Saturday, February 23, 2008

The New Singapore Era

I thought National Day had came, prematurely.

As I came home weary eyed due to a long flight from Mauritius (that’s where I spent the previous week honeymooning), huge photos with lots of cheery faces on the newspapers greeted me.

Massive crowds had gathered, all decked in red with our familiar flags brightly painted on their faces. So, if not National Day Parade, why else the uniformity?

Because Singapore won the bid to host the Youth Olympics in 2010! Woo Hoo! What an extremely wonderful piece of news to all of us!

Imagine the smallest country in terms of land mass beating the largest one of all. Imagine the amount of pride we all have. Imagine the type of grand promise that we all sought to achieve to make this event the greatest one of all that not only the athletes will love it, but they will love this island and our people so much that they want to come again.

Just imagining it is enough to make us all excited. I jumped for joy, and with joy. We had made one more step towards making Singapore a “household” name in the arena of world sports. What started off as an almost impossible mission ended with an impressive record on our list of national achievements. And this, my dear friends, is only the beginning…

Imagine once more the endless possibilities of having this dream come true…

Has a new Singapore era arrived? Well, at least it has begun to dawn.

Not letting our small size hide our big ambitions and ideals, we continue striding on to reach greater heights, and to break more records that we set.

This is not just about hosting a game. This is about being recognized. This is about showing to the world what we have to offer. No natural resources. No beautiful nature scenic views. Certainly no breath-taking seas and awesome shorelines. 

This is about the passion that Singapore always has in all the goals we set out to achieve. When we want to do something, we always put in more than 100%. That’s the Singapore spirit.

PASSION. Live your life with passion and you will begin to see the difference.

Since when have I become such a patriotic person? Well, from what I remember, it probably started from the outbreak of SARS I guess…

So for now, it’s time to give all the hot-blooded people in the bidding team a pat on their shoulders and give them a hearty congratulation. “Well done guys! You’ve done all of us proud!”
And from now, we’ll stay with great expectation and anticipation on what better things will happen in 2010. Don’t forget, the whole world is watching too.

More fanfare awaits… I’m so eager.   

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Do You Spend, Save or Spare?

“What! $17 for 4 bowls of noodles! That’s extremely expensive!” I complained during one of our late night supper session. I was buying the meal as I just won $22 in a gambling session (refer to post: “A Time Of Gambling?”).

“Aiya, it’s ok la. It’s CNY, and they still have to open stall to sell noodles. Let them earn a bit more never mind la,” my mum and sister echoed each other. On normal days, the meal would have saved me $4, but they had raised the price by $1 each since it was the 3rd day of CNY. Strictly speaking was the 4th day since it was past midnight.

“Ya, that’s right. Ok la,” I was satisfied with paying that extra $4 now. In fact, shouldn’t we be grateful to them for opening their stalls, otherwise we might have to go hungry to bed.

You see, to me spending money is about seeking value. If I pay for something, I deem the purchase as worthy or not based on the value I received. The value can be a real one (for example, gold) versus perceived (a piece of clothing). It can be tangible versus intangible (a foot massage).

For things that I don’t find any great value in, I choose to spare. For things that I see value in but not a necessity, I save. For things that I find great value to have, I spend.

Fair enough?

That’s probably one of the many thousand people out there too. But there are also those on the extremes who will spend regardless of the value, and those who will spare even if it means ripping other people off their own value they deserved.

What’s the difference between saving and sparing then? Can you tell a saver and a stingy man apart? If you can’t, then chances are you probably are either a spender or a miser. Because to a spender, not spending means being stingy. For a miser, spending any amount is tantamount to squandering.

But is that the case? To me, so long as you don’t amass your fortune at the expense of shaving off others, I’m fine. It is good to save. It’s a virtue! Hey, weren’t we taught to save since young? We were strongly encouraged to open a POSB account with the savings bear diligently going to every primary school to build rapport with each child so that we will dish out $2 to begin our habit of saving 10cents daily.

Saving to me is also one way that we can protect the environment. It’s not just about saving money; it’s also about conserving electricity, water and the trees!

But to constantly think of ways to get others to pay for your share, being calculating with every cent is not a wise move. It may add a few cents, or dollars, or hundreds of dollars due to accumulation (the miser’s mindset!) to your pocket, at the same time, it may also dent a few holes in your relationship with others. Not that I’m advocating using money to build relationship, but that I’m saying being overly calculating will certainly cost you some friendships.

Which one has more value to you, then?

The money itself, or the relationship?

To me, money is a means to my goal. It is never the end.

So, if it means remunerating them for their precious time they could have instead spend sleeping or with their family during such an important festive occasion, what is $1 extra per bowl that I have to pay to keep our stomachs warm and nice? 

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

You Are What You Do, Or Don’t Do

I know we should do things that are urgent and critical. They take priorities. However, I am very prone to this bad habit, yes it is a bad one, that I will handle stuff that irks me before I move on to the really important ones.

