Life is a journey 生命是一场修行: February 2022

Sunday, February 27, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk08 2022

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Monthly Net-Worth Update — Feb 2022

Photo by Visual Stories || Micheile on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

We are nearing the end of Feb.

Below is another summary of our Net-worth.

Net-Worth increase from last month: 45K SGD, -0.12KG Gold

The increase was mainly due to our salary and my freelancer pay from last year.

Our stock portfolio recovered a bit, but only accounted for a small portion of the network increase.

This month, we also incurred our insurance bill.

As for Gold, the price increased, which means we are worth less gold in terms of weight. So that is negative increase there.

Overall, a pretty good month.

Investment: -8.95% annualized return, incl. dividend

Slight recovery, but really insignificant.

Till next time!

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

My favorite “4x” scopes — Here I come

Photo by STNGR Industries on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I love 4x scope in shooting games.

They just feel right, with balanced magnification and recoil control, which leads to accuracy.

But in VR, it is different.

Target acquisition is so freaking hard with 4x scope. Combined with the shaking, it is almost impossible to perform in the heated firefight.

I tried to keep both eyes open and quickly realized that I need a lot of play time to adopt to it. I can do fairly well with 1x scopes though.

But it is interesting.

I make it a mission for myself to master it. Maybe it will help with real life shooting as well when I get the chance.

Interesting!

Sunday, February 20, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk07 2022

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Different Level of “Pursuits”

Photo by Lawrence Hookham on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I watched the movie “Munich: The Edge of War” and was really impressed by the two Oxford young men, who took the ultimate risk for the slightest chance to avoid the catastrophe of Man Kind.

One returned to Germany with the hope that Hitler would make Germany great again. After he realized who Hitler really was, he joined the opposition.

He risked his life to pass the secret document that would prove Hitler’s lies to his old classmate in Oxford and tried everything, including meeting and arguing with the British PM, to stop the fate of Man-Kind from slipping into abyss.

He was so saddened by the signing of the agreement that he almost was crying.

He took care of his friend who were victims of Nazi rule.

He even attempted to kill Hitler.

And he said “It is my responsibility!”. He refused to wait. He said “Hoping is waiting for someone else to do it and we will all be much better off without it.”

He would continue his efforts!

…

The other one worked diligently in the service to his country, putting his family behind.

He took the dangerous “espionage” task, which he was not trained for, when asked.

He fought bravely with the Body Guard of Hitler.

He put his career on the line to pass the document to the PM and fight for the opportunity for his classmate to meet the PM.

When it became clear that war would be inevitable, he chose to join the RAF, to do something, instead of talking.

He, too, would continue his efforts!

…

We know both of them would mostly likely be dead before the war was over. They most likely knew that too! They decided to go on!

What brilliant young man they were! They demonstrated the best of humanity.

But they were too powerless to make any difference, even though they were involved in the whole thing from a pretty high level.

As for the old men who could have made a difference, many of them could not pull themselves out of their own illusion. Even though they were also committed, the risks they took were nothing close to what the two young man did.

And others seemed to be more concerned about the “good kitchen” Hitler prepared for them.

“War is old men talking and young man dying”.

They absolutely have different level of “Pursuits”.

And I feel ashamed too, comparing to them.

They were 6 years out of college. So they were probably younger than I am now.

I do not only lack their capacity to work with top leaders, but also their “Pursuits” of interests for the whole Man-Kind and their courage of making the future of man-kind their own responsibility.

I just try to make more money and retire as early as possible.

“Life is not about the number of breath you take. It is about those moments that take your breath away”!

The depth and broadness of lives can be millions of levels apart.

Shame! Shame! Shame!

Till next time!

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Money — A Long Game

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

It is easy to forget it is a long game for most people.

Income -> savings -> investment -> financial freedom

It is a journey and it is a long game.

We need to increase our income. No one can save if they can only get their ends met.

We need to increase our savings % against income. Here we can have some control. Once we meet our basic needs, we can decide to spend less and save more.

We need to put our savings into investment. Here is where uncertainties kick in and they could be overwhelming. I know people who made big bucks in investment and I know people who only expect to beat inflation by investing (They have fat pay-checks enough to get them where they want to be, without the need for investment returns). I of course know people who has lost big in investment, a.k.a ME!

But financial freedom can be quite certain with time if we just keep at it and stay vigilant.

However, it is easy to forget it is a long game.

