neutralz
11-06-2004, 07:55 AM
*rant mode on* :grumble :grumble :grumble
been looking over my life and my future and reality seems to sink in inevitably for a country thats pretty tiny..
and i was quite badly hit by reality that i could actually spout so much crap..hehe.. -_-~ but most of these would probably describe one's lifestyle not only in singapore..but probably else where too?
Financial Paradigms (copyright!!! :food )
Many social mindsets are molded in a simple way over a few generations, especially in smaller countries where competition is high and jobs are fewer.
Ever since early childhood, many parents would probably emphasize their kids to play lesser, or play something more intellegent, and also to study hard.
This is a path where by many youngsters are channelled into, hoping to get lots of qualifications through good education, so that they can be "qualified" for higher-paying jobs in an attempt to generate more cashflow.
However, in reality, not everyone's assured of a job these days due to severe competition and over generalization of degrees, and even with a job, there is not too much of job certainty in years to come, following mergers of companies, restructuring, etc in attempts of becoming more cost effective.
The routines of being an employee :bangcomp :bangcomp
As an employee, the lifestyle of one is pretty routine and simple. Wake up grudgingly early in the morning, groggily brush ya teeth.. grab a bite and a slurp of some coffee, and go off to work.
At work, one will probably start clearing a huge amount of work dumped at them, and start anticipating for lunch time, the first relief of a busy day.
After lunch, one will continue to anticipate tea break, and with tea break, one will further anticipate to knock off from work very soon. After work, one will probably return home, chomp through their dinner, and probably suffice themselves with a huge dose of television, or some form of lazy indulgence.
All mondays are blue, starting the cycle of anticipating friday to come again (TGIF :) )
In this routine lifestyle, its also routine for one to receive his pay check monthly, and exalting a huge chain of expletives when they see the meagre sums they are paid.
Most people earn enough just to get by, just enough to pay off their liabilities. A good example would be my parents, and many other people as well, earning enough to pay off housing loans, car loans, petrol, food, school fees, hp bills, utilities bills, insurances, grandparent allowances, lottery, children expenses, tuition fees for kids etc, you can name them and probably lose count. This leaves most people with a small amount of money left of which they save it up and put it into the bank.
When their bank savings accumulate to a certain amount, they would probably start having ideas on how to spend it, and ultimately spend it on some huge television, new gaming rigs, or a holiday, eventually ending up with nothing much left.
In this sort of employee lifestyle, people in this financial paradigm will not have much $$ left, what happened to their dreams? where have their former dreams gone? and how much closer are they to their dreams?
To tell you the truth, there is seriously nothing wrong to be heading towards this path because its just being normal, everyone will eventually end up this way some how or another.
However, in such lifestyles, its common for people to continue dreaming sometimes, like fantasizing about driving the latest Mercedes, going to Japan for a nice big holiday, or a giant television with superb speaker systems, etc. And they all happen to believe in a fallacy, which is a big misconception – the misconception of repeating what they have been doing all the time in life, and expecting a different outcome out if it, which will never happen! If you continue working routinely with your job till retirement and not considering anything else, you’ll probably end up no where nearer to what you had dreamt of.
Dreams
What are your dreams? And have you ever marked out the processes and the paths individually to attain these dreams? Seldom people do.
When on earth am I going to drive that Jaguar S-Type-4.0 V8 I’ve been dreaming off? And when will I be able to live in the landed properties, which my previous generations had been dreaming off? When will I be able to retire early? And when will I be able to tour the world?
Looking at the path I m taking into the future, which is to study and study and study for a good degree I m just entering the rat race.
If I want to get what I m dreaming of in the future, I have to start something today. What you are today was the result of the choices, attitudes and efforts of your past. And what you have and what you will be in the future, will be the results of what you are putting in today.
If you want to have something you never had, you need to do something you never have done.
If you don’t act about your routine rat race life styles right now, you might end up in the same financial paradigm as your elder generations.
One should find ways to succeed instead of reasons to fail, harbouring thoughts of fear of failure results in procrastination. I was once a procrastinator too. Typical cynical and skeptical person, I would always take everything with a pinch of salt and continually prefer to defy what I did not believe in. I scorned entrepreneurship, businesses, network marketing, etc, because I once believed that if I can STUDY hard I can have everything in the world with just simply a good education. And this could probably be the next biggest joke of the 21st century.
Planning for Needs
In life, or be it in the future, from time to time, there will always be new and possibly recurrent needs. Ultimately these needs will surface, its just a matter of when, and its also whether you plan for your needs now or wait till the need comes and start finding the required money, resulting in a tight spot. Plan early. Your job will never give you enough. Do something else.
