I do not look forward to calculating my networth for June. Oh well.

Now is even more critical to be reminded once again of the important idea of investing long term, instead of dumping the all the stocks and funds at huge loss. As long as you maintain the idea of finding solid investment that provide modest gain and not some get-rich-quick-thingie, whether you went with index fund or not, you should be alright in the long term and hence, best to stay put.

Keyword being “should” because let us not forget that buying into the market does not guarantee return. Even if you buy index funds. Even if you diversify. There is always systemic risk. Perhaps a major catastrophe causes the downfall of the sector of your funds, or the Wall Street somehow disappears, or the global market gets destroyed all together ,or our money system simply disintegrates! Give me your best guess. These are not likely scenario but who knows. Pessimistic? Perhaps. But I am just reminding you that no form of investment guarantees return. It is not a privilege.

Actually, the results of the above-stated disasters may not be that bad. First of all, people are screwed all together in those cases, and as result, we may live in better harmony supporting each other. Yeah, I can be a dreamer sometimes. On another thought, the idea of money may disappear and could return people to the true state of living. Or we may return to an age of the survival of the fittest, which will force people to be physically healthy and capable. Alright, I digress. I am done exercising my imagination.

The current market is a mangled pile of mess that is the result of people desiring unsustainable amount of growth in a short period of time and many of these so-called growth are a result of manual fabrication through layers and layers of abstraction (ie. CDOs). A dozen drunken monkeys in a room probably cause less chaos that that. My opinion is that it will take awhile for it all to untangle. It may even take the next 2-3 years during which we see little to no growth, if no losses, in our investment. But like I said again, we should be looking long-term.

Speaking of long-term, people always quote that the market returns somehwere between 10-12%. I don’t really like that. Past pattern does not predict future, especially the future of a speculative market that is a projection of the ficklest human minds. And when you really think about it, a few decades of data is not even that big of a sample either. People just love pulling statistics out of their donkeys to justify arguments.

Here is the thing, I took a look at the Vanguard Wellington fund that has been around since 1929 and Vanguard’s website said the average return is 8.3%. That gives me some idea and helps set my expectation. I do my diligence in investing — studying, carefully selecting, diversify a good chunk through funs — and I shall be happy if I get a 5-8% return in the long run.

I am in no rush to become rich. The journey is the fun part.

I received two phone calls today. First one is from the regional office that would like to offer me a promotional rate of $60~ over the $100~ regular price tag for cable and TV, which is basically what I had. I kindly declined for two reasons. First reason is that if I switch back now, I will have to go through the hassle of cancelling DSL and returning the modem, which I had not even receive yet. Second reason is that even if I accept this promotional rate, it will last me only 6 months, and I have lost the desire to call to re-adjust the monthly rate every 6 months. Call me lazy. So I decided to stick with DSL for $30~ per month.

* Italicized words are me talking to myself.

Second one is from Comcast Corp. Right off the bat, the call was off to a bad start. The lady, who I will call Ms. C from now on, asked for my name and said that she is calling about my blog post. OK… and in my mind, I thought, what does she want? Ms. C proceeded without ever stating a purpose. To try to clarify, I asked if she is calling because of the Comcast person who sent me the last email, who I will call Mr. M. Maybe they are trying to compensate me? She said no. Huh? I guess I was hoping for too much By this point, I am really wondering why she is calling me.

Despite not knowing what she wants and to try to get somewhere with the conversation, I tried to bring Ms. C up-to-date by describing my situation as clearly and thoroughly as I could. First, I described about how in the recent past, I called in every 6 months to try to get promotional rate (I may have said discount instead). To which, she asked me if I know what I was paying monthly was promotional rate that should only be available to new customer. Does she think I am an idiot? Then she questioned me on my first “Bye Bye Comcast” post multiple times that I did not explain the fact that I was getting the $60~ rate as promotional rate. What the… Do I really have to explain myself? At this point, I got quite annoyed but I stayed as calm as possible and said it was obvious in context and plus, there is a related post “Getting Comcast Discount” on how I have been getting promotional rate previously, which is linked to at the end of the “Bye Bye Comcast” post.

