When I live abroad #1

My favorite place when I have nowhere to study or work is La Place. It is a chain restaurant with a strong wi-fi access and good-sized warm meals and sandwiches. Additionally, it has a big dining space, so I could stay as long as I want. It does not stop there either. Water is free and plenty. 

As you know it, I recently moved to Nijmegen. Back in Amsterdam or Eindhoven I would know where to sit. A place with electrical plug in sight. But today, I had searched the place and I could not find anything. My battery was draining too. I asked one of the staffs if they have a seat where I could recharge my laptop, and he just answered, plug out one of plugs for the lamp, and use that. 

Isn't that cool? He puts me, the customer, first. 

I began to wonder, if I ever would start a business, I would definitely bring these values. The coolness. The flexibility. The organic approach. The not too rigid kind of way. Favor. Easy. 

La Place. Customer Service: 5*. 

Lazy Productive People

I read a section in an article from the Entrepreneur.com and it quickly changes my view on how to work smart. I confess that I spend most of the times working hard when I could outsource those tasks. On the contrary, I forget to focus my time and energy on something that really matters (higher pay-offs for the time). 

The article also refers to sending the email to that big client or making that phone call  as jobs that pays $1,000 per hour while fixing the leaky faucets or extracting a virus from the computer as jobs that should be outsourced. Anyways, this is my favorite part of the article. Why? Simply because that I usually feel very guilty when I don't do "much" during the day.

Don't feel guilty about relaxing. The most productive people are a little lazy. If there are really only a few hours a day in which you do $1,000-an-hour work, does it really matter if you screw around for the rest of the day? Downtime gives you the mental space you need to think. You can't be a great strategist when you're hustling from morning 'til night. Feed your brain instead, so you're sharp when you're negotiating the next sales contract.

Read more on The 80/20 Rule of Time Management: Stop Wasting Your Time. 

Hire a personal assistant, pay her $10 per hour, she will gladly do it and you can focus on making the sale; which will pay you $1000 per hour. 

Masterpiece in Progress

Tonight I am telling a story of my hills and valleys for the last three days of my weekend. And what I got out of it.

• First valley: FRIDAY evening. I got out in the right station after fell asleep in the train (and right before the train left for the next destination) only to find myself stuck in another train which brought me to my destination 25 minutes late.
• Neutral ground: SATURDAY. 
• First hill: SUNDAY evening. I got a dayticket for free for my return train ticket to Nijmegen. Somebody left it behind and I happened to be the first one to find it.
• Second valley: SUNDAY night. I forgot my moving boxes on the train. My boyfriend and I had to got through a lot of hurdles to bring them home from IKEA. But when I had to switch trains, I foolishly left them behind on the train (they were in between the train seats and were unseen to my eyes). 

Sometimes I do not understand why I go through so much ups and downs in life.

One thing I am sure of is that I am a masterpiece in progress. Eveything that has happened, is happening, and is going to happen to me are like the potter's hands shaping, adding some water, removing some dirts out, and putting me into the furnace. 

And while I am on the making, it might look ugly. Imagine, the potter's hand full of mud and his clothes splashed with too many colour mixtures and you just want to throw it into the laundry machine. But when the work is done. Rich people are going to fight for it in an auction room. And after a few years, it will stand proudly in one of the greatest museum hall like the Louvre.

Friends, I might not know everything about life now or on my lifetime. But one thing that we can believe on. We are masterpieces in progress. God is the God of artists. He creates beautiful things. And what he creates are always good.

I do not know in what kind of situations your life is in right now. You have experienced disappointments (some to other people and mostly to yourself). You feel that your life is out of control although you have been depending on God as much as your strength could go. Or you feel that you end up in a big mess that strikes you like a lightning. 

God is still working on you.

God is shaping you.

God is carrying out his vision in you.

You are not forgotten. You are here for a great purpose. You are a showcase of God's awesome and mighty works! Don't give up on your life because God has not given up on you. Be willing to be shaped unless you want to make the process longer. Lastly, everyone around you is also a work in progress. You might feel that you are alone in the furnace of life, but you really are not. Everyone can be in the furnace with you. 

Cheers,

Raissa