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I am sitting in a climate-controlled office in Guangzhou, looking over the quarterly reports for a bubble milk tea franchise, a small one in one of the local malls. Outside, the humidity is thick enough to drink, but in here, the air is filtered and cool. I have a Thai Elite Visa in my passport, granting me five years of residency in a country I love, without the hassle of border runs or agent fees for when I want to visit Thailand. I am thirty-seven years old. I have not lived in the United States since I was thirty-four. I am a one hundred percent disabled veteran. I am also a business owner and an investor.
It is a stable life. It is a life built on geo-arbitrage, not on leisure or speculation, oddly enough.
There is a pervasive myth in the expat community, particularly in Southeast Asia, that freedom is found in doing nothing. The image sold on social media is of a laptop on a beach, a cocktail in hand, working two hours a day while the waves crash. For some, that works. For me, that would have been financial suicide. I learned this the hard way. I learned that if you want to build something that lasts, you have to be willing to trade your time when the price is right. I learned this in a classroom in Cambodia, in Thailand, and in China, standing on knees that click and ache, managing anxiety that screams in the back of my head, saving every dollar I could to buy into a market that most people told me was a scam.
This is not a story about getting rich quick. It is a story about getting rich slow, by doing work that I thought was a bit demeaning, so that I could eventually do work that I loved. It is about the efficiency of time and the cost of inefficiency.
I grew up just outside of Philadelphia. It is a hard city. It shapes you. It teaches you that nothing is given and that comfort is usually a prelude to a fall. I joined the military seeking structure and a way out. I got the structure, but I also got the injuries. By the time I was discharged, my body was a map of wear and tear. My knees are shot. I suffer from chronic sinus infections that flare up when the humidity shifts too quickly. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder that sits on my chest like a weighted blanket.
The Veterans Affairs rated me one hundred percent disabled. This provides a monthly income. It is a lifeline. For many veterans, that check is enough to survive. It covers the rent, the food, and the medical co-pays. When I turned thirty-four, I looked at that check and I realized something terrifying. It was enough to survive, but it was not enough to live. Throw in a few kids and a wife, then it wouldn't have been enough. It was not enough to build. If I relied solely on that disability income, I would be comfortable until I died, but I would never be free.
I am sitting in a climate-controlled office in Guangzhou, looking over the quarterly reports for a bubble milk tea franchise, a small one in one of the local malls. Outside, the humidity is thick enough to drink, but in here, the air is filtered and cool. I have a Thai Elite Visa in my passport, granting me five years of residency in a country I love, without the hassle of border runs or agent fees for when I want to visit Thailand. I am thirty-seven years old. I have not lived in the United States since I was thirty-four. I am a one hundred percent disabled veteran. I am also a business owner and an investor.
It is a stable life. It is a life built on geo-arbitrage, not on leisure or speculation, oddly enough.
There is a pervasive myth in the expat community, particularly in Southeast Asia, that freedom is found in doing nothing. The image sold on social media is of a laptop on a beach, a cocktail in hand, working two hours a day while the waves crash. For some, that works. For me, that would have been financial suicide. I learned this the hard way. I learned that if you want to build something that lasts, you have to be willing to trade your time when the price is right. I learned this in a classroom in Cambodia, in Thailand, and in China, standing on knees that click and ache, managing anxiety that screams in the back of my head, saving every dollar I could to buy into a market that most people told me was a scam.
This is not a story about getting rich quick. It is a story about getting rich slow, by doing work that I thought was a bit demeaning, so that I could eventually do work that I loved. It is about the efficiency of time and the cost of inefficiency.
I grew up just outside of Philadelphia. It is a hard city. It shapes you. It teaches you that nothing is given and that comfort is usually a prelude to a fall. I joined the military seeking structure and a way out. I got the structure, but I also got the injuries. By the time I was discharged, my body was a map of wear and tear. My knees are shot. I suffer from chronic sinus infections that flare up when the humidity shifts too quickly. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder that sits on my chest like a weighted blanket.
