Mood: Meh 
Weather: 27°C, Clear
Location: Mont Fleuri, Mahe, Seychelles
I didn’t realize that I had taken this much of a break from blogging, it’s been 10 days! I’ve been struggling a lot with anhedonia lately, this is the issue with actually achieving what you want to achieve. It’s followed by an “ok, now what?” feeling. I’m unmotivated, and I feel uneasy doing nothing all day. I wake up, feed the cats, spend the morning just waiting around until lunchtime when I can eat something. I then go back to doing nothing of relevance. This must be what retirement feels like, and that’s probably why retirees are depressed. My hobbies cost me money – postcards & stamps, gaming. I want to do everything and nothing all at once. If I spend all day watching movies or a TV show, I feel like I’m just wasting away. If I try to find solace online through communities I get exposed to far too much toxicity because keyboard warriors can be cruel. I wake up in the middle of the night looking for Thyl, knowing that one day she will not be around – and that day could come at any time. There’s the constant worry that my business will tank.
The other day my sister and I sat down to run some numbers. I usually have the accounts up-to-date on an excel sheet but I haven’t actually done anything this year. I do keep all the records, but they’re not organized on the excel sheet just yet. After going through the general expenses of our business, it’s actually not as much as I expected. Our biggest expense is personal expenses (this does not include the measly monthly salary that we take). At the moment, this one business is covering both our expenses – when it should not be doing so. It should only cover our salaries so that profits can be properly re-invested. Instead of starting a new business, we’ve tweaked our plans and we’ve decided to get jobs. That way, we only take our small salaries from this business, and we don’t take anything else. This will allow the business to grow properly with ample contingency and hopefully we can use the savings to buy property for the business, ultimately eliminating the expense of “rent”. Why do we feel that getting jobs would be better than starting something new at this point – starting a new business will require more investment and will also come with its own set of expenses. So the risks of losing money is going to be present. Can we afford the risk at this point? Well, it’s probably not the smartest way forward at this point. With jobs however, there are no expenses but we would have to give up time and that’s something we both have to spare right now. As I’ve mentioned, I literally don’t do much until after our employee gets off work and we do the reconciliation + restocking in the early evening and weekends. That part won’t change.
To sustain my current lifestyle, I would need a salary of SCR 18k above, after taxes have been removed. This is typically what fresh graduates are offered, to my knowledge. I would feel more comfortable getting retainers, but the challenge would be the constant need to find new clients while retaining the current ones. There’s also the subject of time – I don’t mind having to go to work every single day, but I’m now so used to taking a day off whenever I need or want to, and not having a supervisor to boss me around. So I’m going to spend the next few days or weeks weighing my options and trying to find leads. It’s a sacrifice we’ve decided to make so our business can grow. We’ll do this for a minimum of 2 years.
A businessman I know has approached me with an offer to invest in whatever it is I want to do – but on the condition of being a 50% partner: my business idea and execution for his funds. I don’t know him well enough so if I entertain this idea, then lawyers would have to be involved. He’s a not a citizen but he is a resident so I don’t know much about how that would work. I’m going to ask some friends about this later today (it’s 5am so I’m probably the only one awake at this hour). I also need to find out what the pros and cons are for partnering with an investor.
We are on week #2 of having only one casual again (C2). She’s actually doing better than when we had 2. The demands have stopped completely, so we know the demands were from C1. I’m glad we actually chose the better option of the 2. We would consider hiring C2, but we do expect that she’ll start abusing her sick leave as soon as she’s employed. We are also very comfortable hiring casual workers until the end of the year. With the number of people actually looking for jobs, I’m surprised how many are interested in actually keeping their jobs as soon as they get one. I’m pretty sure that C2 is on her best behaviour because she is still in touch with C1, who is most likely still job-hunting and struggling with that.
The Chinese hospital ship “Peace Ark” or “和平方舟” is here in Seychelles. They’re providing free specialist medical care while they’re here. They arrived last week on the 5th of July and will be leaving later today (11th July). My mother went there a few times already. She’s had a positive experience, and so has a lot of people who have gone there. I was supposed to get some dental cleaning done because I don’t really want the dentists here touching my teeth, but after learning about the long queues, I’ll just clean my teeth some other time. My mother’s friend was scheduled for surgery yesterday but they all of a sudden turned her away which was so odd. The surgery will cost her SCR 23k to do it at a private hospital here in Seychelles. She was hoping to get it done for free at the ship, and her appointment was set for yesterday. The medication they’re giving out to locals are Western medicine that is actually already available in Seychelles at an affordable price, they gave my mother propranolol – which she is already on and she already has. Propranolol is available in Seychelles without a prescription, I can literally walk up to any private pharmacy, ask for it and they’ll give it to me.
The ship was here in Seychelles 14 years ago, but I don’t remember it so I was probably still abroad when that happened. They want the ship to come here more regularly, which would be great. It’s great that of all the countries they could have visited, Seychelles was one of the few they decided to add to their route. They’ve probably already gone through over 4000 patients these past few days. The count was at 3k+ by Tuesday evening. The response has been generally positive, and it has called into question the quality of healthcare in Seychelles, i.e. if healthcare was really that good here, why would people have queued up in the way that they have (today itself, an announcement was shared to inform the public to stop going because the queue was too long)? As I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, the diagnostics in Seychelles is just really bad so there truly is a need for an improvement in healthcare.
I’ll link the video below (Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation, 10th July 2024):
Creole news:
English news: