Dear Reader – you may, or may not be tired of receiving each month a more or less meaningful email (you judge), about issues relating to one of the arguably best places for living, - Ubud. Either you are caught in our system, because you received this letter for being one of UbudProperty’s dear clients, or you have contacted us with an inquiry and now you are also in our database. Whichever. But maybe you do not want to receive these reports and ideas any longer. I can understand. Life is busy, time is precious. If so, just cancel by return of email. Done. Finished.

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know”. – Ernest Hemingway Was he just trying to humour us? Too late to ask. A research into happiness has shown that if you take the happiness of your blood, its serotonin level as your starting point, then there are relatively few external factors that can either reduce or increase that level. You can lose a leg, you can find out you are infertile, your house can burn down. Your serotonin level sinks at first, but six months later you are pretty much as happy or unhappy as you were to start with. Does this remind you of this always cheerful person you know, or the one who is mainly depressed?

“Imagine jumping out of a skydiving plane and discovering your parachute doesn’t work. What memories would flash before you? Then finally the parachute opens. How differently would you act when you landed?” Most of us would swear on the spot to start right now making the most out of life, each day a 5 Star event. For many that would include improving relationships, living healthier, looking for a happier environment to live in. Can someone tell me why we would have to jump from a plane first for this process to kick in? The opportunity is at hand: Corona. Stay healthy, re-evaluate, act. Of course, you are suspicious where this is going, written by a property guy in Bali. But sometimes even politicians and real estate people get it right. All irony aside, If you are still ‘out there’ meaning not living in Bali yet, do yourself the favour – ask yourself - what is it which is holding me back? You see, in almost each of these monthly reports I try to raise awareness towards the benefit of living / investing near Ubud.

Referring to the ongoing Covid-thing I heard someone answer to the question “How are you?” by saying: “SSDD” (Same Shit, Different Day ) No, no and NO! No reason to give up or give in. All coins have two sides! Here is what the Indian mystic Sadhguru in light of the virus explosion in India recently said, -and it may as well apply to Indonesia and other Countries too: ‘This is a reality check for all of us. The fragile life that we are, have we organized ourselves to understand and live here, knowing how fragile and transient our life is – have we planned for a life like that? Or are you living in a make-believe world of your own, thinking you are going to be here forever? This is a reality check as to who we are.

… and this at a time when most certainly you have other things on your mind. But should we panic and forget that life goes on? Life, including things like the entire Corona pandemic business, which certainly is far from being over. Yesterday the news where about two new strands of Brazilian virus, which seem to bring their Country’s Health system onto its knees. The WHO expects that these aggressive variants eventually spread to outside Brazil. Heavens, why don’t we get a break? Did you get your first vaccine shot, maybe even the follow-up one already? It is time to rethink, if you didn’t.