The Veterans Affairs rated me one hundred percent disabled. This provides a monthly income. It is a lifeline. For many veterans, that check is enough to survive. It covers the rent, the food, and the medical co-pays. When I turned thirty-four, I looked at that check and I realized something terrifying. It was enough to survive, but it was not enough to live. Throw in a few kids and a wife, then it wouldn't have been enough. It was not enough to build. If I relied solely on that disability income, I would be comfortable until I died, but I would never be free.
Freedom costs money. In Southeast Asia, the cost of living is lower than in the United States, but the cost of stability is high. A good visa costs money. Quality healthcare costs money. Security costs money. I decided to leave Philadelphia not to run away from costs or because I hate the West, but to maximize the value of the capital I had. I took my disability income, which had purchasing power in Asia that it did not have in Pennsylvania, and I moved.
I arrived in Southeast Asia with a plan. The plan was not to retire. The plan was to accumulate. I knew that my disability income would cover my baseline existence. It would keep me fed and housed. But to invest, to actually grow wealth, I needed surplus capital. I needed to generate income that exceeded my burn rate. I needed to work.
I chose Cambodia for my first major stop. It was raw. It was unpolished. It was cheap. When I arrived in Phnom Penh, I saw many people like me. Veterans, drifters, digital nomads, people running from something or running toward something. Many of them were living on savings or remote income, spending their days at cafes, talking about projects they never started. They were burning time.
I looked at the math. My disability income covered my rent and food with plenty leftover, but I wanted more. If I lived frugally, I could save perhaps two thousand dollars a month. At that rate, it would take me years to build a significant investment portfolio. I wanted to accelerate the timeline, to become more efficient. I needed to increase the margin between my income and my expenses.
Teaching English was the most accessible option. I did not have a degree in education, I have a BA in Psychology. I did not have a passion for pedagogy. But I was a native English speaker with a clean background. The schools and language centers were hiring. The pay was not high by Western standards, about 1200 US Dollars, but in Cambodia, it was significant. It was enough to almost double my monthly surplus.
The decision came down to a simple equation. I could spend my days free, exploring temples and drinking coffee, training martial arts, sleeping around, remaining inefficient. Or I could sell my time for forty hours a week, endure the stress, and bank the difference. I chose the work. I chose to trade my time because the money was right. It was the Marine Corps thing to do. I admit, I had to dig deep and pull every ounce of discipline from my body, but I made it work.
Teaching in Cambodia is not like teaching in a private school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The resources are scarce. The class sizes are large. The air conditioning is often broken. I taught kids who were excited to learn English, their parents wanting them to escape the local labor market. They were motivated. That made the job easier. But the environment was harsh.
My health issues were a constant factor. My knees can't handle standing for long periods. In a classroom, you're on your feet. I had to learn to manage my posture, to lean against desks when I thought the students weren't looking, to sit during group work exercises. It was a constant negotiation with my own body. Pain is a distraction. When your knee throbs, it's hard to focus on the lesson of the day. I had to push through it. I viewed the pain as a cost of doing business.
The anxiety was harder to manage. GAD is not just worry; it is a physical state of alertness. Walking into a room full of shouting, attention seeking little kids, knowing I had to perform, knowing I had to be authoritative, spiked my cortisol levels. There were days when I stood in the staff bathroom before class, breathing through the sinus pressure in my face, trying to calm my heart rate. The humidity in Cambodia is aggressive. It fills your sinuses. I was constantly fighting off infections, popping antibiotics, trying to stay healthy enough to work.
I did not enjoy teaching, not at first. I enjoyed the people and the impact. I need to be clear about that. I did not find my soul in the classroom like some cringy ESL teachers do. I found a paycheck. I treated the job like a transaction. I gave them my time and my knowledge; they gave me currency. I did not take work home. I did not grade papers on the weekend. I protected my time outside of work because I needed to rest. But during those contracted hours, I was efficient. I showed up. I taught. I saved the money.
