Updates (June 20, 2025)

If you work and live with just a job it is OK.

But the thing you miss out on is working for yourself.

If you just follow orders you feel down.

That is why the West emphasizes opening your own business and working for yourself.

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But can you really have a family of your own working for yourself? With what team?

I guess depending on your supports and field you can.

If you work in healthcare you can just get along with everyone really.

If you work in routine jobs you can and can not. With the weekly hours capped at 12-14 a week nowadays you need another income source. This is what I am seeing at superstores.

If you try so hard and open your own business, you are married to that business 24/7. This could be the greatest or the most blinded thing you can do. In the good sense you are always working and improving. The bad side is never having a routine and time for yourself???

Is that really a thing? Having time for yourself when you are working your own business? You actually have all the time in the world for yourself in a ‘business sense’. You just don’t have the time to think anything else that you think is ‘good’. The ‘good’ really ain’t that good.

Working 24/7 on your own business could be the best thing for life and longevity if you look at life as work and purpose with a job that is personal.

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What happens when you figure it out? …

When I was young I just went with the flow …

When I turned 35 I thought I needed to have a stable job and a family of my own … Then I realized that is also soooooooo bad. I did not live for myself as a man. I had 50+ years left. I needed to work for myself. As a Vietnamese life outside was hard.

Worked on myself for 5 years and learned that I needed to socialize with people who are like me.

And now today I realize, I need to work on myself still and have my own business so I stay healthy and strong and masculine. I can not work with family or my dad forever. I need to work and have something to call my own. And have friends that support me to have a ‘full life’.

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What I realized about culture and stereotypes and grouping …

Out in the real world there are groupings.

But that does nothing for a Vietnamese man like myself who is now 41 years old. I have nothing to rely on really.

Some groups just rely on their group they are naturally born in and that turns out not good later because it is relying on positive face stereotypes and that doesn’t hold after 40 years because they rely on stereotypes so much.

I get it now. It took 41 years to uniquely evolve by building myself. Like everyone else really …

Growing up I did not have good stereotypes that much. And if they were good stereotypes they were twisted by ‘others’ to fit their narrative so it turned negative.

That is why it is important to have like minded friends to talk to all day like Vietnamese born in Canada to grow up with.

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What is life really like for Vietnamese born in Canada? … Someone like me?

Growing up there are stereotypes.

I am neutral. But you can not live neutral in Canada once you get old like 19.

So you got to work with other Vietnamese born in Canada. This is because the powerplay of other groups. With world geopolitics and just growing up (real life is high school), some groups say this and say that. Where does it leave neutral Vietnamese born in Canada like me? and my siblings?

That means a Vietnamese person like me has to fend for themselves or get stuck in the crosshairs of groups protesting this or that or even fighting.

What do Vietnamese born in Canada do for work? What kind of work to they do? It is mostly independent work that is neutral? Yes!

The stereotype of Vietnamese of nail salons, pho and banh mi food stores equates to neutral stance on things to be independent and not power hungry. Not influencing others or changing politics of other countries really.

What did my parents do? They have their own business.

Now everything makes sense once you have that knowledge from the bottom up.

Computer science and coding in general is not only coding for your own interests, it is also very influential and can have power. That is what I realized doing it. You can have power over areas.

If I stop and just do another job, then I lose my influence and just become a worker. That is partly OK because live in Canada.

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Doing web development is like the last thing in computing. Putting stuff online.

People doing this work have found out what independence and hard work is all about.

You get so hyped up. But the stress kills you inside because at the end of the day you have to produce something that competes with WordPress/Wix/Squarespace or tools like Elementor/Divi.

You are marching towards those development tools to help small to large businesses (even Fortune 10 companies) have a unique modern presence on the web to do business 100% safe.

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How do you get up there working for Fortune 10 companies? Well study and study and study taking your sweet time until you get there with some coffee and some Timbits.

Like go to school forever until you learned the ‘1% needed’. Outside in the real world it is 100000% harder. But you do need school first to learn the primer maybe if it is too hard for you right now.

But realistically, you should do most things with your own determination to be your own business owner of a web studio company. This thought is scary. Scary hard. Scary that it is tiring and the scope is infinity.

Is it fun trying to do this? I am not sure right now for me …

But I know I should hold a stable job that is neutral if I can so I can relax and have some time to have my own family.

The circle of life.

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Everyone is learning and are at different stages of growth.

The thing about being Vietnamese is the road I took when I was 35 years old.

I had to live for myself or otherwise be tormented by other groups saying negative general stereotypes about me if I ticked some of them off.

But that is natural. Everyone does their own thing in life.

Some people forget that I am old as them or older.

Then they learn from me that I had to live for myself to have just a life validated externally as well.

Then we all learn from each other.

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That is the thing about life 50 years after the war.

I felt uncomfortable doing a ‘job’ at 19 years old after OAC grade 13 because if myself and surroundings.

So now at 41 years old, I finally realized it finding a way to have some normalcy in life in Canada to have a family of my own.

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The thing about being born in the West.

Somehow living in the West shapes you polarized. You think the negative stereotypes that the West defined. You can not escape the Westernization of your mind and thoughts. This is different from Vietnamese born in Vietnam.

That is why I see Vietnamese born in the West sometimes move back to Vietnam to reconnect with their culture.

But the refugees who are like 5 years old and up who come to the West know their Vietnamese identity and strive to live among Westerners and succeed.

The kids born in the West are mixed.

As a Vietnamese born in Canada, it is hard for me to think this or that. I feel mixed and try to balance both sides and it ends up bad especially when doing sales for work. You have to sell, sell, sell living in Canada to work in sales. Work in sales is just business.

My father and older sister understand this well.

And working in sales and marketing that Tony Tie does is the trick to live properly with assets and money to spend.

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How to live good and masculine for a Vietnamese man like myself?

I guess after jotting down these notes, I guess it is to do my passions and also teach it in the West to those willing to learn from me.

Some people might get it. The trick is to zone out for 5-10 years until you have produced a product of your own.

It might be faster for others and slower for some.

To build a product takes time. To build a unique product takes a long time.

I guess the zoning out and doing your own thing is scary for some.

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That is the thing about manhood and adult life, you must do your own thing regardless of everything going around you or people criticizing you. It gets to the point where you have to make money and live.

People saying negative things about you just don’t understand life this far into it.

As a Vietnamese man, I am neutral and things don’t make sense with some groups. I have to live for myself to build myself to have credibility and uniqueness. I don’t have group attachment.

Therefore doing my own thing and teaching it is the best for me and my group.

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I realized at the end of the day, life went normal???

All I did was do my own thing. I became kind of unique after.

I guess everyone’s life become ‘normal’ if they addressed their issues of life in the West.

In the beginning it is a huge problem to do something more and people attack you for trying. But you do it anyways. You do it to have something. And when you finally come through and delivered, everyone understands. The struggle is human as everyone is human afterall.

That is the thing about being an immigrant child.

If you don’t build yourself one day, then you are just a stereotypical number.

You eventually do stuff and get what you want.

It is odd seeing the hardship of growing up. But at the end everyone succeeds doing something if you just give it time. And time is something people don’t know they have. They don’t know if there’s even a way or there are opportunities.

Really odd.

I thought i never have anything. But I live in Canada and Canadians allow me to grow.

and the thing is you have to get away from people who think no.