Freedom finder

”The large print giveth, the small print taketh away”     Anon 

The prospect of opening an off-shore bank account has always been an appealing topic to those on the freedom journey.

Just this week I looked at a few options and my eye fell on a rather interesting offer when compared to others.

The interest of 4% was far better than other banks I looked at.  Lloyds TSB off-shore was offering this attractive rate. Why would one then want to even bother considering the 1% offered by, for example, Alliance and Leicester?

By the way I have no direct or indirect interest in any of these banks so this is not a commercial. I am merely sharing my observations as I understand the offers and alerting freedom seekers to the importance of studying the small print.

How is it possible then that a client placing her (one up for gender sensitivity) money with the bank offering 1% will end up with twice as much interest after 1 year than another placing his funds with the bank offering 4%?

Well when you take a careful look  you will see that the more lucrative offer is in fact the result of a crafty construction of advertising content. The 4% is paid after 3 months and is once-off. Thereafter no further interest is payable. That is not where it ends for the 4% is pro-rated so in effect you will be receiving 0.59% interest. Somewhat below the 4% you initially thought you would be receiving. Had you placed your money with Alliance and Leicester, or example, your interest would be 1.25%. That’s double the amount offered by Lloyds TSB.

It is somewhat strange to me that this type of advertising is given so much latitude by the authorities. Of course had Lloyds told the truth in large print their chances of winning over prospective clients would be severely reduced.  Why then resort to such tactics to lure prospective clients when their credibility would be better served by offering a more competitive interest rate?

Let me know your thoughts.

The spate of wide spread poaching in Africa has left the rhino population decimated and confined to a few small pockets of the continent. While much is done to uphold the right of these wonderful animals to roam freely it has also made it easier for the poachers to focus their greedy and totally mindless energy on more confined spaces. 333 rhinos were mercilessly wiped out in South Africa in 2010, marking a record total killed in one year. That’s nearly triple the 122 rhinos killed in the country in 2009. This year already 182 rhinos have been killed so 2011 is poised to set a new record if this trend continues. What a shameful disgrace! In attempting to curb this scourge, anti-poaching units have killed 20 poachers this year – a ratio of 9 rhinos to 1 ruthless and evil-minded criminal. This is an extremely high toll of rhino lives and extinction is a certainty at the current pace.

What an indictment on us as the human race. We have the ability to develop advanced technologies and at the same time we are guilty of using this to conduct barbaric behaviour that not even the most vicious animal is possible of committing. Use is made of helicopters equipped with night vision apparatus and high-powered rifles fitted with silencers with which to tranquillize and kill rhinos at night. At other times the massacre is more brutal – simply executing rhinos in firing squad mode.

The massacre is due to the fable that in many Asian societies, especially China, rhino horn, has cancer-curing properties as well as being a cure for impotence. There is absolutely no medical evidence to support this nonsense. What is not nonsense, however, is that a rhino horn is worth over US$ 20,000 per kilo on the Asian market.

If you would like to play a role in fighting to save the rhino from extinction please visit this site for more information. You can play your part irrespective of the country you’re currently living in:http://www.stoprhinopoaching.com

When you think about it, freedom is not an easy fruit to pluck from a low hanging branch. We all seem to be interested and yearn for the elusive freedom from the rat race. Most of us spend our lives yearning but not quite having the courage to “break free”. The rat race most certainly offers many tempting traps to ensure one stays locked in for life until we believe “it’s the right and responsible thing to do”. So we proceed to build titles and status structures that are quite meaningless in time but extremely meaningful within the rat race life-world. We create these artificial structures to soothe our subconscious yearning for freedom until the little voice within us grows quiet amidst the noise and hustle of rat race life. We have all heard about long-term prisoners fearing the day that they are set free. Ring a bell?

Everything we do has a price. If we decide to bail out of our mundane job we lose our income and therewith the ability to pay our mortgage, access to acquire material goods, our standing in society, etc. On the other hand maintaining this routine boredom does have a price. That price may be stress, ill-health, loss of friendship, loss of opportunity to pursue one’s own lucrative business, loss of emotional and financial fulfillment, etc.

So many times I have heard that stock markets are driven by fear and greed. Is this correct or is it really the behavior we choose to resort to in order to survive and feed our rat race life. Does fear and greed behaviour not extend far beyond the stock market? For sure we find this in the workplace where power is used to feed a toxic leader’s agenda.

There seems to be an intricate intertwining between our egos and fear and greed. Maybe I’ll elaborate on this another time or leave it to the psychologists to unpack.

We see it in areas beyond the workplace too. In charitable organizations managed by people who hold positions of status during the 9-5 stint and have used their position to leverage a similar title after hours, displaying the same type of behaviour. As long as I have the title and the privileged parking bay, life has meaning!

Ask yourself what is it that you would like to change and then determine what the price of being free is. Do you need to sell your house to settle debt? Are you prepared to do this and face the possible ridicule of family and acquaintances? Is the ego being threatened and stifling the opportunity to break free from the debt trap?

Everything has a price. Ask yourself “what am I getting for the price I pay?”

Here is a free e-book recording life in US federal government written by someone who spent 30 years there. It ends :

Finally, my last day. I started it as I have for the last thirty-one years, five months, and four days. I went through my daily routine of resetting the snooze button, taking a shower, drinking coffee, and listening to the news while putting on makeup. There will be no farewell party. My route out of the building will not be lined with government employees weeping softly and bidding me a fond farewell. Parting is not sweet sorrow. It is pure happiness.

We admire people who know where they’re at and project a positive self image. It is to such individuals that we turn when we need coaching, counselling or just a pep up.

Little do we realize that many of these folk have been in the position where they too required someone to give them a lift. They managed to pick themselves and go. Where did many of these accomplished folk begin the journey of being happy with who they are?

The starting point is uncovering what really lies beneath their limiting thoughts about themselves.  Unless one spends time bringing these issues into the light of day, attempts at getting to grips with the things holding one back will be difficult.

I am sure we all have moments when we feel inadequate or overwhelmed and not quite sure why we experience these emotions.  As we mature these inadequacies seem to grow larger.  Shaking it off is not easy if it has become a regular experience. But if we are to overcome we need to take the bull by the horns. Why should we continue to allow ourselves to be subjected to experiences that add no value to our lives.  In fact, they rob us of becoming who we should be.

Is being fulfilled not what we are striving for deep down inside? The reason we visit psychologists or life coaches? We want to soar like eagles but instead we feel like we are grovelling along the ground like chickens. And in the process the years fly by and before we know it, we are telling ourselves “it’s too late”.

What a shame when we have so much to offer the world, we continue to “stay hidden”.