I Thinketh! - Do Children Today Fear Failure?

It's a week after New Year. School has started. My girlfriend had to go back too. She teaches. The week past by fine. Then on Friday, something happened that left her thinking, which she told me about. That left me thinking. 

Once orientation's done in the first two days or so, lessons start. On Thursday, she was relieving a couple of periods for a teacher who was away for some reason or other. It was math class. After explaining the steps of the new topic and giving out the assignment to the new batch of primary 1 students, two students cried. One after the other. Apparently, they were afraid of making mistakes in their work. And that bothered them enough to cry. Needless to say, she had a lot of reassuring to do. So that was the incident that left us both thinking.

Why are kids afraid to make mistakes? As a child, these are the times to make as many mistakes without shame. It's their learning years. They're entitled to their fair share of mistakes. 

Or are they? 

This led to a sensitive and controversial question. Are kids being raised to feel ashamed of making mistakes? 

And to end the questions: If they're so afraid of making mistakes at their young age, how about when they're older? How will they handle their personal challenges that require some guts be it in career or in relationships?

Mistakes are part and parcel of how we learn and improve. Observing the failures of others also helps better ourselves. To paraphrase a quote I remember reading once, "A smart man learns from his mistakes. A smarter man learns from the mistakes of others." 

To conclude this little thought with a personal opinion, kids need their parents' support and assurance that it's perfectly fine to make mistakes. As long as they learn, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, move on and try again, it's alright. In doing so, they learn a lot more than just the lesson of the task. They get additional lessons in determination and letting go. Lessons in dealing with success and failure.

It's how we live. 

It's how we grow.

I learnt to cycle that way.

Food for thought,

~K

Buying Your First Home - CPF Talk

The ache of home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

~ Maya Angelou

I totally agree with Maya. Been longing for a place of my own too.

Anyway, just doing my bit of free advertising. If anyone's interested in buying property, there'll be a talk held by CPF Board.

The details are as follows:

Title of Talk: Buying Our First Home

Date/Day: 15th Jan 2011, Sat

Time: 2.30pm - 5.30pm

Venue: 6 Shenton Way, DBS Building Tower 1, DBS Auditorium Level 3, Singapore 068809.

Cost:

1 person - $8.00

2 persons - $5.00 each

3 persons - $6.00 each

4 persons - $5.00 each

(In case you're wondering, I've no idea about the weird pricing.)

That said, you can register here for the talk and refer to it for more details.

Cheers,

~K

Christmas Time, Family Time, Lovely Time

"The best Christmas of all is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up with one another."

~ Anonymous

Compliments of the season everybody!

I've been having a ball of a time this Christmas. Loving every second of it. Relatives that I only see once a year, relatives that only come back to Singapore once a year, relatives that I'm meeting for the first time as they've never been back to Singapore since they've left. The feel of family warmth is such a wonderful treat. Furthermore, it's one of those few times the Eurasian dishes come out in full force and when there's so many bottles of wine to choose from at each house. Red, white, sparkling, dessert, ice. One of God's many gifts to mankind. Make that five.

And the best part? It ain't over yet. 12 days of Christmas remember? So there's another week to enjoy the festivities, the atmosphere and the food with family, friends and cherished ones. And smack right in-between this season is another celebration. You guessed it. New Year - which means more food and goodies (I'm obviously referring to the wine). 

It's a beautiful month. 

The prelude of cleaning and choring round the house, the running round for Christmas presents, the disagreements on how the house is to be decorated, the last minute ingredients amassing to serve up the Christmas feast, on hindsight, all play a part in enhancing the treasure of this season. Kinda like bonding during Basic Military Training (BMT). And when the midnight church bells sound announcing the arrival of Christmas, the recognition that it's an effort well spent for a beautiful time dawns. The price of that? Priceless. Thank you Mastercard for that slogan.

So that said, I'll gladly agree with the sentiment that goes to the jolly tune entitled, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" by Andy Williams back in 1963. A recommended listen if you haven't before.

It's a beautiful Christmas.

Wishing you all a fantastic Christmas season.

Cheers,

~K

How To Feel Richer - Take Time To Be Grateful For What We Have

"Christmas sale!"

"50% discount on selected items"

"What's on sale?" 

"How I wish that was on sale."

"Is it on sale?"

"Why can't it be on sale?"

"When is it ever going to be on sale?"

"OH LOOK! It's on SALE!"

What seems to be the festive greeting these days reminds me of a short story I wrote a long while back one day when I was bored on how consumerism has engulfed Christmas and transformed its intent.

Today however, while browsing through my email, I came across one with a deeper message on being grateful for what we have and to stop counting what we don't - a thought that left me pondering which reminded me of that story I wrote which then led to this post. Talk about being tangentially linked.

