How could one year be both so awesome and so boring.... Farewell 2021

As far as highlight moments...2021 has to have been the most uneventful year of my life. I don't think I'm alone in that either. But looking at it from a personal growth standpoint, or a personal wealth standpoint, I don't think I've ever had a bigger year.

Crypto Yay

The year started with Bitcoin's breakthrough to 26k, up from 7k a year earlier where I bought in. I didn't buy enough to become extraordinarily wealthy, but I did buy enough so that I could feel a tangible difference in my life, even without cashing out. That safety net had never been there before and now I feel confident enough to stop counting pennies.

It doesn't mean I splurge on much, I just feel that a lot of what felt impossible before is now possible. I can think about possibly having kids, or at least buying a house if we are so inclined. It doesn't mean we will, but at least that option is looking like a possibility for the first itme in my life. I can think about travelling without worrying about how to pay for rent. This is actually the first time I've felt this way.

Self Sufficiency

This safety net has allowed me to think more about what I WANT to do. I'm not entirely free because I still have to think about how to get visa sponsorship but anything that feels like work now is really just about that. I spend a lot of my free time experimenting with things that can become a sustainable income that are actually fun for me, or how to match my teaching to the kind of students I want to attract.

I built my teaching up to a level where I could survive (just barely). On top of that I've built my Hive blog and crypto portfolio to a level where I may soon be able to really thrive and to start building positive feedback loops that benefit other people as well. I feel excited about being able to allocate resources to solve problems...these are not terms that I used to think in.

I still don't see myself as much of a business person, but I feel empowered enough to move pieces around the table and see what happens.

No More Training Wheels

The school providing me with a visa and enough money to pay rent is closing at the end of the year. That means I'll have to either build a company (even just on paper) or find someone else willing to sponsor me. I will have about 6-8 months of totally managing my own schedule, finding my own students, working on my own projects. Nothing and no one to tell me what to do. From there I'll need to start talking to lawyers and doing paperwork to become a company.

I want to research how I can integrate crypto into my new work because I think people who own crypto are going to have more money to spend and because I like a lot of the possibilities that open up with Bitcoin and Hive. I already have a few ideas, but I gotta make sure everything will be legal and ok with the my future visa self-sponsorship because I don't want to get kicked out of the country or audited.

I think things are in place to be a pretty exciting 2022.

Hive

I feel as I am starting to carve myself a place on this blockchain, and beyond. It's not as if I hadn't been working on it for the past 5 years but now it finally feels like I'm getting the respect I've always felt I deserved. I work hard, and I care a lot about people. I've done the inner work too, and so it's nice to finally feel things are coming together here.

I am still trying to build up my work off chain as well and use that as a bridge to onboard new members to this community and get them involved in things like Cross Culture where they can make deeper connections to countries they hardly thought about before.

I'd also like to be able to help spread the word of all the great projects and creators that I've found both on Hive and in my time travelling prior to 2019.

Embracing Uncertainty

Not only have I lost my training wheels, the world is moving towards complete uncertainty, in a way that we have never seen in our lifetimes. I see some people freaking out, and others just trying to do what they can to enjoy their little pocket of existence. I feel that the situation will be far less dire than many are predicting.

There will surely be a lot of massive challenges for most of us, but there will be just as many opportunities to go around. The landscape will become confusing but in the confusion, many things will shift around, allowing us to do things we never thought possible. I plan on enjoying it to the fullest.

Moving forward

Starting a company is a big deal, even if my work will essentially remain the same and I'll start with 0 employees. My second mini-novella, "Confessions of the Damaged 1.2" is almost ready for release. I'm around 1/3 finished with a guide to self studying a languages. I've started studying Japanese again and looking to finally understand television and news. I'm slowly poking my way through spanish, hoping to become conversational by around this time next year. My health is far better than it was a year ago too, and I actually have a following on both Hive and Twitter now.

I am also starting to see a clear path forward for both Self Help for Trolls and I+Everything, which are the two names I use to produce different kinds of art and content.

Things are looking up. I hope your year was a good one. What kind of things did you accomplish?

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On a mostly unrelated note, I just minted my first NFT. It's this silly thing right here:

There are only 10 copies in existence, at least 10 copies that are NFTs. You know you want one ;-) It was mostly just an experiment to see how NFT Showroom works and to see if I was cool enough for people to want my adult-kid-art. Pick one up and sell it for 100x the price when I'm famous ;-)

You know you want to pump and dump me.

🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎🌎

My work:

📕 Confessions of the Damaged psychedelic spiritual fiction

🎸I + Everything - ambient folky music

🎬Self Help For Trolls - vlog

Confessions of the Damaged 1.1 - Out now!

Come join Hive Cross Culture and Join our discord

Please consider delegating to @crossculture or following our trail 🙂

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