Why getting pickpocketed is not a big deal

Last night I lost my wallet. I strongly suspect that I was pickpocketed. I was waiting to catch the tram 12 to Asgeir's place and decided to let this couple ahead of me go on board first. The guy boarded and the door shut, leaving her and me behind. I told her we could catch the tram 11 as it takes the same route. So I took a walk down with her and she followed me. Then when I was close to the tram stop this middle eastern man bumps into me and starts talking gibberish to me and well, he came into very close contact with me. I suspect at this point my wallet was nabbed although I did not realise until 4 hours later when it was missing.

All in all I lost probably around several hundred Australian dollars, my credit card, debit cards and well, some other things. My wallet was a birthday present, it was 13 years old and run down but it had sentimental value dammit. Looks like I have to replace it now.

To make things more interesting my keys were attached to my wallet so with that gone no way I could've gone home. I had to ring my landlord who was holidaying in Spain and had to tell him what had happened. He said he'll ring his daughter the next morning to sort things out. My landlord wanted me to check the mail for him too but guess what the keys to the mailbox were also attached to my wallet. My landlord must love me so much right now. :)

Anyway, I had to ring and cancel my credit card and debit cards, so I had to ring both Singapore and Australia. I also rang the US office to arrange for an emergency debit card to be sent to me. Visa will be sending me one which will arrive in 2 days. I had to commend their efficiency. Kudos to the Visa team. They gave me a reference number and actually bothered to ring me back and told me how the process worked. Compared to the Norwegian process it's light years ahead. Private industry always kicks the shit out of government agencies. So I stayed overnight as Asgeir's place. I was going to Wouter's place after Asgeir's but that didn't happen. I called it a night at 2am after I was done making international calls.

This morning I had breakfast and had to borrow some money from Asgeir. I dislike borrowing money from people but had no choice at this point. I went to the police station at Brugata and lodged a report before buying groceries and coming back home. My landlord also arranged to have the key put somewhere that I could find so that I could return to the flat. Unfortunately his daughter placed it elsewhere so there was again some minor drama there when I arrived home and realised it wasn't where it was supposed to be. :) But I got that sorted thankfully. I was envisioning images of me living in the shed.

Tomorrow I'm going to the physio to get my back checked, I had some pain last week, you could call it a pain in the butt literally, it's not there anymore but I just want to be sure, and later in the afternoon I have to visit the hospital for a chest x-ray. I'll probably visit the lost and found places after that to see if some kind soul would return it.

All in all, last night was full of drama that I could do without. But I still have my physical self, free clean air, people who care about me, and natural beauty all around me so I still feel really blessed to be here. Sometimes it's hard to be positive when shit happens to you but think of all the good that has happened in your life. Humans are conditioned to remember pain but not to remember the good things that happen. That is because pain can be caused by so many ways, a roof falling on your head, heat, an accidental slip, and so on. You know the fact that you even exist is a blessing in itself. The following is a quote from Richard Dawkins.

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

The things that you get for nothing can never be replaced, your mind, your soul, your body and your dreams are priceless. Things that cost money are cheap! Which is why I can never understand why people chase money and measure themselves by the money they earn. There is someone who will always make more money than you and who will always be better looking than you are.  Therefore there is no point in thinking about these things.  That BMW, Lexus, honestly, who cares?  If you want to truly make money then you must think of how you can help others. You must think outwardly, you must follow your passion and you must believe in yourself despite what others may say, or think of you, and you must commit to what you believe in.

The other day I saw the following quote by Albert Pine, an English author who died in 1851.

"What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal"

For me my real end goal is to help others, and that I believe is the only goal worth achieving. It is what is real. Our money system today is not real. I'll come back to that point some time in the near future but just remember the numbers you see in your bank account are just that, numbers on the screen.

To end I would like to congratulate my 14 year old cousin on getting promoted to the express stream from the normal stream. That means she now studies 4 years of secondary school instead of 5. That is a phenomenal achievement in itself. The odds aren't very high when you're in the normal stream on getting to the express stream. I know, because I was there. We had 4 students being promoted out of 160, that's a miserly 2.5%. That is because you're stuck with students who don't want to achieve and who get jealous of you when you perform well. And you're always under peer pressure to do things that you may not want to do, and you're at a young impressionable age. I remember when I was 12 or 13 and in the normal stream I had some real asshole classmates who were jealous of my English score and decided to hide some things from me apparently to "teach me a lesson". It is really hard when people all around you aren't motivated enough and you have to constantly motivate yourself. I would say that is the hardest thing to be, an example to follow, to inspire others to be something greater than themselves. To do what you believe in, not caring what others say or think about you, to feel secure about yourself.

Sometimes I feel like I am unable to motivate myself but for some reason I am able to motivate others like my cousin and my aunt and that makes me feel a bit better. :)  I don't know how many people will actually read this post but if you feel inspired I would like to know what you think.