Taking time to be grateful for what we have. How many of us actually spend time doing that? It seems that we're too busy chasing after things that we want, only to enjoy it for a short while when we acquire the aim before chasing after the next. To achieve happiness we say. I get caught in the same trap too. But perhaps it would be easier to achieve happiness if we look back and see how far we've come, what we have and what we've achieved, what we've been blessed with - our state of being, our health, our family, friends etc. - and to take time to congratulate ourselves and enjoy their merits. It's a quick way to feel rich internally I feel, which is more important than simply concentrating on our exterior.

So I'm thankful for that email. A Christmas reminder that there's more to life than material pleasures. 

I feel like a millionaire already. Now let me check my wallet...

When's that sale again?

~K

P.S. Merry Christmas eve everyone. =)

I Thinketh! - Christmas Spring Cleaning Reflection

Christmas is not a date. It's a state of mind.

~ Mary Ellen Chase

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.

~ Roy L. Smith

It's one week to Christmas and my back's killing me. I'm stiff all over. I've spent the last week cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, mainly because my family's invited for lunch on the 26th. About 5 hrs a day throwing unwanted junk out, performing the most amazing wipedown of my life and using superhuman strength to do a one-person shifting of my room - cupboards, bookcases and all. The record being working for 8 hrs straight. I'm gifted I tell ya. Not bad for a skinny fella.

As my girlfriend puts it, they should call Christmas, Cleanmas or Cookmas, as that's what we all seem to spend the majority of our days leading up to Christmas doing. It is our day of celebration after all. Of course someone else commented that we could even call Christmas, Drunkmas or Eatmas because that's what we end up doing on the day itself.

On the occassional break from my superheroic cleaning duties however, it's on to more exciting stuff called Christmas shopping. Now as you can imagine, shopping with aching knees from constant kneeling on the floor to wipe down the books and statues in my library is no easy feat. Heck! Being a guy and going Christmas shopping is no easy feat, so you can imagine the amount of superheroic strength and determination this calls for. And I still have yet to buy the presents. My strength faileth me.

As with all people with great destinies, difficulty and strife must be overcome - in order for the hero to get the girl, for Jack to get the hen that lays the golden eggs from the giant up the beanstalk, for the world to keep on turning, for Obama to get his tax cuts passed, yadayadayada. So now looking at it, my room is looking tons better. Oh it's not perfect yet and there's still a mess on my table but I've yet to figure out what I want to do with them. See how difficult life can be for us people with great destinies? We encounter one problem after another.

However as all superhero stories go, there's always an epiphanic triumphant moment and the hero become a better person because of it. I found mine this season. Whether I become a better person however, remains to be seen. But the thought that came to mind and stuck with me as I scrubbed, wiped, lifted and grunted was if we spent so much effort making our exterior look better for Christmas, why don't the majority of us spend at least a fraction of that making our interior look better too?

As someone once said to me, "in order for good things to enter, you must first throw out the bad." Or as paraphrased from a popular story, "how can anything enter when a cup is filled to the brim?"

And with that realization, I think this Christmas is going to be more meaningful this year for me. My superhero triumph and feat.

So said Charles Dickens, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

With that I leave you with that popular story I read ages ago entitled "The Cup".

Wishing you and your family a meaningful Christmas and festive season,

~K

The Cup

Once there was a university professor who decided that he wanted to study zen. He travelled to a local monastery. He was shown in to the abbot’s study. The abbot was about to pour himself some tea. The professor stood before the abbot who looked up. The professor explained that he had been studying and teaching in the univeristy for many years and that now he wished to add to his knowledge and learning by studying zen.

The abbot nodded and began to our himself some tea. The professor watched as the teacup filled to the brim and, apparently failing to notice the full cup, the abbot continued to pour. The cup overflowed and still the abbot poured. The professor was reluctant to embarrass the abbot but finally said, "Master, your cup is full and overflowing. It can hold no more tea."

"Yes," said the abbot. "And how do you who come here with your cup so full expect to fill it with the teachings of zen?"

The professor nodded and smiled and bowed before the abbot.

I Thinketh! - Stuff in My Room & the Need to be Financially Free

This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. 
~ George Bernard Shaw

As I sit up on my bed typing this post with my future wife lying fast asleep cuddling up next to me, I’m reminded how important and what being financially free really is to me from just observing my surroundings.

In front of me stands my library. Three 2m high bookshelves cluttered with books.  These books from a wide range of categories – literature (classic and modern), contemporary fiction, finance, philosophy, travel, history, arts, science and language – lie dusty, in need of wiping, and quite a number in need of being read. It’s been a nagging thought of mine to start. Instead, I find myself constantly being distracted by something else that needs looking into causing me to put down the book I intended to read.

The last I had any proper time to really start and concentrate on my book was on a holiday to Krabi in September. That was a beautiful and relaxing trip. I finished the book too - all 300 odd pages of it - in the 4 days I was away. Just like I used to in the past. It helped that it was a page-turner. The Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

Today, I find my eyes constantly drawn to my guide on Italy. The breakfast chatter with my brother has got me longing to travel once more. I love Europe and want to visit it again. Backpacking around for a month wasn’t enough. England, France, Germany, Czech Republic. That was more than four years ago. The mini-trips since then never quite matched up to the experience. Let's Go, the words on my travel guide to Italy says on the cover. I want to. It’s been a dream of mine.

