Today marks the end of the early bird tickets for Graphika Manila 2008. Being a web designer, I am always happy to attend conventions like these. And tomorrow you may buy the tickets at regular price. I bought mine together with my close friends and after buying the tickets, we sat down with coffee on the table on the nearest Starbucks and tried to catch up.

Two of my friends are still employed they have already realized that working for a day job is not the way to financial freedom. They already decided that I should lead the group. But I was happy that someone took the effort to lead and volunteered to lead us in this venture simply because I will have more time for my own business and most especially, I would like to see how my teammates will “strive” to make their lives better. I know that if we become successful in this, it would be a very good success story for them.

We have talked and joked around but one question that pops into my head is that, “What’s your retirement plan?” In being an employed worker, you don’t have to think about this and its not really a problem. When you’re in a company, they already decided what you will have, after you served the company almost half of your life. This is what my father has planted into my brain for years, “Pick a company with a lot of benefits”. I was happy that he said that to me. Through that question, I realized that, the greatest benefit that I could have for my life and future of my family is freedom. And I can never ever get that freedom until I retire. So what’s the use? Will I ever enjoy that freedom, if I am old?

Enter Entrepreneurship

Then I realized that the financially free people have their own business. People that are not only proud of their family, their sons, and achievements but actually proud that they can enjoy life as early as possible. The only drawback is that, you have to work waaaay more than a normal person. Think of it like having to work for half of your life everyday just to achieve financial freedom at an early age. This is a tough consequence that life throws at us. And sometimes, we will have to think about it all night. Until the sun rise and then you have to work again. Until you got tired of the same old things again and again shall you realize that life wants you to take it. So, I did. I damn took it.

Being an entrepreneur gives you the power to decide what kind of retirement plan do you like. Do you want to spend all your living days in a yacht sailing the pacific, traveling the world, dining in the finest restaurants around the world and meeting gorgeous women? We all heard of this and we envy it. But not all people are willing to sacrifice everything to achieve this. What do you have to lose? What are the consequences? You’ll only have to give up your job, being ridiculed for a couple of months because you have no job, hearing sarcastic comments of friends because you constantly fail with your attempts in business, unpleasant reputation, laughed at, tell you that you’re lazy and why not get a “real job”, will say you’re just wasting your time because of your wild dreams, weird, introvert, antisocial (lol) and most importantly, being dead ass broke. If you have a thick face of steel then you are on track. All these things are temporary. You know there’s a lot better life for you if you work hard enough to make it happen. Its a hard decision, I know. I have been there. But think of it this way, would you want to play safe and work for the rest of your life? Or you want to take risk today and be free for the rest of your life? If you already took the first step in achieving your retirement plan, you are already ahead of the pack. Because 90% of people, even though they read books or articles like this, won’t even do shit to follow their dreams because they are afraid of the consequences.