There were other expats teaching who treated the job as a hobby. They missed classes. They complained about the administration. They spent their paychecks immediately on nightlife. They were not building anything. They were burning cash for no reason. I watched them and found them to be pathetic.
Every month, I took the surplus from my teaching salary and I combined it with the surplus from my disability income. I lived on the bare minimum. I ate local food. I rented a modest apartment. I did not travel on weekends. I stayed in the city. I minimized my burn rate to maximize my investment rate.
I put that capital into crypto, into liquidity pools and holding.
I know the stigma. I know people hear "crypto" and think of gambling. I did not approach it as gambling. I approached it as venture capital. I spent months researching. I studied the technology. I understood the risk. I knew that I could lose to impermanent loss, but it was worth it. But I also knew that traditional markets would not give me the growth I needed to change my life trajectory. To move from "disabled veteran living abroad" to "business owner with freedom," I needed an asymmetric bet. I needed an asset class that could appreciate significantly in a short window.
I did not try to time the market perfectly. I bought when I had the cash from teaching. I bought when the market was red. I bought when the market was green. I removed emotion from the process. This was difficult with my anxiety. Watching the charts drop triggered every instinct I had to sell, to preserve what I had. But I knew better, don't be emotional.
The teaching job was the engine that fueled the investment. Without the job, I would have been investing only my disability income. The growth would have been too slow. The teaching salary allowed me to buy more Solana, Bitcoin, and ETH. I started putting more crypto into liquidity pools and it paid off. I only bet on stable pairs, three ETH, and two Solana. I had cash flow, much more than what I thought. That cash flow was the key to my survival in the market.
It took four years, one year in Cambodia, one in Thailand, and two in China. Four years of standing in classrooms, two years of sinus infections, four years of managing anxiety. My last job in ESL was as a manager in China for a training center. I remember looking at my portfolio, my paycheck, and my monthly income overall and made the decision.
I admit, I got comfortable while in China, I was making a little over 4000 US dollars a month from that job alone and I wasn't working a lot of hours. But, I knew I had to close this chapter of my life. I was secure in China, I had enough for a business visa and the capital to move to business ownership.
Then the market turned. The assets I had accumulated appreciated. It was not a magic moment. It was a gradual realization that the numbers on the screen had crossed a threshold. I had enough, more than enough. I had enough to cover my living expenses for years without working. I had enough to capitalize a business.
I exited positions slowly. I did not get greedy. I took profits. I moved stable coins into fiat. I secured the gain. The goal was not to buy a Lamborghini. The goal was to buy freedom. I bought my time back. I bought Chinese bubble tea.
Once the crypto portfolio reached a certain size, I stopped working in the ESL world. I did not stop working, but I changed the nature of the work. I moved from selling my time to asset management.
I looked for a business. I did not want to start something from scratch. Starting from scratch requires immense time, capital, and energy. I wanted something with a proven model. I looked at franchises. I settled on a bubble milk tea brand local to China.
Why bubble tea? It is a high-margin product. It is popular. It is operational. I am a franchisee. I do not make the tea. I manage the systems. I hire managers. I oversee the finances. I deal with the supply chain. It is work, but it is different work. It is leverage. One store can generate income while I sleep. One store can generate income and secure a business visa in China for the long term.
I am currently expanding to a second location in Guangzhou. The climate here is hard on my sinuses, but I manage it with medication and air purifiers. My knees are better because I am not standing for eight hours a day. I walk the floor, I check the inventory, I sit in the office. The physical toll is lower. The mental toll is different. Owning a business brings responsibility. If the staff fails, it is on me. If the supply chain breaks, it is on me. But I prefer this stress to the stress of the classroom. This is stress I control.
