Today is my birthday. I woke up early to have breakfast with 2 good friends, splurged on books and magazines at the bookstore and had a hotdog and fries for lunch. I went home full and contented and stuck myself in my study to journal, draw and now, blog. :)
Years ago, when I was much, much younger, I wanted a big party. The kind where I could invite all my classmates with fancy invitations. We would play party games on the day itself, (where presumably I would be allowed to win all of them), eat a ginormous birthday cake and I would open lots of great presents.
Well, my folks were broke though, so that never happened for me. I did get the cake and some presents though.
When I was older, I outgrew the idea of party games, birthday cakes and eventually, presents. I didn't need the whole shebang, but I did like the idea of having all my friends with me. We would eat dinner at a special place, you know, not the kind we usually ate at, but somewhere nicer and fancier than usual, and it would still be a special kind of day. I still look on the memories of those days fondly on photos and Facebook.
Now at this grand old age of 36, I find I'm not even interested in that. I just wanted to have a slow, comfortable day consisting of the big loves in my life: books, fries, friends and family. So I arranged to have a breakfast date with friends, I decided I would have fries for lunch (oh, what a decadent treat at our age!) and I would splurge on books. After that, I would stay home, eat chips and watch TV.
It's a very simple plan and I'm fine with that. In fact, with work and all its obligations being what it is, having the time in the whole day to be able to do all that without any shred of guilt feels like a decadent, luxurious treat. More so than any fancy restaurant or present I ever received.
Because now, I'm learning that happiness is not just about the big grand parties in life. A stronger, more lasting form of happiness can also be found in the smaller pieces of our everyday lives and in everywhere that we are. I am grateful that I have found some of those small pieces of happiness and they are enough for me for now. :) Happy birthday to me, and here's to more chips and fries.
Showing posts with label gettingolder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gettingolder. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2017
Sunday, January 01, 2017
Starting Afresh...
First off, Happy New Year 2017, with all its bright hopes!
I'm proud that I managed to revive this blog as much as I did in 2016. (Every blog post is an hour I didn't spend watching more TV!)
I know that traditionally, this is the time to be setting NY resolutions, ie, to blog more, to write more, to do more. Usually that is what I would have done as well, but considering that next year is full of flux with the baby coming, I thought I would do something a bit different.
I'm proud that I managed to revive this blog as much as I did in 2016. (Every blog post is an hour I didn't spend watching more TV!)
I know that traditionally, this is the time to be setting NY resolutions, ie, to blog more, to write more, to do more. Usually that is what I would have done as well, but considering that next year is full of flux with the baby coming, I thought I would do something a bit different.
The journal on the left is one that I kept from 2015-early 2016. I'm opening it again for 2017 because I still have some pages left in it that I would like to fill up, maybe with simple reflections about each day.
The pages on the right are another story. They are a mix of pages that I did in 2015. Some, like the one on top, are project ideas that I had. Some were weekly diary entries for 2015 and I decided to make a fresh start by discarding them.
Other pages in the pile carry heavier meaning. See, 2015 was a pretty bad year for me, work-wise. I had a lot of frustrations and setbacks at work and at times when it all got too bad for me, I journalled them down. So in that pile are also pages with a lot of negativity.
2016 became a little better because some of the things dragging me down were taken off and also, I became a bit more mindful and organized so I could be a little more chill about work. When I opened the journal and looked at those pages though, the unhappiness in those words became fresh in my mind again.
As I read through them, I thought, Do I want to carry these around with me?
I decided not. I ripped out the pages and tossed them.
In life, there are lessons that we learn that we can carry through life. Those lessons we can carry with us as we live. Bad memories and emotions, however, are a different thing. They drag us down with their negativity and make us relive them over and over again. They keep us in the past instead of carrying us on to the future.
In this way, I suppose, I'm carrying out the opposite of a resolution. Instead of making plans to step into a bold new future, I'm tossing and burning the past behind so that it doesn't follow me anymore. I'm still not sure enough about the future to make plans or resolutions but I am certain enough about my power over my past, to make sure it doesn't haunt me any longer. And I guess that's as good a start as any.
So Happy New Year everyone, may you start the year afresh and leave it all behind.
Friday, December 09, 2016
Time for a New Way to Live
Over breakfast today, I found myself reading 2 things with seemingly contrasting ideas.
First, over my daily dose of Facebook news, I read an article about Singapore being the new Sick Man of Asia. The main points of the article were that Singapore's growth was slowing down and this was likely to be the 'new normal' for us, as other SEA countries played catch-up. We would not likely see the kind of growth that our parents experienced ever again and indeed, our millennials expressed more worry at their financial future.
