It is Monday, the last week of the month. It has been a month of progress and challenges, for which I am grateful.

I have received my Brazilian ID, which allowed me to open a new bank account and get a credit card. I also set up a savings account with four sub-accounts for specific purposes, such as saving for a motorbike, retirement, and Jessica and Yasmin.

I plan to buy a motorbike or a big bike in 2024. Retirement is retirement, and the earlier, the better. However, I am extremely late for retirement due to life and a lot of stupidity. My daughters, Jessica and Yasmin, receive the same amount from me whenever I can put money away.

In one month, many things have changed, and they still need to change much more for the better.

I have also opened a cryptocurrency account. I bought a small amount of cryptocurrency. I know it may seem small, but, like with savings accounts, I regularly put in small amounts because they will eventually add up.

It is like going to the gym, you do not see the effects of your exercises on the 1st or even the 5th day, but you will see the difference over time. A giant oak tree comes from a little acorn.

I have also noticed that the euphoria wears off quickly when we achieve a goal, and the recent achievement becomes normal. The novelty of what we have achieved wears off.

If we relax too much, we could fall back into the hole we have just gotten out of. So, we must continue moving forward. We cannot stop. We must continue to set higher goals, achieve them, and reach even greater heights.

I know that, materialistically, I am a failure. Living in Brazil has not led me to the fortune or the capacity to build an ample patrimony that I had expected in the past. Until now, I have only been able to survive and make sure that my daughters turned out to be decent, good human beings, trying to prepare them for their lives ahead.

Even then, there are no guarantees, and as parents, we are limited in what we can do. Sometimes, we must let everything go. You have done what you could. The rest is up to them. I know it is not easy to say this, but in some ways, it is true.

If we are good parents, or at least we try to be, we try to prepare our children for the future with love and education because the world and its realities are brutal.

We live in a cruel world, and Brazil can be very unforgiving if you are not careful. A judge I know believes that luck plays a significant role in our lives. While hard work and studying are essential, a certain amount of luck is also necessary to succeed.

Realising this, we should not have overly high expectations in life. Keeping our expectations low is crucial. We should embrace whatever comes our way, good or bad, with all our hearts, as the truth is, this is all we have.

Suppose it is good, great, thanks! If it is bad, it is still good because it is part of the learning curve, and better things will come eventually. I spent the entire day trying to resolve the problem on the contact page of “The Long Gringo” website.

The site receives external emails through its accounts, but not through the contact page. It is a communication problem between the page and my email account. I am sure it will be resolved this week.

The only thing that is upsetting me at the moment is Yasmin. Our relationship has deteriorated significantly over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes, I think it is getting better, and we are recovering, and then something happens to set everything back to zero.

She is intentionally trying to make me feel bad before going to England. I know that she is an adolescent, but even so, it is not easy. I feel wronged. But what can I do? She is my daughter; I love and want the best for her. Let’s see.

Classes are proceeding as usual, with small tweaks to the websites. I am making adjustments all the time between classes.

Be kind and be happy, and if you can’t be happy, still be kind, but not naïve!

In bed by 9:30 p.m.

Thank you.

Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography

The post A Month in Review on Progress and Challenges first appeared on The Long Gringo.

It’s Monday again, the beginning of the week. I wake up at 4:30 and head out to the street by 5.

I work out from 5:15 to 5:50. Then I go to the bakery by 6:05 and back home by 6:40. After a quick shower, I have my first class at 7.

I have a relatively light schedule for Monday, with only seven classes throughout the day. In the past, it was typical to have an average of at least ten classes from Monday to Thursday.

However, due to economic challenges in Brazil and subsequent recessions, it became increasingly difficult to hire teachers who could match my tuition level. Initially, I had teachers working with me, but as the years went by, I found myself teaching 11, 12, or even 13 classes daily.

Everything came to a halt during the pandemic lockdown.

Even though I couldn’t receive any students at the school, I kept it open for a year during the lockdown, always hoping, like everybody else, that the pandemic would soon be over. But it never happened when we expected.

In February 2020, I had arranged to move from Rocha to Copacabana and rent Katia’s flat on Rua Duvivier. At the same time, I decided to vacate the school premises and work remotely. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life.

I suddenly fell ill with acute appendicitis in the middle of these changes.

If I hadn’t received treatment that day, I would have died within one more day. I had to stay in a municipal hospital in Rio for more than a week, and it was an unforgettable experience that I will share in the future.

So, having seven classes in one day is nothing for me. I gathered the courage between classes to start working on the site again. It turned out to be very rewarding. It is clear to me that whenever we start something new, we essentially know nothing about it.

We must accept that we are completely ignorant of that subject, but we are willing to take the risk of learning. We make a lot of mistakes, but as we learn more and put in the effort, we will eventually become proficient in what was once utterly foreign to us.

On Monday night, I went to bed feeling content. I was pleased that I had started to make progress and could see a real difference in my work. The key is to keep going, moving forward little by little and improving without stopping.

If you stop, it can be perilous. You miss a day and then another, and the void gets bigger to a size you think is impossible to fill, and then it’s game over.

Never stop. We can’t stop. If we stop, we’re screwed!

In bed by 10 p.m.

Thank you.

Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.

Richard

Photos by Richard George Photography  

The post The Challenge To Overcoming Challenges | Change | And Progress first appeared on The Long Gringo.