through at the moment too. Like you, I’m suddenly in a position of completely reevaluating every aspect of my life in terms of its financial and personal value. Sometimes it takes an uncomfortable push to get us unstuck from our regular patterns of life, which we may not even realize are holding us back from having something better.

  5. Tony Rod says:

    Take care of yourself. Motivate yourself. Impress yourself. Laugh at yourself…the list is endless…but by all means, strive to be better than you were yesterday!

  6. To me, the video is a great reminder to identify, follow and live your dream. Life is very, very short and to spend it pursuing something that does not fulfill you in any meaningful way, would be…sad.

    1. Absolutely agree – don’t be like me, sitting in a dark room on a computer, slugging it out for years and missing out on “living”.. find some way to get out there and live your dreams.

  7. Shellie McGorry says:

    I think his point is that you shouldn’t do something you hate just because you have to live, but rather if you must do? something you hate, it should be to fuel something you love. Maybe no one likes to clean toilets, but if you’re doing it so that you can pay for your life while you write a book you’ve always wanted to write, then that’s ok.

    1. Totally agree with you. Love it.

Comments are closed.