My future wife rolls over in her sleep and my thoughts turn to her. In another year, we should be married. A wedding. Honeymoon. A house. And then kids. I’m not quite sure that they’re always in that order though. But I am sure that I want to be capable no matter the order they come in, and not handicapped by that piece of paper constantly changing hands called money.

I’m also sure that eventually we’ll have a dog. A dog that will provide love to and will be loved by the family. A dog that will be annoyed by the kids, but will play with them all the same. But eventually dogs too, grow old, and a lot faster than us. And at the end, we’ll wish we had spent more time with it before the inevitable. I’ve experienced this before. And I never hope to experience it again, let alone wish it on my children. The mat in the corner of my room ensures this. It belongs to the past.

Old age, illness, they go hand in hand. Personal calamities that need dealing with. The medicine bottle lying on the shelf serves as that reminder.  Zoom out. The world is a lot larger than our own personal problems. Wars, famine, poverty. Animals ill-treated. Species threatened. Dying. People suffering, children homeless. Uneducated. Sometimes all they need is a bit of helping hand. Isn’t that what humanity is all about? A dollar goes a long way. Involvement goes even further.

In short, being financially free opens up options, giving one more time to do the things that really matters to oneself and in that way, living and eventually dying without any regrets.

Able to do what one wants to do, when one wants to do it. The long awaited freedom.

~K

Living a Rich and Fulfilling Life

Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid it will never begin. ~ Grace Hansen

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~ Joe Lewis

Such true, true words spoken by Ms. Hansen and Mr. Lewis. I've had more than a year since my last post to reflect on that. That's quite a story if you have time.

Last September, when I first started this blog, I had only just been introduced to the idea of investing and passive income in a financial seminar held by my organization. It was a "revolutionary" idea to me really. The only investing I did back then was to turn my money (cash & CPF) over to an insurance agent who sold me these investment-linked policies and endowment plans. Only during the recent financial crisis, when I witnessed the China-India fund which I was invested in, which at one point almost doubled in 2007/8, crumble into a $15,000 loss did I get my first wake up call. I needed to care about my finances. For who else is going to be more concerned about my money than me? Thankfully, I rode out the wave to recovery without selling and managed to break even and then gain some at the beginning of this year. Talk about Scary!

Since then, I focused a lot of effort into learning and finding out more about the different investments in the market, attending talk after talk and reading book after book. But most important of all, I began to take action. Action to get my money working hard for me. But while I focused tremendous time on this new-found direction of living a rich and free life, or at least wanting to live one, I also realized that there were other things to life that were equally or even more valuable - relationships, love, experiencing new cultures, seeing new worlds, cities, charity, volunteer work and finding peace with God for example. To quote Napoleon Hill in his True Riches video below, "observe if you will, with great benefit, the fact that money comes at the end of the list of the twelve things that makes men rich".

That said, it does not mean that money isn't important. It is. But there is a whole world more to life than simply that.

With this new focus, shall I continue this blog; to record my journey into living a rich and fulfilled life with money providing me with the opportunities.

Wish me luck! =)

Cheers,

~K

The Journey to Freedom Begins With a Single Step

My pay gets in this week. Sounds like a celebration waiting to happen doesn't it? Long awaited wants can finally be enjoyed. Dinners. Movies. Clothes. Shoes. The list goes on. I'm sure many of you can relate to this. Some of you may in fact be living this way still. And truthfully, I used to indulge in this for 9 years of my working life. That is until I woke up one day, realized that I only had 19mths to go before my work contract expired and then I'll be jobless. Yup, that's it. No more "Dinners. Movies. Clothes. Shoes." Zilch! Unless I get a job that'll pay well enough to maintain my current lifestyle. And you know what's scary about this? The fact that I was dead broke. And life for me was about to be rebooted at the age of 30. The age where people were already in the prime of their career, settling down, having families, getting a house. But not me. Nope. I, on the other hand, would be just starting my career proper. A scary thought indeed.

Well, time has passed since my shockingly epiphanic moment and I've another 14 mths to go before I leave. Lots have changed. The biggest being how my finances are managed now. And how I've put together a portfolio that has not made me my first million regrettably but has allowed me to feel much better about myself when I finally leave in October next year to face the unknown world. And that is what I will be blogging about. Hoping that my experiences will help you especially those of you who are in or in future will be in the same situation as myself. Now I can't promise that I'll show you the road to being rich. But I do believe, that with discipline and time, what I'm doing will bring me more stability and allow me to retire old and happy to spend time with my loved ones without worry of tomorrow.

A famous quote goes like this, "A wise man learns from his mistakes. A wiser man learns from the mistakes of others."

I hope you'll find your happiness, your freedom. And if anything, I hope you take away something of value to you from my sharing. Good luck in your future and God bless.

Sincerely,

~K