Take for example reading emails. I know there are some more important ones that I should handle. But I will first go to the ”Junk Mail” folder, have a very quick browse to make sure no mails that shouldn’t be there got there, before I delete them away. Only then can I have the peace to go and read other mails and reply them.

This sounds ok I know, but imagine when you are really running out of time, and all you have is probably 2 minutes to check your mail, reply them and you need to get off the connection, which will you do first? By common sense, we will reply the critical ones, won’t we?

But, my bad habit will come in my way and I will go and check the Junk Mail! How important can junk mail be? I know the answer, yet I can’t resist the urge to go and clear it away. Usually, in the midst of doing that, I will suddenly remember that I only have that much time, and I need to attend to the essential missions first.

Only then will I pull myself away and look at my priorities. This is just an example of how I will screw myself up with time management, and it’s not the only area.

And if you are thinking why I commit such mistakes when I already knew too well not to, keep guessing. For until the previous minute, your guess was as good as mine. That is, I didn’t know too.

But, something just struck me as I’m writing this post which could possibly explain the reason.

You must have heard of this “Save the best for last”. Haven’t I been doing this all the while? I will save the last bit of my favourite food till the final bite. I will finish off all the itsy bitsy stuff that I don’t enjoy doing, so that I can have a block of time that I can use to focus on writing.

Again, I see this pattern in how I motivate myself. We are driven by our values, which provide us the purpose and goals in life. Specifically, all of us are either “towards” driven or “away-from” driven. While the former means you are motivated to achieve your goal by the prospect of it, the latter refers to your fear of not getting there that drives you to go for your target.

I am a mostly “towards” driven person. If my goal is to keep the house tidy, then I would envision a really clean, tidy and neat place that will provide me with more space and therefore, more “inner freedom”, which is what I desperately need for writing. 

So, what have I done? I had unconsciously mapped over this looking forward mentality to my time management as well! Therefore, I am always clearing unwanted stuff first before moving on to important things to do.

Not that it is a fatal habit, but it does cost me more time and makes me less efficient than I could be.

Putting on my coaching hat, I know I have a few options available for me depending on what is the outcome that I want. Of course, in view of the things that I plan to achieve this year, I definitely need to be in better control of my time, and to double my efficiency.

Why am I telling you all these, since it’s surely not something to boot about? Because I’d like you to take a look at how you are living your life. Without constantly reviewing your life, the way you do things, the way you handle your relationships, you will never be able to discover where you need to improve, how you can improve and what you can do about them.

By doing what I just did, you could learn new things about yourself and don’t be surprised that a certain behaviour is actually a reflection of something deeper, which requires you to think in order to see the picture.

It’s time to put down the dots, and start drawing the line to connect them. Your life picture could be just in front of you, you know? 

Sunday, February 10, 2008

A Time Of Gambling?

The era for gambling has begun again! I mean, for me.

What used to be “the” activity that would consume all my time during CNY, besides those left for eating the goodies, had long been swept under the carpet and buried in the ground.

As weird as the deep interest started, it waned too as I grew older. I guess maybe it’s because I wasn’t allowed to gamble when I was young that intrigued me all the more to lay my hands on a set of poker cards, and subsequently mahjong tiles when I was in my secondary school.

As my best friends still continue to play mahjong weekly, this game no longer entices me anymore. So does gambling.

But well, there are always exceptions. And they only apply on exceptional occasions, like Lunar New Year! Then again, I had stopped gambling since many years back.

So, when I was urged on to start again last year, I was really hesitant. While my family played their hearts (and pockets) out with a friend, I stuck my eyes on the TV set, until there was really nothing that could capture my attention for more than 1 minute. Then, I switched my interest over to what they were playing.

Soon enough, I was with them on the table praying that I will get a “Black jack” the current round, and the next round, and the next and so on.

Call it beginner’s luck (or in my case, a returner’s luck?), I won $22 over 2 hours of fighting and struggling, which were all spent on supper the same night, save for $5 in my wallet on my way home. That, I spent it all on 4D the next day too!  Since I won it from gambling, then might as well I used that to see if I get another stroke of luck, especially when I am a once-in-a-blue-moon buyer so maybe I might get real lucky. The reality is – nope, I didn’t win any more money.

Winning the money is no doubt cause for joy, but the real fun came from all the teasing, bantering and wanting-the-other-parties-which-include-our-own-family to lose in each round was enough to let us laugh till our tummy hurts.

So, having a leisure activity like gambling can be pretty harmless as well, if we see beyond what we are doing on hand and look at the relationship building that was happening.

If a family that eats together stays together, then wouldn’t one that plays and have fun together, gels together too?

What say you?

Lastly, here’s wishing all of you a Happy, Merry and Prosperous Year of the Rat! Gong Xi Fa Cai!