Then, I switched to more analogue reading material, in the form of Thrive, by Arianna Huffington. (This is the Goodreads page on her book) Huffington's book talks about how stress and overwork are taking its toll on us and that it was time to redefine our life on metrics other than money and power.
After reading the more pessimistic article though, you might think that Huffington's views seem to come from a privileged tower of wealth. She is already swimming in money and power, after all, by our humble standards. It's easy for her to be telling us that we shouldn't be working so hard and that we should take time off to spend on the things we love. She doesn't have to worry about falling growth, falling employment, and her CPF retirement fund possibly being locked away even after her death.
I thought a bit more over my teh tarik and I had a startling idea: Maybe this period of slow growth is exactly the right time to put forward some of these ideas. It has been clear for a while now in Singapore that the old ways of success, namely money and status, have not been as easy to reach as in our grandparents' era. Where before you could be assured of both if you practically sold your soul and maybe even your firstborn, it is becomingly increasingly difficult to do so now. You could expend all your energy into your work till the day you die and when crisis strikes? Left without a word of thanks.
Our private sector has already seen rounds of layoffs and one of the hardest hit segments have been middle managers, who typically are already in their 40s, have families with young children and yet find it the hardest to secure employment. No honour among companies, it seems.
So why do I think it is a good time for the Third Metric? If the old ways are not suiting us well in the new economy, then it could be time for a new way of living. The main reason: Money and Power are masters that do not reward. We have already seen that the more we pursue money and power, the more we do so at risk to our own well-being. Also, unlike the old days, Money and Power are fickle mistresses. They do not reward like they used to and are all too willing to dump us when it suits them. So is it time to ditch those goals and find others that do?
We are already seeing this in various sectors. There are already people who have left high-powered jobs to open cafes or Carousell accounts to make a living off their hobbies. They readily admit that they do not make as much money as they used to, and some are even busier than they used to be, but most are satisfied that they took a step to fulfil a dream.
See, here's the idea I'm trying to drive at: If by selling your soul to pursue Money and Power, you are not able to catch them anyway, why even bother? Instead, could it be more worth to pursue other goals like well-being and happiness and in the process, earn enough money to sustain yourself?
For us Singaporeans, this might require several rounds of rewiring. For one, the idea about our BTO being our investment that we can sell off after 5 years has to change into it being our home that we can live in for a great many years. The idea that our children have to be in enrichment centres to 'keep up with the rest' has to change. The idea that we need to be in certain schools, certain jobs, have a certain level of high income has to change. Simply because that model is no longer the guarantee to success like it used to be.
For us to survive in the New Normal Economy, we really have to ditch the old ways of thinking about success and redefine what it really means to live a successful life.
[PS, the Internet being what it is nowadays, I am aware that there are some trolls who will sneer that I am only able to write these words because of my privileged class status and that I don't know what it really means to suffer like they are doing. If you hold such views, then this is not the blog for you.]
First, over my daily dose of Facebook news, I read an article about Singapore being the new Sick Man of Asia. The main points of the article were that Singapore's growth was slowing down and this was likely to be the 'new normal' for us, as other SEA countries played catch-up. We would not likely see the kind of growth that our parents experienced ever again and indeed, our millennials expressed more worry at their financial future.
Then, I switched to more analogue reading material, in the form of Thrive, by Arianna Huffington. (This is the Goodreads page on her book) Huffington's book talks about how stress and overwork are taking its toll on us and that it was time to redefine our life on metrics other than money and power.
After reading the more pessimistic article though, you might think that Huffington's views seem to come from a privileged tower of wealth. She is already swimming in money and power, after all, by our humble standards. It's easy for her to be telling us that we shouldn't be working so hard and that we should take time off to spend on the things we love. She doesn't have to worry about falling growth, falling employment, and her CPF retirement fund possibly being locked away even after her death.
I thought a bit more over my teh tarik and I had a startling idea: Maybe this period of slow growth is exactly the right time to put forward some of these ideas. It has been clear for a while now in Singapore that the old ways of success, namely money and status, have not been as easy to reach as in our grandparents' era. Where before you could be assured of both if you practically sold your soul and maybe even your firstborn, it is becomingly increasingly difficult to do so now. You could expend all your energy into your work till the day you die and when crisis strikes? Left without a word of thanks.
Our private sector has already seen rounds of layoffs and one of the hardest hit segments have been middle managers, who typically are already in their 40s, have families with young children and yet find it the hardest to secure employment. No honour among companies, it seems.