Somehow we got past that after going forth and back for couple minutes. Finally I explained how the triple service package is useless to someone like me, who treats TV as optional and relies solely on cell phone for communication. I would be foolish to pay extra for all 3 services just to get the promotional rate. Ms. C then tried to conclude by confirming that I had call to cancel my service with Comcast and that I will return the digital box. I ended the conversation stating that I understand thoroughly and I will return the digital box at my convenience within the 30-day limit after cancellation.

Boy, I am glad and kind of proud that I could finish the call without raising my voice at my cell phone. I could feel the adrenaline in my body when I hung up the phone. I feel slightly bad for Mr. M because I felt that he was geuine on the phone in trying to address the problem and had the right attitude to at least stop my complaints about Comcast. Unfortunately, another Comcast employee ruined it for him, or shall I say, ruined it for Comcast. Hence this post.

Here are my comments for Comcast in handling of dissatisfied customers:

• Send someone with a good sincere attitude.
• Understand the customer.
• Please state the purpose as to why the customer is being contacted… in my case, I still do not know why exactly Ms. called me. I feel that the call was just to pester and question me about my previous post.
• Questioning an already disgruntled customer to explain himself is not something to do to win him back as a customer, or in the least, appease him enough to shut up. Not very smart.

Lastly to Comcast, customers are in the market for the best deals, and that is business as usual. It would be naive for me to pay $100~ if a $60~ rate is available for the same thing, and I doubt that you, Comcast, are losing money through the $60~ rate anyways because you are not stupid and you are trying to make the most profit as possible. But so are we.

Unfortunately for you, Comcast, you began your day with a dissatisfied customer, and you ended your day with a more dissatisfied customer.

I am sorry to learn that you are now leaving our company due to pricing. We certainly value your business and we would like to retain you as our customer. Please know that I will be happy to reach out to my contacts and see if there are any promotions that may be of interest to you. If you are interested in my assistance, please feel free to reply with your best contact number so that we can discuss this further.

Thanks in advance for the opportunity to assist!

I replied with my number and did receive a call from the contact. Despite already signing up for DSL, I thought that even if I don’t get a good deal out of this, I can still offer my genuine opinion on their offer, in terms discount package that’s only available through getting their triple service. I did speak up about such, becuase in my mind, it is not very smart because many people rely on only their cell phones these days. They would end up wasting the phone service and pay more money even with discount.

Now I await response. Stay tune for part 3!

I am switching over to DSL because I don’t watch much TV and I can get all the information I need off the internet for $30~. Surely, I may miss it when NBA season comes, but there are plenty of sports bar and friends’ homes (with HD!) that would welcome my visit. And there is a certain peace and joy after all these years of not watching much TV. Perhaps it’s just too much negativity and pretentiousness? Why don’t you try living without TV for awhile?

Sayonara to Comcast and the outrageous pricing.

Awareness is the basis of everything.

You choose to awaken your awareness, where you start by rediscovering the societal, cultural, and religious conditionings and preconceived notions that have been ingrained and seem innate. Be ready to let go of the ones that are simply bondage, even though you have come to know as truth.

Awareness is within all of us. You are awareness if you let go of attachments and desires and just be.

Awareness is like a non-discriminating, impartial silent observer that exists in all of us. With it, you can understand yourself, and then define your values and what is important in your life, not what others or society tell you. When you know your values and priorities, you no longer listen nor care what popular beliefs are.

Awareness is neither about positive nor negative. Thus, awareness is oneness. As oneness goes, there is no opposite, and with no opposite, there exists void, emptiness, nothingness. This is the idea that is behind the saying that oneness is also void, emptiness, or nothingness — Everything is one, and one is nothing, and everything is nothing.

Even the dualistic nature of things speaks oneness. The meaning of good is subjective to the meaning of bad. Put more simply, good does not exist without bad. So should happiness exist without sadness. All thoughts are partial. An object must have a subject. It is all connected.

Because of oneness and things all being connected, there exists causality (or karma), which is absolute. There IS a circle of life, not just of humans, but of all things.

Awareness is attention to emotions and thoughts, and as those become clearer, you get closer to see and to sense things as they are. Attention, attention, attention.

Awareness is also attention to your body, your muscles, your nerves because the sensations, mainly tensions, of your body is every bit connected to your emotions and thoughts. How you feel and what you do about your body can affect your emotions and thoughts. But so can emotions and thoughts affect your body. Unfortunately in some cases, people do very bad things to their body because of emotional turmoils. Notice how your body tense up when you feel strong emotion, and also notice how deep breathing has a calming effect. Since you can notice your body and mind, we can be sure that such awareness exists.

Living in the moment is seeing and sensing things as they are, where you simply be with no judgment of good or bad, positive or negative. Attention, attention, attention.

Emotions and thoughts always happen. Awareness, Zen, Buddhism do not tell you to deny yourself of emotions and thoughts. The difference is awareness/attention to your emotions and thoughts, or lack there of.

When you become aware, seeing reality as it is, seeing oneness and causality, and begin to live in the moment, is also when your hopes die. Hope that your partner will love you more. Hope that you will not be alone. Hope that you will make more money. Hope that future will be a better place. Hope that heaven awaits upon death. All those hopes die because there is just the moment, and the moment is perfect (without ego, judgment, dramatization…) Hence the talk of hopelessness in Zen. Without hope, it simply is. There is just THIS moment.

Because there is also just this moment, you should always do your best. Your best in this moment will lead to your best in the next. And whether you think you are doing your best or not, you are doing your best. Your best may not be “good” but that is just a coloration by thoughts and it is still your best. This is why every moment is perfect. You did your best, move on. Live in the moment, not the past, not the future.

Ego is the “self” that is created from emotions and thoughts. That is why awareness helps us demolish ego and also why, without awareness, people are driven by ego, in other words, driven by emotions and thoughts.

Attachment causes suffering. Any form of attachment will end in pain. Attachment is attachment to ego, to emotions, to thoughts, and in other words, lack of attention, lack of awareness to your emotions and thoughts. People may be attached to tangible things, but each attachment to tangible things are based on attachments to certain thought or emotion. When you are so attached to being happy or feeling “good”, you are not aware because you can only be happy if you were once sad, and you lose sight of the moment. That’s why, be aware of your thoughts and emotions.

Attachment can also be sad to get hung up on one side of a duality, and hence lack of awareness to see oneness and emptiness.

Detachment means the demolishment of ego, accomplished through active attention. Detachmeng does not mean emotionless and thoughtless. Detachment is not apathy or indifference because that just means you do not care about the world around you and therefore you fail to be aware and see things as they are, which are all connected, as you are to the people around you. In other word, apathy and indifference just mean you are running away from problems.

When you are aware, you will not fail to care as everything is related. Hence the compassionate and meticulous nature of aware beings.

With awareness, we simply do things with full attention, without interference of ego, emotions, and thoughts, and thus, allowing us to do what we need to do to the best of ability without complicating thoughts. Life as it is is simple! As such, we can take care of our responsibility without dramatization, and we can do our best each moment and be most effective.

When you see things as they are, when you see everything as connected, when you understand nothingness, when your attachments and hopes die, when your ego is demolished, is when true love happens. True love, true compassion, true kindness come from an aware mind. Hence, when you no longer need someone is when you begin to truly love.

Nature provides unconditional love to mothers to their children. However, aside that, truly unconditional love that we may have for family, friends, strangers, nature, and the world will come from a sense of awareness.

The process of practicing awareness, to begin to see your own thoughts and emotions, and thus the challenging of your own ego and preconceived notions is full of turmoils and takes much patience and persistence. It WILL take time. It WILL involve pain. Think of it like reprogramming your own body and mind, after years of bad societal programming.

Freedom, joy, peace, euphoria are all side effects of you returning to your original state of awareness, though they are not the end one should seek. Focus on the practice of awareness.

Zen is not an easy way out. Buddhism does not provide a silver bullet. Christianity cannot save your soul. No religion does any of those. They are just truths and sets of rules and philosophy put together by other people who came to their own understandings. They do contain much wisdom, so study them and learn them. Don’t just follow. Don’t accept the convenience. You must do work, hard work on your own.

It is easy to say or think that all things are connected, but it is up to yourself, individually, to pratice awareness and come to your own realization.

In the beginning is awareness for all, and as you regain more awareness, so will the desire to learn about yourself, your community, and the world continues to grow. Think how babies and little kids have such amazing capacity to learn. Think how many questions they ask, until they got silenced. Our society, marketing schemes, cultures, religions, education system completely dull our awareness when we are growing up.