The crypto money provided the down payment for the franchise fees and the initial capital expenditure. The disability income provides a safety net. If the business fails, I do not starve, besides, I can always go back to teaching. I have a floor. This allows me to take calculated risks in business, in general, that I could not take if I were relying on the business for daily survival.
I look back at those four years in Cambodia, Thailand, and China sometimes. I think about the weekends I spent alone in my apartment while my friends went to the islands or to KTVs. I think about the nights I made lesson plans instead of going to the bars. I do not regret it.
There is a version of my life where I did not teach. In that version, I arrived in Southeast Asia on my disability income alone. I got a tourist visa. I bounced around. I saw the temples. I drank the beer. I lived the dream that everyone talks about.
In that version, I would have been inefficient. My disability income would have covered my costs and left me with a healthy surplus. I would have been growing much slower. I don't like slow growth when much better options are available.
By working, I built a buffer. I built a war chest. I traded four years of my life to buy the next forty years of freedom. That is the lesson. Time is not just something you spend. It is something you invest. Sometimes, you have to sell it at a high rate to buy it back later at a discount.
Bumming around on a tourist visa is seductive. It feels like freedom. But it is often just procrastination dressed up as a lifestyle. True freedom requires capital. Capital requires accumulation. Accumulation requires sacrifice. I sacrificed my leisure time in the classroom so I could have leisure time in China now. I sacrificed my comfort in the classroom so I could have comfort in the office now.
It was a hard lesson to learn. I had to learn it. I had to understand that my disability was not a reason to stop, but a foundation to build on. The VA checks were not the end of the road. They were the base camp. I still had to climb the mountain.
Managing my health while building this life was critical. If I had gotten too sick to work in Cambodia, the plan would have failed. I had to be rigorous. I took my medications. I avoided dairy when my sinuses were bad. I practiced sleep hygiene to manage the anxiety. I treated my body like a piece of equipment that needed maintenance to keep running.
Many expats neglect their health. They drink too much. They sleep too little. They ignore the pain until it becomes a crisis. I could not afford a crisis. A crisis costs money. A hospital visit costs money. Time in bed costs money. I was efficient with my health because I knew it was tied to my wealth.
Now, with the business, I have more control. I can schedule my appointments. I can travel to better hospitals in China when I need specialized care. This was part of the calculation. I worked hard then so I could access better care now.
I still feel like a guy from Philadelphia. I do not trust easy money. I do not trust luck. I know that things can go wrong. The crypto market could crash tomorrow. The franchise could face regulatory issues in China. My health could decline. I am prepared for these things. I keep cash reserves. I diversify. I do not get cocky.
The disability rating is permanent, but my ability to manage it is not. I know that I am capable. I know that I can generate value. That confidence is worth more than the money. I have the discipline to make it through.
Living abroad tested that discipline. There is no sergeant yelling at you to wake up. There is no chain of command. You are alone. You have to be your own commander. I had to enforce my own standards. I had to wake up for class even when I wanted to sleep. I had to save the money even when I wanted to spend it. I had to study the market even when I was tired.
That self-discipline is what separates the long-term expats from the tourists. The tourists come for the weather. The long-termers come for the life. But you cannot build a life on vacation. You have to build it on work.
I am thirty-seven. I am young enough to expand the business. I am old enough to know better than to take stupid risks. I plan to open more franchises. I plan to diversify into other things. I plan to keep investing a portion of my income into crypto, but now it is with profit, not with survival money.
I will never stop working entirely. I do not want to. Idleness is bad for my anxiety. I need purpose. But I want to work on my own terms. I want to work when I choose. I want to work where I choose. The teaching job bought me that choice.
I often meet younger veterans who are considering the expat life. They ask me for advice. They ask about the best beaches. They ask about the visa runs. I tell them about the work. I tell them about the classroom. I tell them about the financial math.
I tell them that if they want to stay, they need to be efficient. I tell them that their disability income is a tool, not a pension. I tell them that time is the only asset they cannot buy back, so they should sell it only when the price is high.
It is not a popular message. People want to hear that they can live like kings on a budget without effort. That is not true. You can live well on a budget, but not as well as you think. You still have to trade something. Either you trade money, or you trade time. If you do not have money, you must trade time.
In Cambodia, I traded time. I traded four years of my 30s to stand in a hot room and teach grammar. It was not glamorous. It was not fun. But it was effective.
Looking out the window in Guangzhou, I see the city sprawling. It is chaotic and loud. It reminds me of Philadelphia in some ways. The energy is similar. The drive is similar. I fit here. I fit in the expat life because I treat it like a mission.
I have my sins. I have my knees. I have my anxiety. They are still there. But they do not dictate my life anymore. I manage them. I work around them. I have built a structure that accommodates my limitations.
The crypto investment was the catalyst. The teaching job was the fuel. The disability income was the foundation. The business is the vehicle. All of it required me to say no to immediate gratification. It required me to look at the long term.
Sometimes, it is better to trade your time if the money is right. That is the core of it. If you are young, or if you are starting over, your time is your biggest asset. Do not waste it on things that do not compound. Do not waste it on cheap thrills that leave you empty. Invest it in skills. Invest it in capital. Invest it in work that pays you later.
I did not come to Southeast Asia to hide. I came here to build. The teaching job was just a brick. It was a ugly brick. It was a heavy brick. But it was necessary. You cannot build a wall without bricks.
Now I sit in my office. The air is cool. The reports are balanced. I have a meeting later with a supplier. I will take a car. I will sit down. My knees will be fine. My sinuses will be managed. I will fly back to my condo in Thailand next week. I will swim in the pool. I will rest.
I earned this rest. I did not find it. I did not stumble into it. I worked for it. I traded for it. And I would do it again. I would go back to that classrooms in Cambodia, Thailand, and China. I would stand on those sore knees. I would fight through the anxiety. I would save the dollars. I would buy the crypto. I would build the business.
Because the alternative was to be inefficient. The alternative was to let the years slip by while I waited for something to happen. Nothing happens if you do not make it happen. Freedom is not given. It is purchased. And the currency is time.
I spent my time wisely. Now I own my time. That is the only victory that matters.
Freedom costs money. In Southeast Asia, the cost of living is lower than in the United States, but the cost of stability is high. A good visa costs money. Quality healthcare costs money. Security costs money. I decided to leave Philadelphia not to run away from costs or because I hate the West, but to maximize the value of the capital I had. I took my disability income, which had purchasing power in Asia that it did not have in Pennsylvania, and I moved.
I arrived in Southeast Asia with a plan. The plan was not to retire. The plan was to accumulate. I knew that my disability income would cover my baseline existence. It would keep me fed and housed. But to invest, to actually grow wealth, I needed surplus capital. I needed to generate income that exceeded my burn rate. I needed to work.
I chose Cambodia for my first major stop. It was raw. It was unpolished. It was cheap. When I arrived in Phnom Penh, I saw many people like me. Veterans, drifters, digital nomads, people running from something or running toward something. Many of them were living on savings or remote income, spending their days at cafes, talking about projects they never started. They were burning time.
I looked at the math. My disability income covered my rent and food with plenty leftover, but I wanted more. If I lived frugally, I could save perhaps two thousand dollars a month. At that rate, it would take me years to build a significant investment portfolio. I wanted to accelerate the timeline, to become more efficient. I needed to increase the margin between my income and my expenses.
Teaching English was the most accessible option. I did not have a degree in education, I have a BA in Psychology. I did not have a passion for pedagogy. But I was a native English speaker with a clean background. The schools and language centers were hiring. The pay was not high by Western standards, about 1200 US Dollars, but in Cambodia, it was significant. It was enough to almost double my monthly surplus.
