Vinh Pham

23 years into my life and still I am still penniless. For my job I have to drive around a lot to these remote locations, so on the way I see a lot of land…after land… after land.. just open grass areas or farm land.. so I been reading this book “collapsed” and it makes me think about how I don’t really have anything. Then I thought, what if I had a patch of land, then I can cut down some trees, build me a house, cultivate the land to grow vegetables and such, then I can own some animals. Maybe not cows, because apparently cows are exhaust the resource like crazy because of their grazing. Maybe chicken, I love chicken anyways.

I can’t imagine why anyone would give up a comfortable life as an educated member of society to go live on a farmland working their ass off, but then again, I would be totally self-sufficient. Well actually, maybe I will be self-sufficient. I will still need water and what not to water my plant, if I dont live next to a lake or something. Hrmmph..

Anyways, I came to realize that working hard does not always mean you’ll reap the reward. Some of the hardest working people I know live at the bottom rung of society. Being affluent has alot more to do with 1) Luck 2) How smart you are. If you are mart you can find ways to accumulate wealth and escape all the curve balls life throw at you, and to exploit all he opportunies presented to you. But none of that even matter if you are not lucky. If you are lucky, you dont need to worry about shit. But then again someone once said, “Luck is an opportunity for those who are well prepared” Being prepared mean working hard… but then again just cus you work hard doesnt mean the “opportunity” will present itself, so in the end you wont have any luck.

I guess this is where religion comes in. Ok, nevermind religion, what I am actually talking about is FAITH. I can’t imagine how you could live life devoid of faith, because in the absence of faith, life is just a random onslaugh of coincidental events that has no real meaning. Once again, that is just another way to say “luck”. Without faith, you live your entire life waiting to get “lucky”. If you have faith, in a God, or heck, maybe you have faith in the stale piece of cheetos staring at me on my desk, whatever it is, faith makes you believe that eventually you will come to a place of infinitely happines, where “randomness” and chance no longer takes effect, but that in this place, only happiness will prevail. I call it heaven, some people call it a cheesecake flavored ice cream with raspberry mix-in you can get at Cold-Stone. Whatever we think heaven is, it basically is a place where you wont have to worry about what will happen, and you wont have to wait for luck to strike. In this place, you are constantly lucky, and happiness is abound.

Not meaning to sound like a dork, but a lot of times I feel like I am in heaven already. I have a loving family, a beautiful girlfriend, and great friends. I am well educated, healthy, and a GREAT head of hair. Those things keeps me happy, most the time, if not all the time, and that’s my heaven. But then, I go to wellsfargo.com to look at my bank account and realize I only have like $100 bucks to pay my $20,000 debt, it makes me want to cry. Then on Monday morning I have to get my ass up at 6am to go slave myself doing someone elses work, it makes me even more sad. I guess in my life, there are still a couple of things I need to take care of before I am truly in heaven….

Speaking of which, back to the top, if I had a farm, my own house, my own land, my own chickens, and my own vegetable garden, shit… i’d be pretty happy… no bills.. no working for people doing things THEY want me to do… no wories about a crashing economy that could eventually leave me jobless and begging on the streets… nice.. ok.. so where do I start?? where how do I get to own a farm?? oh right… I have to work…

Ok then.. see you all in hell.. (now thats another topic)

So thats not just a pretty flower to showcase my feminine side, its actually an invasive water primose called “Ludwigia” that we are currently studying at the Aquatic Weed Research lab that I work for. We’d go out to selected invaded sites and collect these little buggers by either walking into the water or paddling in with our kayaks. We then bring it home to our lab and seperate it and measure the biomass to try and understand the ecology of the plant. There are numerous other tedious tasks that we do revolving around this plant, however, it does not please me to go into details about those things.
I have begun the process of seeking a new job/hobby. Hobby? Yes, hobby. Being fresh out of college, with so many interest, and different talents, I find it absolutely necessary for me to give anything I am interested in a try. so when I apply for jobs, its not ONLY about making the bucks or developing a career, but its about trying something I like. Hence, its a hobby. I like working with computers, so I got that job at CompUSA, I like talking to people, so I got a job busing tables at Thai 2K, I like working with my hands, so I TRIED to get a job at jiffy-lube, but sadly they never even called me back. My main hobby/passion is ecology, so I did all those temp jobs working outdoors. They were all fun and extremely educational, but now I am interested in doing something sales related. I like to sell. I like convincing people to believe in my ideas, and thats exactly what sales is; getting people to believe in you. I also want to make tons of money. I been feeling very underappreciated lately. With all my skills and experience, I deserve to get paid way more. There are so many people out there getting paid 2x to 3x the amount of money I make doing honest work, for doing almost nothing, and I am getting tired of it. I have alot of debt to pay off, and I need to start saving money for my future (ie. girlfriend). I dont care too much for fancy car or big house, but I do want to give my girlfriend a BMW, a fat diamond ring, and buy my parents a big home. I believe in myself. I know I have what it takes to be successful. Let’s hope I find a company that can appreciate that.

Giving in. How much are you supposed to give in without loosing yourself? Technically it’s not ok to be stubborn and always demand your way, but then again, it’s not right to just give in all the time. The problem is, if you don’t give all you can, you will be blamed for not giving it your best shot, and that is definitely not ok if you care really about something.

If you really care about something, you would give it your all.

First thing to give up is your logic. Meaning, even if you think you are right, just admit you are wrong and forget about it, because in reality, logic is very relative, compared to albert einstein and steven hawkins, your logical is a pile of bullshit, but then again, their logic, compared to a 6 years old is probably a pile of bullshit too. Oh well, thats the “relativity” part. Then next to go, and the hardest to let go of, is your your pride and your dignity. It’s not always mentally sound to put yourself in the back seat of the ride of YOUR life, but if you care about something enough you’d learn to flush pride and dignity down the ego toilet. Then, lastly, if all else fails, you can even give up your dreams and desires. See, now this aint that hard to give up, cus now that you aint got no pride and dignity, it doesnt even matter what you dreamed and desired.
Yea, so thats what you do when you care about something and you are forced to give in. You give in. Then you can be at peace knowning that you did EVERYTHING you possibly could, and if it still doesnt work out, then its not your fault, its just hopeless. But if you DON’T give up everything, you’re gonna wake up in the middle of the night thinking, “fuck, I cared so much about it, but I didnt give everything I possibly could to save it.” But then again, you give in, all the way, then you wake up one day and you say to yourself “fuck, I don’t even know who I am anymore. I used to have dreams, fantasies, ambitions, shit I cared about, now I have nothing.”
I typed in “life” in google, and thats the picture I got. Go figure.