Increasingly, I realise the quality of posts matter more than the quantity. Thus, I’ll try to make each post a bit more reflective, a bit more thoughtful and a bit more meaningful as I’ve thought about the issues a little deeper before writing it down.

Year End Reflections

This post touches on my reflections towards the year-end. The feel good vibes generated from the bonus declared by my organisation that follows public sector norms made me feel happy for a while but the effect is wearing off fast. The older I get, the more I read and what I’ve read convinces me that this elusive thing called happiness results from a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Money makes us happy, up to a point.

If one is living at barely subsistence levels, then more money makes one feel happier as the pressure of earning your daily living is lessened. But once we are paid sufficient for our lifestyles and learn to live within our means, than the realisation hits us that more money only motivates to a small degree. There is much more happiness from having good working relationships with bosses, peers and colleagues. There is more happiness from being in good health and there is more happiness in spending quality time with family and friends.

I’ve earmarked 10% of my bonus as a reward to myself for the work and efforts I’ve put in the past year. At the same time, this 10% cap allows me to spend without feeling guilty or worrying if I’m spending too little or too much of my bonus. The strange thing is that the cap is liberating me to be more relaxed about spending it, and it turns out I’m not in a rush to get the latest iPad or MacBook Air.

I know that getting the latest iPad or MacBook Air will make me happy for a few weeks or so. But it would soon subside. The same thing happened with my iPhone. I was delirious for the first month or so but now that I’ve had my iPhone for 8 months or so, I find that it is a useful device and provides great internet mobility but ultimately it is still mainly a phone for calls/SMS and for occasionally surfing to find out information on the go and to check emails away from office.

Learning

This year has been a year that I rediscovered the joys of reading. I managed to finally read the entire Harry Potter series of books by JK Rowling and was amazed and how much fun I had tracking the life and adventures of the boy wizard and his friends. I’ve also read quite a few books on non-fiction that has grown my understanding of myself and the world with each chapter. Reading to learn about life (fiction) and the practicalities of life (non-fiction) provide such a tremendous value because we grow as individuals through absorption the intellectual and cultural wisdom of society into our little brains.

Laughter

My daughter is approaching three and provides me with lots of joy and laughter as her behaviour never fails to elicit laughs as well as the occasional frustration when she is being naughty. The terrible twos and threes are truly a rite of passage for all parents and I’m glad for it as it makes me learn patience and endurance Laughter or having a sense of humour is important for one to make it through life without losing one’s sanity. The older I get, the more I must remember to laugh more.

Live

Ultimately, our happiness in life is determined by how we want to live despite the situations that life throws at us. Life happens, but we can choose how we respond to it. Thus, many philosophers make the argument that when things happen, it is “good” or “bad” only because we choose to deem it “good” or “bad”. Life just “is”.

This lesson is possibly the hardest for me to accept because it means that you accept that there are many things you cannot control in your own life and need to focus on yourself internally on how you react to them. It is a lesson I continue to learn and will learn till the day I move on from this world.

Why are we embarking on this journey towards financial freedom?

For me, it is to achieve happiness by learning to manage the relationship between my life energy and money. I realise that the journey towards financial freedom strengthens the behaviour that helps me manage my financial resources that empower me to learn, laugh and to live

Be well and prosper.

Flickr! image "Otter Cliffs" by climbnh2003

I was inspired by Chris Guillebeau’s post “How to write a life list” on his blog “The Art of Non-Conformity“. For those who have never heard of Chris, he describes his blog as:

The Art of Nonconformity (AONC) project chronicles my writing on how to change the world by achieving significant, personal goals while helping others at the same time. In the battle against conventional beliefs, I focus on three areas: Life, Work, and Travel.

Who is Chris Guillebeau?

He is someone who is living the unconventional life by most yardsticks, especially if benchmarked against the materialism of Singapore Inc. He has travelled to many countries as part of his plan to travel every country in the world (literally!)

As I’m writing my second eBook, “Panzer’s Road Map to Financial Freedom”, I find that the WHY is as important as the HOW. The reason why I’m pursuing financial freedom is because I want to live an unconventional life. The typical life in Singapore is to study up to University or Polytechnic, get a good job, work for next 30-40 years, pay off your home (asset rich) but retire on your CPF balances and CPF Life annuity. It is to forever work and work and not truly living the life that you want. It has been for too long about following the script of the “Singapore Dream” also know as “Get Rich or Die Trying Singapore Style”.

How has living unconventionally helped me

My unconventional thinking has resulted in my achieving the following:

• paid off my housing loan (in full) by age 35
• being able to work in a less stressed and more relaxed manner
• being able to focus on my health and family
• having time to think seriously on accelerating my efforts towards financial freedom
• understanding that financial freedom is about generating passive income or alternate sources of income to free up time

Developing my life list

I’ve decided to come up with my life list and to put on it the list of things I’ve always wanted to do. Now it doesn’t mean that I need to be financially free to achieve them but the process has freed up more of my financial resources to consider them as part of the realm of possibilities:

Here goes Panzer’s life list (in no particular order):

1. Travel business class on flight of at least 10 hours for business/pleasure
2. Eat black ink squid rice in Korea
3. Visit two of the places featured in Japan Hour
4. Work for a local non-profit organisation full-time for 1 year at minimal pay
5. Become the audit committee chairman of a listed company
6. Run the half-marathon successfully and recover from it without injury
7. See my daughter living an independent,  healthy, happy and productive life
8. Obtain a class 2B licence
9. Complete a triathlon safely
10. Generate $50,000 passive income in 7 years’ time
11. Take a train ride from one end of Australia to another
12. Be a published author with sales of 20,000 copies of my personal finance book
13. Be the champion of table-topics contest for toastmasters at district level
14. Speak conversational Japanese
15. Improve my mandarin to be able to blog in Mandarin

I’ll be revisiting this list now and then to refresh and refine it and goals and targets are meant to be reviewed periodically to see if they are in line with our life’s mission and values.

Have you considered developing your own life list?

Be well and prosper.