The decision came down to a simple equation. I could spend my days free, exploring temples and drinking coffee, training martial arts, sleeping around, remaining inefficient. Or I could sell my time for forty hours a week, endure the stress, and bank the difference. I chose the work. I chose to trade my time because the money was right. It was the Marine Corps thing to do. I admit, I had to dig deep and pull every ounce of discipline from my body, but I made it work.
Teaching in Cambodia is not like teaching in a private school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The resources are scarce. The class sizes are large. The air conditioning is often broken. I taught kids who were excited to learn English, their parents wanting them to escape the local labor market. They were motivated. That made the job easier. But the environment was harsh.
My health issues were a constant factor. My knees can't handle standing for long periods. In a classroom, you're on your feet. I had to learn to manage my posture, to lean against desks when I thought the students weren't looking, to sit during group work exercises. It was a constant negotiation with my own body. Pain is a distraction. When your knee throbs, it's hard to focus on the lesson of the day. I had to push through it. I viewed the pain as a cost of doing business.
The anxiety was harder to manage. GAD is not just worry; it is a physical state of alertness. Walking into a room full of shouting, attention seeking little kids, knowing I had to perform, knowing I had to be authoritative, spiked my cortisol levels. There were days when I stood in the staff bathroom before class, breathing through the sinus pressure in my face, trying to calm my heart rate. The humidity in Cambodia is aggressive. It fills your sinuses. I was constantly fighting off infections, popping antibiotics, trying to stay healthy enough to work.
I did not enjoy teaching, not at first. I enjoyed the people and the impact. I need to be clear about that. I did not find my soul in the classroom like some cringy ESL teachers do. I found a paycheck. I treated the job like a transaction. I gave them my time and my knowledge; they gave me currency. I did not take work home. I did not grade papers on the weekend. I protected my time outside of work because I needed to rest. But during those contracted hours, I was efficient. I showed up. I taught. I saved the money.
There were other expats teaching who treated the job as a hobby. They missed classes. They complained about the administration. They spent their paychecks immediately on nightlife. They were not building anything. They were burning cash for no reason. I watched them and found them to be pathetic.
Every month, I took the surplus from my teaching salary and I combined it with the surplus from my disability income. I lived on the bare minimum. I ate local food. I rented a modest apartment. I did not travel on weekends. I stayed in the city. I minimized my burn rate to maximize my investment rate.
I put that capital into crypto, into liquidity pools and holding.
I know the stigma. I know people hear "crypto" and think of gambling. I did not approach it as gambling. I approached it as venture capital. I spent months researching. I studied the technology. I understood the risk. I knew that I could lose to impermanent loss, but it was worth it. But I also knew that traditional markets would not give me the growth I needed to change my life trajectory. To move from "disabled veteran living abroad" to "business owner with freedom," I needed an asymmetric bet. I needed an asset class that could appreciate significantly in a short window.
I did not try to time the market perfectly. I bought when I had the cash from teaching. I bought when the market was red. I bought when the market was green. I removed emotion from the process. This was difficult with my anxiety. Watching the charts drop triggered every instinct I had to sell, to preserve what I had. But I knew better, don't be emotional.
The teaching job was the engine that fueled the investment. Without the job, I would have been investing only my disability income. The growth would have been too slow. The teaching salary allowed me to buy more Solana, Bitcoin, and ETH. I started putting more crypto into liquidity pools and it paid off. I only bet on stable pairs, three ETH, and two Solana. I had cash flow, much more than what I thought. That cash flow was the key to my survival in the market.
It took four years, one year in Cambodia, one in Thailand, and two in China. Four years of standing in classrooms, two years of sinus infections, four years of managing anxiety. My last job in ESL was as a manager in China for a training center. I remember looking at my portfolio, my paycheck, and my monthly income overall and made the decision.
I admit, I got comfortable while in China, I was making a little over 4000 US dollars a month from that job alone and I wasn't working a lot of hours. But, I knew I had to close this chapter of my life. I was secure in China, I had enough for a business visa and the capital to move to business ownership.
