I was robbed over the weekend. Phone and wallet - both gone. In
this day and age that is considerable inconvenience.
The phone is my primary means of offline communication and, thanks to
Google Authenticator, also a critical component of my digital life as
a whole. Additionally, suddenly being broke is rather upsetting.
Overall it could have been much worse. And while the financial loss
hurt, my phone was fully encrypted and I managed to lock all cards
before anything fishy could happen. It did make me feel rather
vulnerable and was a considerable hassle to get everything back in
order. I really have to thank my brother, for generally being
awesome and just being a huge help throughout this mess.
So I thought I should share some general advice on how to prepare
yourself for a similar situation:
- Keep some cash at home. This will allow you to cover unexpected
expenses or fees that might result from your situation and keep the
fridge stocked.
- Keep photocopies of your most important documents.
- Having a secondary wallet can be a huge boon.
- Encrypt everything! Especially your phone! Unfortunately, encryption
is a double edge sword. On the one hand it means your data is safe,
on the other it lowers the chances of recovering your stolen
equipment to near zero (since the thief will never be able to
actually boot it back up)
- Ensure you keep a record of important numbers, such as debit card
numbers, credit card numbers, passport numbers and your phone’s
IMEI. In Germany these kind of details are required for the police
report.
- Have a secondary phone or Skype account with credit available.
- Keep a short checklist for theft-related vulnerabilities. Examples
are: a list of cards to lock/block, procedure to remote wipe your phone,
alternative access to 2FA protected services, secondary means of
communication
- Make sure you are aware of if and what kind of damages your
insurance might cover and how long your claim window is.
The most important thing is to stay calm. Just remember: in the end it
is just money. All of the people that helped me to get things back
in order were incredibly understanding and really friendly.
2013 marked the first year I made my new year resolutions
public. To my great disappointment I failed to accomplish most. I
blame this failure on my inability to effectively ‘fix’ bad habits.
My posting history last year provides strong evidence to my struggle
with bad habits. Frequent posting occurs during periods where my daily
routine has undergone drastic changes. January marked my first month
in Japan - everything was new, strange and exciting. I lived from one
day to the next, attempting to absorb as much of the wonderful country
as I could. The novelty of everything overwhelmed me in a way, and as
a consequence I stuck to actually following my plans.
March marked the last month in hostels. On the 15th I moved into a
share-house, an environment all too similar to my apartment back
home. I almost immediately reverted to old habits, notably wasting my
time away on the internet. Unsurprisingly, I have few lasting memories
or vivid recollections from this time. Despite my return to old
habits, March proved to be a relatively productive month. A new habit
I had formed over the previous months proved ingrained enough to
dispel some of the lethargy. This habit was heading to the local
Starbucks and spending most of the day programming. Being out in
public certainly helps to focus on more productive pursuits.
April proved to be terribly wasteful. I attempted to realign myself
with my original goals during May and to an extent I
succeeded. Ultimately it failed because I didn’t quite grasp how
susceptible to time (of the day) most of my habits are. A messed up
sleep-cycle resulted in me dropping my new, productive habits in favor
of old ones.
Simultaneously, time also proved to be a great facilitator. With my
time in Japan coming to an end, I was shaken out of my inertia and
returned to traveling. Not a single day in June passed without
discovering something new. The months between Japan and university
were spent hiking in Corsica, cycling in Italy and on a road trip in
Norway. Time well spent.
Back at university, I did manage to introduce some positive habits,
enforcing a regular swim schedule and regular sessions at the
university library.
Some of the lessons I learned:
- The physical environment is one of the driving factors behind my habits.
- Being in public places helps me focus and amplifies my limited self-discipline.
- Resistance to less immediate goals grows exponentially every time I
give in to my inner Schweinehund.
- By the time I struggle with myself over whether I should do X
instead of Y it is already too late. This is a debate my rational
self loses 95% of the time.
- Social obligations and public scrutiny are effective ways to force
myself to be productive.
- Rewards don’t work particularly well unless they are exponentially
better than what you would normally do anyway.
- Goals are awesome, but I find it terribly hard to break them down
into realistic sub-goals. Usually goals either seem so huge that I
don’t know where to start or so trivial that I put them off
forever.
- Time constraints (such as “every week” or “every day”) seem to
negatively affect my ability to keep a resolution.
This is not the first time I have identified these quirks of mine, but
the first time I have written them down publicly. Despite the rather
negative tone of the post, 2013 was by far an amazing year. I
fulfilled a childhood dream of mine by going to Japan; Met really nice
people; saw and experienced amazing things. It has also helped me to
solidify my own goals and dreams in life, but that is for another
post.