You’re Either Positive; Or You’re Negative

Family

After going through a journey back home to America in 2012, meeting some of the most magnificent people in Thailand, Japan, and Hawaii, you could imagine how high I was on Cloud 9.  I felt like I had conquered everything.  I was really unsure of my whereabouts over the ensuing months, but I was still elated at the fact that I went to a wild Bangkok/Phuket and I touched down in Japan.

The moment I got home, my mother picked me up at the airport and took me back to that “neighborhood.”  I was in limbo and still in vacation mode, but then slowly I smelled (marijuana) in the neighborhood and in my house – nothing had changed.  For one year I was gone, my family was still circling around in that wheel of life many people fall victim too.

I was lecturing my sister that evening about my travels to Japan, what was happening in my life, meeting people at a bar not too far from my house, and of course, the girl racial comment I got was from an anglo woman making fun of the Japanese Kanji lettering on my t-shirt.  Welcome back to Las Vegas.

My brother had a cluster of bumps on his back and ultimately needed surgery; my oldest sister was going through a TERRIBLE breakup and kept bitching about her BF, and my youngest sister, cleverly, tucked herself away in the bedroom.

Look, either you’re going to be positive or negative.  I didn’t know anywhere near as much as I do now, but I knew that complaining about reality and circumstances were going to get me nowhere.  My mom lost her job because of poor decisions, and I don’t ever recall my mom getting a job until I left (9-10 month period).  So, my brother and I had to pay the bills and it was competition.  If I paid 20$, he paid 30$ and told me I wasn’t doing much for mom.  Every time he came around me, he was always upset and wanting to bitch about something.  I could feel the energy when he walked by, and luckily, just days before my departure, the eruption didn’t happen.  I felt it festering because I wasn’t talking to my family AT ALL, but thankfully nothing ridiculous happened before I left.

Some things I will just never understand I suppose.

Teacher Ray

47-year-old Irishman who I worked with at my first, and worst job (of my life) back in Chanthaburi Thailand, which is located about 3 hours southeast from Bangkok.  Now that I look back at this particular individual, I realize that he’s the epitome of what’s wrong with foreigners in Thailand – and now he’s trapped with a child the government has taken away from him.

He had a wife that barely knew any English, and one of the most wonderful daughters one could ever imagine.  She was delightful and had a contagious laugh; also calling me “Uncle Buck.”

However, Ray would talk about his past life heaps for some odd reason.  There was a particular character he worked with and he just couldn’t let the stories go.  I’m guessing this is what he ended up running away in general.  He would go to bars, have sex with women between 18-30 years of age (in Thailand it’s extremely easy when you’re of a fair complexion), and cheat on his wife continuously.  Every time I was around him, he complained about the world and all the politics.  He never smiled or laughed about anything – just full on rants.  Last time I heard two years ago that his life left him, taking the child.  He began dating someone at the school we worked at and then broke up (super awkward situation).  He then started spewing a lot of hate at staff and then POOF! Just like that…he up and left.  Most foreign men over 40-45 years of age in Thailand suffer from the same thing.

Last Job

40-45 year olds complaining, bitching, having sex with the staff behind their wives’ backs, pointing fingers, saying their students are dumb, alcoholics, drug addicts, whore buyers.  You name it.  This was my workplace.  All of them? Well, about 75% of them.  The other ones I just couldn’t figure out.  In 2016 and after reading Jack Canfield’s book, I realized that being around life-sucking animals was stumping my growth, so I started ignoring everyone and then the “taddle-telling” began.

You had a teacher who was 72 and had a 40-year-old wife, insulting her on a continuous basis and spewing hateful rhetoric about muslims at work.  You had one of the most despicable human beings who was 50 and had a 18-year-old girlfriend.  Apparently he was a neighborhood drunk and constantly argued and beat her, all while smashing bottles out on the streets.  Another one, who was actually the worst teacher and had the worst complaints, had sex with staff, and on a nightly basis, he drove to 7-11, chugged down 3 beers, and went home.  Another one was jacked up on drugs.

I mean, why am I telling you these stories.  One, be grateful.  Be grateful that you’re not trapped in a country you absolutely hate (well, most of us).  Realize that everything you’re putting out is going to ultimately come back.  If you’re a negative, newly divorced old man, southeast Asia isn’t for you because you could be part of the jumping men, which are men who hurl themselves over balconies in Pattaya, Thailand, killing themselves.

If you move to a country because you think women are submissive and you think it’s an easy life, you’re going to find yourself hating that country because you will attract to you the bottom-of-the-food-chain-women who will milk you of all your savings.  I used to see this everyday in Pathumthani, a province north of Bangkok.  On weekends, the play was overflowing with pedaphiles trying to solicit young girls and boys to sex, but of course police did NOTHING because they were “white,” through the eyes of the dumb-beholders.  Seeing this everyday — working at a job where the British head teacher, too, was a wife-tourist — was disheartening and infuriating.

I wanted to be happy.  That area was slum-filled with the worst of mindsets.  So, how I had to infer and look at my life through a strangers eyes.  I was unhappy, terrible health (lots of pollution around there), racism, removed from company, lack of hours and money.

LEAVE.

I was either going to be on the offense, or be defensive. I was either going to surround myself with writers, business owners, trainers, and successful people – or be around men who escaped the past.  It was one way or the other.  I chose to go right.