So why do I think it is a good time for the Third Metric? If the old ways are not suiting us well in the new economy, then it could be time for a new way of living. The main reason: Money and Power are masters that do not reward. We have already seen that the more we pursue money and power, the more we do so at risk to our own well-being. Also, unlike the old days, Money and Power are fickle mistresses. They do not reward like they used to and are all too willing to dump us when it suits them. So is it time to ditch those goals and find others that do?
We are already seeing this in various sectors. There are already people who have left high-powered jobs to open cafes or Carousell accounts to make a living off their hobbies. They readily admit that they do not make as much money as they used to, and some are even busier than they used to be, but most are satisfied that they took a step to fulfil a dream.
See, here's the idea I'm trying to drive at: If by selling your soul to pursue Money and Power, you are not able to catch them anyway, why even bother? Instead, could it be more worth to pursue other goals like well-being and happiness and in the process, earn enough money to sustain yourself?
For us Singaporeans, this might require several rounds of rewiring. For one, the idea about our BTO being our investment that we can sell off after 5 years has to change into it being our home that we can live in for a great many years. The idea that our children have to be in enrichment centres to 'keep up with the rest' has to change. The idea that we need to be in certain schools, certain jobs, have a certain level of high income has to change. Simply because that model is no longer the guarantee to success like it used to be.
For us to survive in the New Normal Economy, we really have to ditch the old ways of thinking about success and redefine what it really means to live a successful life.
[PS, the Internet being what it is nowadays, I am aware that there are some trolls who will sneer that I am only able to write these words because of my privileged class status and that I don't know what it really means to suffer like they are doing. If you hold such views, then this is not the blog for you.]
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
My Blog is a Tween! + Was I ever that young?
I recently wrote a small piece on my other blog comparing how I was as a fresh grad and the changes I had observed after 10 years in the industry. After writing that, I became curious about this blog and searched through the dusty blog archives for the very first entry I did.
Lo, I realized that this blog was born on 16th October, 2003. It turns 13 this year! It's a tweenager!
Even when I read the words from that first entry, I felt old! The style of writing seemed so immature and full of teenage spunk. [I don't want to elaborate on what that shows of me from my writing now...] They seemed to come from someone else entirely and if it wasn't for the fact that I remember typing them down in the university computer lab, I might have never recognized them as my own.
Anyway, here they are, with my older, wiser *ahem* thoughts in between:
Out of curiosity, and the plain fact that I do not want to start working on any of my schoolwork anytime soon, I've decided to start this blog. If nothing, it'll save me from writing all those lengthy emails to pple ( when I actually do it, that is ) and give my friends the option of choosing to read my crap or not. What a nice person I am. :p
Nowadays, with FB, my friends have no option but to read the crap I post. Sorry, guys.
Anyway, quick intro: 22 year old *still* student at NUS, fac of bizad, school of management,
Damn! Was I ever 22??? I can hardly remember what that feels like!]
or [my favourite] School of Biz [SOB. who the heck was the one who thought that up??]
And now my employer shares the same acronym as the bartender from the Simpsons. Who was the one who thought that one up?
I'm graduating in Dec, so will officially join the ranks of the unemployed on Jan 2004, wondering exactly what it is I paid NUS so much for. Will become wandering spirit by that time, the Fool of the Tarot, going where the wind blows me to and hopin' I don end up in some rubbish heap.
Thankfully, not still unemployed. Honestly, in retrospect, that was a pretty uncertain time, living literally paycheck to paycheck teaching tuition. I wouldn't have done [or bought] most of the things I have now with that lifestyle and I do have some gratitude for the paycheck I earn now. Yet, I can't deny there are aspects about it that still appeal to me and I do still have a longing to become that Fool of the Tarot.
My big dream is to strike 1st prize in 4D one day, become disgustingly, filthily, rich and live off the proceeds for the rest of my life without having to work.
Obviously, this still has not happened.
Since the chances of that happening is [nil], I would also like to work in the creative arts industry in some way. If I ever get my Illustrator down, I'd like to become a freelance graphic designer. Until then, I'd be teaching tuition for a living, until the day I die of a heart attack in a pool of my own blood in some kid's house.
Oh, this is one of the parts I miss so much about being in university. The thought that the world was still open to you and your dreams and you could still be anything you wanted to be. Instead, I'm still in danger of dying of a heart attack in a pool of my own blood in school.
How does this happen to us? How do we lose our dreams and the capacity to dream somewhere in those 10 years?
Ok, too much info for now. Me gotta go do some actual work, you know, the kind that justifies your place in society and that most parental and educational units look favourable upon. See ya.
Yes, I did manage to find some actual work to justify my place in society and be looked favourably upon by parental and educational units. I'm still deciding whether that's a good thing or not.