Then the market turned. The assets I had accumulated appreciated. It was not a magic moment. It was a gradual realization that the numbers on the screen had crossed a threshold. I had enough, more than enough. I had enough to cover my living expenses for years without working. I had enough to capitalize a business.
I exited positions slowly. I did not get greedy. I took profits. I moved stable coins into fiat. I secured the gain. The goal was not to buy a Lamborghini. The goal was to buy freedom. I bought my time back. I bought Chinese bubble tea.
Once the crypto portfolio reached a certain size, I stopped working in the ESL world. I did not stop working, but I changed the nature of the work. I moved from selling my time to asset management.
I looked for a business. I did not want to start something from scratch. Starting from scratch requires immense time, capital, and energy. I wanted something with a proven model. I looked at franchises. I settled on a bubble milk tea brand local to China.
Why bubble tea? It is a high-margin product. It is popular. It is operational. I am a franchisee. I do not make the tea. I manage the systems. I hire managers. I oversee the finances. I deal with the supply chain. It is work, but it is different work. It is leverage. One store can generate income while I sleep. One store can generate income and secure a business visa in China for the long term.
I am currently expanding to a second location in Guangzhou. The climate here is hard on my sinuses, but I manage it with medication and air purifiers. My knees are better because I am not standing for eight hours a day. I walk the floor, I check the inventory, I sit in the office. The physical toll is lower. The mental toll is different. Owning a business brings responsibility. If the staff fails, it is on me. If the supply chain breaks, it is on me. But I prefer this stress to the stress of the classroom. This is stress I control.
The crypto money provided the down payment for the franchise fees and the initial capital expenditure. The disability income provides a safety net. If the business fails, I do not starve, besides, I can always go back to teaching. I have a floor. This allows me to take calculated risks in business, in general, that I could not take if I were relying on the business for daily survival.
I look back at those four years in Cambodia, Thailand, and China sometimes. I think about the weekends I spent alone in my apartment while my friends went to the islands or to KTVs. I think about the nights I made lesson plans instead of going to the bars. I do not regret it.
There is a version of my life where I did not teach. In that version, I arrived in Southeast Asia on my disability income alone. I got a tourist visa. I bounced around. I saw the temples. I drank the beer. I lived the dream that everyone talks about.
In that version, I would have been inefficient. My disability income would have covered my costs and left me with a healthy surplus. I would have been growing much slower. I don't like slow growth when much better options are available.
By working, I built a buffer. I built a war chest. I traded four years of my life to buy the next forty years of freedom. That is the lesson. Time is not just something you spend. It is something you invest. Sometimes, you have to sell it at a high rate to buy it back later at a discount.
Bumming around on a tourist visa is seductive. It feels like freedom. But it is often just procrastination dressed up as a lifestyle. True freedom requires capital. Capital requires accumulation. Accumulation requires sacrifice. I sacrificed my leisure time in the classroom so I could have leisure time in China now. I sacrificed my comfort in the classroom so I could have comfort in the office now.
It was a hard lesson to learn. I had to learn it. I had to understand that my disability was not a reason to stop, but a foundation to build on. The VA checks were not the end of the road. They were the base camp. I still had to climb the mountain.
Managing my health while building this life was critical. If I had gotten too sick to work in Cambodia, the plan would have failed. I had to be rigorous. I took my medications. I avoided dairy when my sinuses were bad. I practiced sleep hygiene to manage the anxiety. I treated my body like a piece of equipment that needed maintenance to keep running.
Many expats neglect their health. They drink too much. They sleep too little. They ignore the pain until it becomes a crisis. I could not afford a crisis. A crisis costs money. A hospital visit costs money. Time in bed costs money. I was efficient with my health because I knew it was tied to my wealth.
Now, with the business, I have more control. I can schedule my appointments. I can travel to better hospitals in China when I need specialized care. This was part of the calculation. I worked hard then so I could access better care now.
