What happened over the last year, is more or less a microcosm of what has been happening to people in general over the last twenty years. A sharp, unrelenting focus on pursuing increased levels of wealth, power, and fame - with very little thought given to the actual consequences.
After scoring those huge sales in the first few months, sales eventually started dropping. And while I was still able to be quite satisfied with that amount of income (it was, after all, over 10 times the amount I was making before), there was always this nagging feeling that, if I put some more effort into it, I could make more.
At the same time, rivals took notice of my app and were not pleased at how I was taking a huge portion of their potential sales. I started getting strange bogus reviews on my app that said things somewhere along the lines of:
"I bought this app but it's nowhere near as good as what all the other reviewers say. They're all shills"
and countless variations of it. Every time this happened, sales would drop a sizable 30%-40%, but the worst part was the psychological damage it caused. I couldn't stand being fucked over unfairly by someone else, so I started obsessing over finding out who wrote these reviews. Once I did, it was the start of a most tiring and bothersome "behind the scenes war" where we'd try to manipulate review pages to our own benefit.
I absolutely despised this pointless activity, because it focuses your energy on crude, dishonest things. Even worse, I don't think this is a necessary evil of business. When both competitors bash each other openly, both sides lose mores sale than if nobody bashed anybody. Everybody loses. However, if you just let the other competitor bash you without retaliating, it's truly gut-wrenching as customers falsely believe you are the scammer while the real evil-doer is supposedly selling a "great genuine product". You're the only one who loses while the asshole gets away with more money that he really doesn't deserve.
It was about that time I could feel a sour black pus growing from inside of me... a genuine hatred for all my competitors and a desire to crush them. So I beefed up Real英会話 with a newfound gusto, added in-app updates, a phrase request system which would cleverly encourage users to leave good reviews, in hopes of constantly flooding out the fake bogus ones.
All my efforts paid off, as my sales shot up again to stratospheric amounts starting from February 2011, which posted record sales of ¥7,771,645 in a single month.
Things like this don't happen without people taking notice, so it wasn't long before I my tax accountant suggested to me to form a company. I always hesitated about making a company because I had no interest in hiring other people, and it just seemed like a lot of paperwork and stuff to save what was at most 5% in tax.
It felt good to be noticed - especially by my dad, who was blown away by the numbers, and even my tax accountant, who said that this kind of revenue for a single person in Okinawa was almost unheard of. I felt smart, talented, above everyone else...
However, I noticed that the amount of time I spent on work started to grow slowly, to the point where I had no idea when I was ever really just laying back and having a good time. I completely stopped playing video games, I barely watched any movies, I never just "hung out" with people. My mind was so sharp and focused on making more money, and that meant checking reviews every 10 minutes, answering support mails every 30 minutes, and never letting my eye off the ball. Can you imagine trying to eat lunch with a friend, only being bothered by the idea that some hideous review was just posted and taking your sales away? Anything that was unrelated to making money, having intense sex, or stuffing my body with good food was instantly labeled a waste of time. I became obsessive, irritable, neurotic.
Slowly, I grew increasingly irritable at small things. Red lights. Forgetting to put beer in the fridge. Forms to fill out. Then, I grew irritated at microscopic things. Waiting for water to boil. Having to get out coins from my wallet. Or having to bring that stupid bill to the cashier every time I ate out at Eco Room. I started becoming bossy and ordering my secretary to take care of these microscopic annoyances, which she did... and that made me happy again.. for a while...
In the end, I just wanted everything that I wanted more instantly and more intensely. It's as if my mind were screaming: "MORE! MORE!! FASTER! MORE PAINLESSLY!! 2 CLICKS TO 1 CLICK! 1 CLICK TO AUTOMATIC!" and it would just never stop.
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