-----------------------------------------------------
Seeing my 22-year old thoughts and my 36-year-old ones together brought home the idea of aging far more vividly than I thought. My 22-year-old self sounded a lot spunkier than I remember at the time and more sarcastic as well. Yet, I can't deny that my older self has some wisdom *ahem* that my 22-year-old one did not have and that certainly, I wouldn't have wanted to live with the salary that I was earning as a tuition teacher for the rest of my life.
Maybe the key here is to be aware of and grateful for what age can bring you. My 22-year-old self would not have been able to travel to the number of countries that I did in my 30s. My 22-year-old self would have still been sharing the family computer and living with her parents, instead of typing these words in her own study in her own house. My 22-year-old self was very much single with no hope of getting attached. So indeed my older self has a lot more that my 22-year-old self would have looked enviously at.
Still, you do have to raise a toast to younger days. To dreams unfulfilled and dreams yet to be.
Lo, I realized that this blog was born on 16th October, 2003. It turns 13 this year! It's a tweenager!
Even when I read the words from that first entry, I felt old! The style of writing seemed so immature and full of teenage spunk. [I don't want to elaborate on what that shows of me from my writing now...] They seemed to come from someone else entirely and if it wasn't for the fact that I remember typing them down in the university computer lab, I might have never recognized them as my own.
Anyway, here they are, with my older, wiser *ahem* thoughts in between:
-----------------------------------------------------
Out of curiosity, and the plain fact that I do not want to start working on any of my schoolwork anytime soon, I've decided to start this blog. If nothing, it'll save me from writing all those lengthy emails to pple ( when I actually do it, that is ) and give my friends the option of choosing to read my crap or not. What a nice person I am. :p
Nowadays, with FB, my friends have no option but to read the crap I post. Sorry, guys.
Anyway, quick intro: 22 year old *still* student at NUS, fac of bizad, school of management,
Damn! Was I ever 22??? I can hardly remember what that feels like!]
or [my favourite] School of Biz [SOB. who the heck was the one who thought that up??]
And now my employer shares the same acronym as the bartender from the Simpsons. Who was the one who thought that one up?
I'm graduating in Dec, so will officially join the ranks of the unemployed on Jan 2004, wondering exactly what it is I paid NUS so much for. Will become wandering spirit by that time, the Fool of the Tarot, going where the wind blows me to and hopin' I don end up in some rubbish heap.
Thankfully, not still unemployed. Honestly, in retrospect, that was a pretty uncertain time, living literally paycheck to paycheck teaching tuition. I wouldn't have done [or bought] most of the things I have now with that lifestyle and I do have some gratitude for the paycheck I earn now. Yet, I can't deny there are aspects about it that still appeal to me and I do still have a longing to become that Fool of the Tarot.
My big dream is to strike 1st prize in 4D one day, become disgustingly, filthily, rich and live off the proceeds for the rest of my life without having to work.
Obviously, this still has not happened.
Since the chances of that happening is [nil], I would also like to work in the creative arts industry in some way. If I ever get my Illustrator down, I'd like to become a freelance graphic designer. Until then, I'd be teaching tuition for a living, until the day I die of a heart attack in a pool of my own blood in some kid's house.
Oh, this is one of the parts I miss so much about being in university. The thought that the world was still open to you and your dreams and you could still be anything you wanted to be. Instead, I'm still in danger of dying of a heart attack in a pool of my own blood in school.
How does this happen to us? How do we lose our dreams and the capacity to dream somewhere in those 10 years?
Ok, too much info for now. Me gotta go do some actual work, you know, the kind that justifies your place in society and that most parental and educational units look favourable upon. See ya.
Yes, I did manage to find some actual work to justify my place in society and be looked favourably upon by parental and educational units. I'm still deciding whether that's a good thing or not.
-----------------------------------------------------
Seeing my 22-year old thoughts and my 36-year-old ones together brought home the idea of aging far more vividly than I thought. My 22-year-old self sounded a lot spunkier than I remember at the time and more sarcastic as well. Yet, I can't deny that my older self has some wisdom *ahem* that my 22-year-old one did not have and that certainly, I wouldn't have wanted to live with the salary that I was earning as a tuition teacher for the rest of my life.
Maybe the key here is to be aware of and grateful for what age can bring you. My 22-year-old self would not have been able to travel to the number of countries that I did in my 30s. My 22-year-old self would have still been sharing the family computer and living with her parents, instead of typing these words in her own study in her own house. My 22-year-old self was very much single with no hope of getting attached. So indeed my older self has a lot more that my 22-year-old self would have looked enviously at.
Still, you do have to raise a toast to younger days. To dreams unfulfilled and dreams yet to be.
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