That is why we feel confused and frustrated, we give up and change course, ad we suffer loss and delay the achievement of our financial freedom.

To me, reading is a good reminder.

There are tons of books on this and some are really basic and anyone can understand and follow.

Quickly glancing through them wont take much time, but serves as a great reminder.

And a long game requires a different approach to do well from a short game.

It requires much more consistency, persistence and patience.

Sometimes, doing nothing is the best strategy.

Good thing is that anyone can do it if they really believe in it and want it.

That is good news for commoners like us!

So no excuse if we cannot do it for ourselves.

Till next time!

Sunday, February 13, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk06 2022

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

Have a good week ahead!

Till next time!

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Different level of conversation

Photo by Akson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here.

I witnessed a different level of conversation recently.

A consultant in my team got very high-level contacts with the client.

From Day 1, people have been saying that he has good client contacts. But I never expected the contacts to be so high-level — literally at the top!

So in our daily meeting, a senior partner, a partner and a consultant were discussing who should take who (the few top executives of client) out for lunch and validate what key hypothesis on their strategic directions.

The rest of us, especially me as the manager, pretty much were clueless. I could not even attach each name to a face.

All my career up till now has been focused on doing the work. And I believe it will continue like this for quite a while. And I believe it should.

But the conversation was no doubt a very clear reminder for me to start thinking about the shift:

Not necessarily doing a lot of work myself, but leveraging the team and control the quality of the work
Start building on client relationship
Start to be more strategic and directional

All in all, I need to be part of that conversation when it happens next time.

But I am not there now.

Worst still, my current train of thoughts and mindset does not allow me to put enough focus on that either.

This needs to change. I need to worry less about what I am worrying now and start going up.

Till next time!

Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Doing the right thing, not more things

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

I took the liberty to do more things, which created a lot of trouble afterwards for me, which then translated to overtime and extra challenges.

The reason is that the “more” things I did were not the right things.

Did I know? Kind of.

But it was not very clear.

For sure, I did not try to argue whether that would be the right thing to do.

Maybe I thought it was not worth it.

Maybe I thought no one would care or find out about it.

Maybe I just wanted to end the discussion.

…

Again, I let my guard down.

Again, laziness came into play.

Be Professional!

That was not only politically correct.

It was also the best policy for us, shielding us from unnecessary risks and protecting us from unnecessary overtime.

I did feel it when I was stuck in the situation where I had to update the whole document over and over again because updates kept coming in and I needed to keep the document ready for intermediate submission.

Do not get ourselves in that situation!

To us all!

Till next time!

Sunday, February 6, 2022

My Market Transactions — Wk05 2022

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

Transaction for past week: Nil

With Covid waves and interest raise expectations, now may be a bad time to enter. I will wait somemore.

Till next time!

Thursday, February 3, 2022

Face ID with Masks! Finally, but what took them so long?

Photo by David Grandmougin on Unsplash

Dear Readers,

Thank you for coming here!

1. Exciting News!

Face ID with Masks is available now in the beta test for IOS 15.4 released on Jan 28th.

Based on the early tests conducted by testers and posted online, it works quite well, even with glasses.

Finally!

It is so annoying to have to type in the password every time I go out, especially for payment. I am so frustrated that I have been seriously thinking about switching to Android.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I read about the news. I spent about one-hour searching for when the official version would be available and whether it would be recommendable to download the beta now.

Conclusion: NOT recommendable if you are using the device as a daily driver.

So I stayed put. But still, definitely something to look forward to!

2. What Took Them So Long!?

After the initial excitement, I could not help wondering what took them so long?

We are two years into COVID!

Apple did not bring the Touch ID back and offered no solution other than buying a new Apple Watch.

Well, conclusion: typical Apple. Not sure any other consumer product company would be able to do this.

Also, Face ID with Masks will not be available for iPhone 11 and earlier series. Again, typical Apple — want those shinning new features? Money please.

It just reminds me how Apple just removed charger and earphone from the Apple package because Apple wants to save the world, instead of giving the choices to its customers and making its customers feel responsible and appreciated, which I think Xiaomi did really well. You can read more here.

3. We Cannot Blame Apple

The only reason Apple could do this is their superb products and lack of real competition.

They had the right strategy and put in the investments and efforts to develop the products and the ecosystem that is embedded. Of course, they ought to be rewarded.

So we cannot really blame Apple. It is their right.

For me, I enjoy using iPhone for the most part. And now Face ID with Masks is coming.

I will suck up and keep my iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Till next time!