My anthropologist once told me, I have a special talent that whatever I do, everything I touched turn golden. When I first started this ice cream thing, he already told me that it will be a big thing, just like my airbnb before. I didn’t believe him, I didn’t have the goal nor the vision for it to become something so …grand, so big, so successful. But it did.

My ice cream store has become the talk of the town where ppl has followed me. Last month we made a total of 980 mil in revenue, that’s really really high, that’s almost 1 billion in Vietnam dong. Not in my wildest dream that I can ever imagine in 5 months, I can reach this level of sales and popularity. I originally think we will stable for about 50 sales per day and making 300 mil / month and it’s gonna flat like that. Objectively speaking, I think I kinda create a new segment of ice cream in the entire market of ice cream. And it’s not what I’m aiming for. I’m surprised by the results, and surprised by the effect that I’m creating. I don’t know why it’s such a simple product but no one can make it good. The simplest would be yoghurt, why noone else can make it good and nice?

I thought after the month of Feb, I would pay Camel back some of the money – perhaps 100 million this month, but I can’t. I’m buried in debt because of the new equipment and tool needed for the extra business. Right now, I’m looking at 200 million cash in debt that I need to figure out where to find them and put it in. Or I can make a lot of sales and then the money will come for me to pay. Price of ingredient is rising but 50% and I have to pay the money to keep the lower price. I bought 1 ton of milk powder. I put a sign up for our store, we badly needed it but we didn’t have the money for it. We

I feel so terrible and feel so irresponsible for not paying back to Camel. I need to be able to take the responsibility and not leveraging on his niceness to me. I told my friend yesterday, despite his coldness, Camel is like the nicest and most warm person to me. Like I mean, he’s better than my mother. The word I’m using is “Thân hơn cả người thân”. I treasure it, and I don’t want to make use, or take advantage of it. I feel like I’m on fire for not being able to withhold my side of being a responsible person.

Anyway, back to my original story, The curse of Midas. In Greek Mythology, King Midas once helped an angel/devil and then was granted a wish, he immediately asked that everything he touches became gold.

So Midas, king of Lydia, swelled at first with pride when he found he could transform everything he touched to gold; but when he beheld his food grow rigid and his drink harden into golden ice then he understood that this gift was a bane and in his loathing for gold, cursed his prayer.”

Claudian states in his In Rufinum:

I also found myself did not come to love my talent of creating/ and making exceptional products. I mean I’m blessed to have this talent, but it’s also a curse. Because of this talent, I don’t actually stay long with anything. Because I can usually master thing in a very short time frame, with this I don’t have the chance to enjoy the fruit I try so hard to get. Like for example, a person who’s taking 4 years to create a company until it creates a name, will enjoy the result much more than me when it only took 4 months. I kept on being surprised about the result. During last month, I didn’t even have time to look at the number of sales. I mean it’s not something that I want. That’s why I was surprised by the results.

Yesterday was women day, we make 120 sales on that day. Our operational system has becoming extremely efficient so that we can handle 120 sales with only 1,5% errors. In October last year, when we have 70 sales, we were going crazy and it was a chaos. This time around, it was so smooth. And the thought of having more than 100 sales on one day becomes the new normal on a special occasion.

You know what, the funny thing about these achievement is that it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. Like I’m surprised by it, and I said oh wow, but it doesn’t bring happiness/ excitement or enjoyment. It’s just a number to me you know. I still eat the same, live the same way, well I’d be very happy if I’m debt free. So I think I have to work harder?

I just checked the schedule, my birthday is next Monday. Oh Mai oh Mai, like some years it’s so important. This year, I just feel like I want it to pass. It gave me a tremendous feeling of heavy ness. I’m not so sure why, and what did I do last year?

I’ve putting some thought into what I want for this year, and I cannot tell if I want anything, it’s such a strange thing. It’s a sign that I’m not interested in myself and a sign of neglect. I don’t even know my birthday is March 15th which is on Monday, isn’t it so strange. I have no plans, no nothing. And I’m can’t tell if I want anything.