I am reading ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ today. I realised I haven’t been writing for a really long time. Things happened, a lot has changed. There were times among my busy schedule when I read back on this blog, always with a sense of proudness of myself for keeping the old times memory here. They are real old gems.. and today, I am thinking why not keep this going and just document about life. I would now call it ‘Daily Private Victory’.
In recent years, the world has changed so fast, and I have been pushing myself to keep up with it. I came to believe that if you stop pushing yourself, the world will then push you around.
Major throwback to 2019
I started to work in Singapore about a year ago in November 2019. I could still remember the thrill when I received the offer letter from HR; tears of joy streamed down my cheek while I was driving home on a long high way after a long day at work. It was definitely more than a sob, I was crying like a baby, ?quite hysterically in the car. I wasn’t even trying to exaggerate. Ever read ‘The Pearl’?
‘It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.’-John Steinbeck, The Pearl
That’s me. I feel so touched by God. After years of struggles, it came true, my once elusive goal that I have left behind. It was awaken by one phone call, by then my spirit was high, but dare not to give it too much of a hope given the number of times the disappointment hit me. When the time is right, things fall into its place. This is also why both me and xt put on the cross necklace. Amen!
Ox-picious year 2020 (Niu Year)
A new year has begun and we are still long way out of the pandemic. A global pandemic Covid 19 originated from WuHan China has hit us, the cleverest top-of-the-food-chain homosapiens; started around Dec 2019, the same year I started working in Singapore. It is not ending yet. Msia is now having high number of cases up to 2000-3000 new patients per day, and the first ever not ending lock-down of Singapore-Malaysia borders in history has been ongoing since around March 2020. I have only been home once since I relocated, which was last year Chinese New Year. Terrifying pandemic, first of its kind, we were all grounded. I miss HOME.
The pandemic has forced changes to our daily life. No travel (my greatest passion :/ ), no school, no work for non-essential workers (aha, so now you know who are essential lol?) , no eating out, safe distancing, safe entry scan almost everywhere, then Zoom Classes/Zoom meeting. In my case, our work team splits into Team A and B, whereby people from different team are not supposed to meet or eat together. In Singapore, we have now evolved from movement restriction to no more than gathering of 4 pax then to no more than 8 pax. Staying at home is the new norm.
The pandemic has made us all slowed down in a way. No more rushing in and out of the custom for me, that’s mean no more going home for all Malaysians working in this foreign land that oversees our home country. The rampaging infection is alarming and worrying, but yet it looks almost like a reminder sent by our Lord to wake up his earthlings. Perhaps this is what we called the balance of nature.Mother Earth has reportedly becomes cleaner in a lot of tourist hotspots like Bali, Thailand where travellers used to litter a lot. The water bodies become cleaner and the air quality improves. More people is working from home now, spending more time with the family.
Business are either forced to go online or go bankruptcy, even big department store like Robinsons closed down. Online businesses on the other hand flourish. I am very glad that my dad’s pet shop and my cousin uncle’s Chinese herbal and stuffs shop are both doing well. My dad said his business is now at its peak with the efforts of my brother pushing it online. I had a look at my family business’s page in Shopee (owned by my company $SeaLimited), the comments and all looked really great. Ahh..my little brother haha, i am starting to be proud of him. I hope he keeps up his passion and his good work.
I have been reading frantically recently on financial stuff and my usual favourite non-fiction kind of books. To name a few: Finding Chika by Mitch Albom, Warren buffet way, Atomic habits, Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck and more.. In solitude, I think I find peace with myself in reading, playing keyboard (yes, don’t judge, i pick up piano again haha, sorry dude!) and exploring more of the world. I have learnt a lot more about myself in this year. Ohh, hot news, I have started investing in the US Market too.
I started investing in the Malaysia market 2-3 years ago under the influence CH, O and W. All of them were my colleagues back in M’sia who are good at managing their finance.Just like others, of course, I paid to the market to learn about a thing or two. :(
It was only after meeting Y that I started to change my investment mindset. I had never dreamt of Financial Independence and did not know that there’s a way of doing it, and of course, skepticism about my ability of realising it is another big hurdle. Yet, he makes things obvious, easy, attractive and satisfying.
One day while talking to Xt about people inspiring us in life, I looked back my own and realised there really are people inspiring me along the way. Xt said he has none. I was surprised. Hmm, because if you do not have one, probably that’s because you haven’t been really looking into finding one.? My first boss aka mentor, Mr Choong LD, he inspired me to be a good pharmacist when i was still a student. I work part time in the pharmacy store and he was always good and patient to teach me and other colleagues. I was such a young chick who don’t even know DM can cause optic neuropathy that pt can go blind and obviously do not know the active ingredients in Colodium (antidiarrheals med) is Loperamide. I told Mr Choong I wanted to be someone like him, be a pharmacist who is able to remember all generic names of the medicines. I achieved that today.
The second person of whom I believe inspired me while conning (fun harmless little lies though don’t worry) me at the same time was a young guy called YH I met in the Sydney International Airport. I was back from my Working Holiday in Woolgooga and was munching my left-overnight Korean chicken from yesterday dinner in the airport. Yes, I kept it in the bag and took it out to eat while waiting for a flight. How peculiar is this girl?! This young man approached me and we gone into a 8-hour-conversation (Sydney-KL route). LOL.At the end of the conversation, I decided to need to see NZ for myself, then the next year I was on a voyage to NZ ! I realised i achieved that too.
You can only realise great things happening around you if you have the right amount of self-awareness within yourself. I am so grateful and lucky to have people teaching me and encouraging me to learn more, travel more and invest more.
Everyone should invest I believe. I have changed my mindset totally because of a great life mentor. While i am trying to zoom out myself and look at the bigger picture, I realised this could me a game-changing shift of paradigm. 🔥 Today, my portfolio records a gain of 16-20% 4 months into my US market adventure.
In the coming days and years, I hope I can inspire more people around me to invest too. I hope that everyone would achieve that ultimate goal in life, to be financially independent, do what they love and love what they do.
Reminder to self
Never go for empty victories, it is not worth it if the successes come at the expense of things we suddenly realise were far more valuable to us.