I still feel like a guy from Philadelphia. I do not trust easy money. I do not trust luck. I know that things can go wrong. The crypto market could crash tomorrow. The franchise could face regulatory issues in China. My health could decline. I am prepared for these things. I keep cash reserves. I diversify. I do not get cocky.
The disability rating is permanent, but my ability to manage it is not. I know that I am capable. I know that I can generate value. That confidence is worth more than the money. I have the discipline to make it through.
Living abroad tested that discipline. There is no sergeant yelling at you to wake up. There is no chain of command. You are alone. You have to be your own commander. I had to enforce my own standards. I had to wake up for class even when I wanted to sleep. I had to save the money even when I wanted to spend it. I had to study the market even when I was tired.
That self-discipline is what separates the long-term expats from the tourists. The tourists come for the weather. The long-termers come for the life. But you cannot build a life on vacation. You have to build it on work.
I am thirty-seven. I am young enough to expand the business. I am old enough to know better than to take stupid risks. I plan to open more franchises. I plan to diversify into other things. I plan to keep investing a portion of my income into crypto, but now it is with profit, not with survival money.
I will never stop working entirely. I do not want to. Idleness is bad for my anxiety. I need purpose. But I want to work on my own terms. I want to work when I choose. I want to work where I choose. The teaching job bought me that choice.
I often meet younger veterans who are considering the expat life. They ask me for advice. They ask about the best beaches. They ask about the visa runs. I tell them about the work. I tell them about the classroom. I tell them about the financial math.
I tell them that if they want to stay, they need to be efficient. I tell them that their disability income is a tool, not a pension. I tell them that time is the only asset they cannot buy back, so they should sell it only when the price is high.
It is not a popular message. People want to hear that they can live like kings on a budget without effort. That is not true. You can live well on a budget, but not as well as you think. You still have to trade something. Either you trade money, or you trade time. If you do not have money, you must trade time.
In Cambodia, I traded time. I traded four years of my 30s to stand in a hot room and teach grammar. It was not glamorous. It was not fun. But it was effective.
Looking out the window in Guangzhou, I see the city sprawling. It is chaotic and loud. It reminds me of Philadelphia in some ways. The energy is similar. The drive is similar. I fit here. I fit in the expat life because I treat it like a mission.
I have my sins. I have my knees. I have my anxiety. They are still there. But they do not dictate my life anymore. I manage them. I work around them. I have built a structure that accommodates my limitations.
The crypto investment was the catalyst. The teaching job was the fuel. The disability income was the foundation. The business is the vehicle. All of it required me to say no to immediate gratification. It required me to look at the long term.
Sometimes, it is better to trade your time if the money is right. That is the core of it. If you are young, or if you are starting over, your time is your biggest asset. Do not waste it on things that do not compound. Do not waste it on cheap thrills that leave you empty. Invest it in skills. Invest it in capital. Invest it in work that pays you later.
I did not come to Southeast Asia to hide. I came here to build. The teaching job was just a brick. It was a ugly brick. It was a heavy brick. But it was necessary. You cannot build a wall without bricks.
Now I sit in my office. The air is cool. The reports are balanced. I have a meeting later with a supplier. I will take a car. I will sit down. My knees will be fine. My sinuses will be managed. I will fly back to my condo in Thailand next week. I will swim in the pool. I will rest.
I earned this rest. I did not find it. I did not stumble into it. I worked for it. I traded for it. And I would do it again. I would go back to that classrooms in Cambodia, Thailand, and China. I would stand on those sore knees. I would fight through the anxiety. I would save the dollars. I would buy the crypto. I would build the business.
Because the alternative was to be inefficient. The alternative was to let the years slip by while I waited for something to happen. Nothing happens if you do not make it happen. Freedom is not given. It is purchased. And the currency is time.
I spent my time wisely. Now I own my time. That is the only victory that matters.
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