I am not here to force you to learn. Chances are you want to learn because you are reading this. I do not pretend to know everything because I know so little yet. And it is not even about me. It is you, in every moment, you get to choose. You are choosing in every moment. You are choosing the end you want — awake to your own awareness and a journey of rediscovery, or stay a distracted mind that continues to live in a masquerade. Both can be truths. Which truth do you seek?

• Traffic in Moscow is horrid, in terms of road condition, traffic arrangement, and how close people drive to each other.
• I didn’t get the whole story, but somehow she could not get to office on car. So perhaps parking, space problem, or bad city planning?
• The last thing is the availability of Japanese vehicles, which never crossed my mind as a potential problem in Russia. (How little I know of the world!) Compare that to the amount of Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Acura, etc. in the area!

All in all, what I am getting at is the fact that how easily it is for us to take things for granted, when certain things are always there. Then we forget to be grateful and cherish privileges that are granted to us. So before you complain next time, imagine how things could be worse because that is the truth — things can always be worse.

You may think that is a bunch of mumbo jumbo and that is fine. However as someone who walks the talk, it is amazing for myself to notice the drastic difference in experience before and after understanding and practicing awareness. It is so obvious that practicing awareness has stripped away most of the everyday drama for me.

Let us clarify on what drama means first. We go through everyday life doing different things, having many experience. As we go through each, in the back of our mind we classify each as either good or bad, or fun or boring. Everyday drama, however complicated each may seem, springs forth when when one fights and struggles, sometimes desperately, to hold on the things considered good or fun. In the scenario where good nor fun is possible, one is flooed with thoughts of troubles and drowned in the pain sadness, anxiety, frustration, jealousy, feeling of victim, etc.

Therefore, when I say most of the drama has been stripped, I am living moment to moment with a minimal amount of painful thoughts and emotions and much less classification of each moment as good or bad. It is the result of practicing awareness that provides a calm and clear mind, which allows me to quickly handle the many thoughts and emotions that come.

For example, a friend called last minute to flake on an appointment, the disappointment and anger happened but went away like a flash as I noticed them. There is no basis for them because the simple fact is that the friend seems to enjoy a busy life and that’s their choice. Also as a result, I get extra time to do things I want by myself, yay!

And things like washing my car and cleaning the apartment, of course my preference is not to do them, but no longer do I carry the dreading thoughts that I must do them. Additionally, I do not feel that I need to rush through them because I have no where else to be. There is no reason to rush. So I go through the motion of simply doing them as efficiently as possible but without rushing. Thus, the result of a wonderfully clean car and tidy apartment. Though I must say, I still prefer not having to do laundry.

Last example is from where I work. Things happen in office, where people want things last minute, or sometimes do not perform the task they are responsible for, or perhaps they are just not up to the task. I notice that some people often get upset and take these things personally. Now I see no reason for this kind of drama. I can get upset and frustrated and respond in a worse manner, I get over it and simply respond as optimally as possible. It is clear to choose between these two. There are only rare cases where one may need to send unfriendly email demanding the task to be done, or be mean and start involving managers. In most cases, a courteous response that provides someone the benefit of doubt leads to pretty quick resolution.

The lack of drama may seem boring in the common sense. The question for each individual is, “Do you choose to be aware or do you choose to stay blind?”

If you are convinced, go read my posts on Awareness and Zen and Living in the Moment.

How much enjoyment will I get? Will it be long- or short-lived?
This one can be phrased as, how much will the item adds to your values in life now and/or in the future? For more on this, read Every Spending is an Investment.

How versatile will it be?
Consder how many situations and under how many conditions you can use the items. For example, like a set of computer speakers, there are ones you can get that even satisfy a home theater purpose. Or like an mp3 player, besides using it casually, is it suitable to bring to the gym? or with you jogging or running? So essentially, the more cases you can make use of it, the more valuable it is.

How long will it likely last? And maintenance issues?
Look for warranty and double check reviews for the item’s quality are musts. Plus, the more you have to maintain or fix something, the more it owns you.

Does the cost justify the answers for the quesiton above?
You will have to consider the price, against all the pluses and minuses from the answers for the questions above. Buy what is truly valuable to you, without overspending of course.