Dropping the weights so that I can fly

Supposed to be blogging once every week as part of my mental wellness checklist so that I can clear the stuffs lingering in my head and just basically journal things in here. It's like a form of decluttering. Well apparently last week I failed le..lol..as I didn't manage to journal an entry. In any case, sometimes there isn't anything right. 

Anyways, today as usual was playing Youtube music while I was hanging clothes and then the AI code decided to play songs from Chinese music shows where they bring back the 2000s singers and sing their old hits. Stop for a pause,listen and watched the emo MVs. 

It brings back memories and nostalgia where I find solace in the sad music especially the Chinese songs. It brings back the feelings and emotions I went through while I was young. Like sometimes I will imagine myself to be the protagonist in the MVs and that life is so melancholic and things like that. At the same time, at the end of the song, some songs end with a positive note and I will console myself that things will get better. 

Some songs brought some feelings that when I was younger that the future will be so bright and good and that things will always work out in the end. Now the older me feels that at the end somehow all those love songs and things like this don't really matter much these days to me. It's as if those past feelings were inconsequential. 

Maybe for the past years or so, I hadn't been living life intentionally or should I say being myself. I think I had been like auto pilot, like doing things that seems to be the right thing to do or that my moral codes feel obligated to. In a way , I cease to be alive in my own soul and exist as an empty shell. Probably that's why I feel that the past years had been lost to me. I kinda lost my career direction, lost what's like to love Cat, lost the reason why I wake up every morning and basically in a bare minimum survival mode day after day. 

Recently my Mum found a new Fengshui Master as she is moving house soon and our current FS Master is gonna retire soon. So my Mum shared the YouTube channel of the new master and got me to check him out and see if he is alright. So watched a video that he done up on the Dragon for the year 2023 and that he mentioned that this year Dragon should always smile and laugh regardless of what happens.

He also mentioned that Dragon should lose 3 things in their life this year for it to get better. He mention its not like material things but more like 3 mindset/lifestyle/habits. Well, moving here to Sydney is one of them. I guess being unemployed is probably another one. The last one I had been thinking for some time and I think it might be some of the old values that I inexplicably hold myself to. 

Like how I see things in life, how I react to and how I held things/emotions for a very long time. Probably I should learn from Marly and it's good to have STM haha. 

I guess this year should be another change mindset/reset year. 

Once was in NS when after a few years I then decided to let go of my desire of being together with Sam and instead to be her friend that will always try to be there for her whenever she needs me till the end of time. 

Second time I think was my break up with Adeline amidst the year when I was looking for a job. I decided to let go of my idea of needing to be with someone even though the relationship was definitely not right for me at that time. Also to not let go of my dream of working for a bank at that time. Coincidentally, that year was also the year I got together with Cat and I got my job at BNP. 

Hopefully, this year will also be that reset year for me. The year where I change so that I can live the best version of myself. 

Giving thanks and moving on

You know sometimes over your life, you will have moments where you feel that you know a concept but you only truly understand it at a much later time of your life. For example, when I was 18 , I read about Rich Dad Poor Dad and decided that Investing monies is the way to go in life. Think about it, put money into the right investments and let it passively grow. Sounds awesome to my 18 year old and I became very big on buying equities and I subscribe to Fundamental Investing because it's less volatile as compared to Trading. 

Very early on, I knew that Fundamentals growth rate is really slow and one does need a lot of capital to truly see the benefits and the gains ( if you are right). Over the next few years, I focus on investing and reading on stuffs about it. Macro, Market psychology etc etc. But at the same time, I only set aside a very small amount of capital to invest in due to a low salary or maybe because I like to spend on material items. So I focus on my investment skills and not so much about career skills all this while. So reading those financial vloggers/bloggers, they also mention the same theme...which is to grow your salaries before doing investment. However, I went the other way.

I guess over the past decade or so of investing, I would think my returns were decent (XIRR at 7.89% as of today) so its not bad..in % terms. However in absolute terms, its er not so great ain't ? It's kinda like that the saying " At the end of the day, it's the result that matters". So good % but when looking at the absolute, it's nothing to shout about. 

When I think back, maybe I was being naive as I wanted to believe that my way works for me and that's why I decided to just focus on investing and not look at career skills. Of course, there is some kind of regret because of what was I thinking previously to make that call and lost the most precious commodity that we all have, which is TIME. 

The past me would probably beat my current self up ( and I still do feel that side of me bubbling below in me now as I am typing this). Just read about a phrase from an investment book(Mastering The Market Cycle by Howard Marks) earlier "...success carries within itself the seeds of failure, and failure the seeds of success." So it's probably the universe wanted me to figure out this now and not later or earlier.

So to myself, it is alright for you to figure this out now and that it is ok to make the mistake that you did earlier in your life. So give a pat on your back and it's great that you finally understand this notion and you can move on to the right way that you should be moving. 

Goh Keng Swee: A Portrait

This book was super random and it was because of the 2023 Presidential Election which of course we all know who won. During the build up of the 2023 PE, CNA started to run a series of videos of what/why/how the Nation's Reserves came to fruition and the duties of the elected presidency. One wonders the timing of those videos.

In any case, it was informative and quite engaging docu-series. Goh Keng Swee was brought up as he was the guy who thought of GIC and well basically the guy who pretty much lay the foundation and literally set Singapore up to be the country she is today. 

Decided to read this book on him and it is not really like an auto-biography per se, more of a short on depth of this guy's history and what he did. He seemingly also uses his economics background to solve and approach various issues at the various positions he held. Practical is the word that many describe him. 

Probably he is the few people who uses economics practically and not as a fixed doctrine, the studies that he had commissioned would be probably know as behavioural economics in today's terms. Which I buy into a lot as compared to pure data economics which some people strong believe in.

Data will not lie but its the interpretation of the Data that can be misconstrued.