If you know you are going to be having a few kids in the future, plan now! And think of how to earn substantially to support them. If you are thinking of an early retirement, you have to plan too. No success comes unplanned.
Even retirement must be planned for. Do not rely on Social Security or what we call (CPF) in singapore! With all the percentage adjustments etc, how much will one be able to draw out from CPF? If the sum withdrawn is for example 200k, this amount will only last one about four to five years only, never enough for the remaining 20 odd years if he/she lives till 75. Some people also make mistakes by putting their withdrawn CPF money into wrong investments, and finally ending up with nothing left.
The first step ahead out of the rat race
Nothing is easy in this world. And quick money does not exist. The journey to a successful sideline (to complement a stable job with additional income) is definitely a journey of thousand miles. But as of all journeys, all have to start with the singular first step in the correct direction. Slow it may seem to be, but every effort and step counts towards the ulterior success. Every additional cent you may earn right now, can greatly contribute to nearing your dreams. You will be out of the rat race when your residual passive income exceeds your monthly expenses, so much so that sometimes your monthly pay as an employee isn’t that important anymore.
There are many things that you can do, be it being an entrepreneur, business owner, network marketing etc. You need to do something for yourself right now if you want to plan for the future. It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.
If you want to have a ministerial pay but do not have that job, then you have to make up for it in terms of man hours.
Time is in your hands. Most people like finding the excuse of inadequate time to do something else, which is a form of natural procrastination, i.e. after a day of hard work, the rest of the day should be pure entitled and well deserved rest. People spend hours watching television etc after work. If these people are willing to just take an hour of these leisure times and put into something productive, it will bring about a whole lot of difference.
But if you continue to choose to do nothing out of your routine life, nothing is going to change, and dreams will ultimately remain as the figment of one’s imaginations.
The Myth of Sisyphus :banghead :banghead
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
It is indeed that the most dreadful punishment in one’s life is a futile and hopeless labor of many years with low returns.
When you are in the rat race, you’ve already started rolling the rock. But remember, after all these years of routine work, its better off if one takes additional precautions in preventing the punishment of years of futile hopeless labor than wait for it to happen.
Do something for yourself and your future today. Reap what you sow, but if you do not sow, you will never reap.
:grumble :grumble :grumble
been looking over my life and my future and reality seems to sink in inevitably for a country thats pretty tiny..
and i was quite badly hit by reality that i could actually spout so much crap..hehe.. -_-~ but most of these would probably describe one's lifestyle not only in singapore..but probably else where too?
Financial Paradigms (copyright!!! :food )
Many social mindsets are molded in a simple way over a few generations, especially in smaller countries where competition is high and jobs are fewer.
Ever since early childhood, many parents would probably emphasize their kids to play lesser, or play something more intellegent, and also to study hard.
This is a path where by many youngsters are channelled into, hoping to get lots of qualifications through good education, so that they can be "qualified" for higher-paying jobs in an attempt to generate more cashflow.
However, in reality, not everyone's assured of a job these days due to severe competition and over generalization of degrees, and even with a job, there is not too much of job certainty in years to come, following mergers of companies, restructuring, etc in attempts of becoming more cost effective.
The routines of being an employee :bangcomp :bangcomp
As an employee, the lifestyle of one is pretty routine and simple. Wake up grudgingly early in the morning, groggily brush ya teeth.. grab a bite and a slurp of some coffee, and go off to work.
At work, one will probably start clearing a huge amount of work dumped at them, and start anticipating for lunch time, the first relief of a busy day.
After lunch, one will continue to anticipate tea break, and with tea break, one will further anticipate to knock off from work very soon. After work, one will probably return home, chomp through their dinner, and probably suffice themselves with a huge dose of television, or some form of lazy indulgence.
All mondays are blue, starting the cycle of anticipating friday to come again (TGIF :) )
In this routine lifestyle, its also routine for one to receive his pay check monthly, and exalting a huge chain of expletives when they see the meagre sums they are paid.
Most people earn enough just to get by, just enough to pay off their liabilities. A good example would be my parents, and many other people as well, earning enough to pay off housing loans, car loans, petrol, food, school fees, hp bills, utilities bills, insurances, grandparent allowances, lottery, children expenses, tuition fees for kids etc, you can name them and probably lose count. This leaves most people with a small amount of money left of which they save it up and put it into the bank.
When their bank savings accumulate to a certain amount, they would probably start having ideas on how to spend it, and ultimately spend it on some huge television, new gaming rigs, or a holiday, eventually ending up with nothing much left.
In this sort of employee lifestyle, people in this financial paradigm will not have much $$ left, what happened to their dreams? where have their former dreams gone? and how much closer are they to their dreams?
To tell you the truth, there is seriously nothing wrong to be heading towards this path because its just being normal, everyone will eventually end up this way some how or another.
However, in such lifestyles, its common for people to continue dreaming sometimes, like fantasizing about driving the latest Mercedes, going to Japan for a nice big holiday, or a giant television with superb speaker systems, etc. And they all happen to believe in a fallacy, which is a big misconception – the misconception of repeating what they have been doing all the time in life, and expecting a different outcome out if it, which will never happen! If you continue working routinely with your job till retirement and not considering anything else, you’ll probably end up no where nearer to what you had dreamt of.
Dreams
What are your dreams? And have you ever marked out the processes and the paths individually to attain these dreams? Seldom people do.
When on earth am I going to drive that Jaguar S-Type-4.0 V8 I’ve been dreaming off? And when will I be able to live in the landed properties, which my previous generations had been dreaming off? When will I be able to retire early? And when will I be able to tour the world?
Looking at the path I m taking into the future, which is to study and study and study for a good degree I m just entering the rat race.
If I want to get what I m dreaming of in the future, I have to start something today. What you are today was the result of the choices, attitudes and efforts of your past. And what you have and what you will be in the future, will be the results of what you are putting in today.
If you want to have something you never had, you need to do something you never have done.
If you don’t act about your routine rat race life styles right now, you might end up in the same financial paradigm as your elder generations.
One should find ways to succeed instead of reasons to fail, harbouring thoughts of fear of failure results in procrastination. I was once a procrastinator too. Typical cynical and skeptical person, I would always take everything with a pinch of salt and continually prefer to defy what I did not believe in. I scorned entrepreneurship, businesses, network marketing, etc, because I once believed that if I can STUDY hard I can have everything in the world with just simply a good education. And this could probably be the next biggest joke of the 21st century.
Planning for Needs
In life, or be it in the future, from time to time, there will always be new and possibly recurrent needs. Ultimately these needs will surface, its just a matter of when, and its also whether you plan for your needs now or wait till the need comes and start finding the required money, resulting in a tight spot. Plan early. Your job will never give you enough. Do something else.
If you know you are going to be having a few kids in the future, plan now! And think of how to earn substantially to support them. If you are thinking of an early retirement, you have to plan too. No success comes unplanned.
Even retirement must be planned for. Do not rely on Social Security or what we call (CPF) in singapore! With all the percentage adjustments etc, how much will one be able to draw out from CPF? If the sum withdrawn is for example 200k, this amount will only last one about four to five years only, never enough for the remaining 20 odd years if he/she lives till 75. Some people also make mistakes by putting their withdrawn CPF money into wrong investments, and finally ending up with nothing left.
The first step ahead out of the rat race
Nothing is easy in this world. And quick money does not exist. The journey to a successful sideline (to complement a stable job with additional income) is definitely a journey of thousand miles. But as of all journeys, all have to start with the singular first step in the correct direction. Slow it may seem to be, but every effort and step counts towards the ulterior success. Every additional cent you may earn right now, can greatly contribute to nearing your dreams. You will be out of the rat race when your residual passive income exceeds your monthly expenses, so much so that sometimes your monthly pay as an employee isn’t that important anymore.
There are many things that you can do, be it being an entrepreneur, business owner, network marketing etc. You need to do something for yourself right now if you want to plan for the future. It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.
If you want to have a ministerial pay but do not have that job, then you have to make up for it in terms of man hours.
Time is in your hands. Most people like finding the excuse of inadequate time to do something else, which is a form of natural procrastination, i.e. after a day of hard work, the rest of the day should be pure entitled and well deserved rest. People spend hours watching television etc after work. If these people are willing to just take an hour of these leisure times and put into something productive, it will bring about a whole lot of difference.
But if you continue to choose to do nothing out of your routine life, nothing is going to change, and dreams will ultimately remain as the figment of one’s imaginations.
The Myth of Sisyphus :banghead :banghead
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
It is indeed that the most dreadful punishment in one’s life is a futile and hopeless labor of many years with low returns.
When you are in the rat race, you’ve already started rolling the rock. But remember, after all these years of routine work, its better off if one takes additional precautions in preventing the punishment of years of futile hopeless labor than wait for it to happen.
Do something for yourself and your future today. Reap what you sow, but if you do not sow, you will never reap.
:grumble :grumble :grumble