Life's not easy, life goes on. Rather than gripe (the saying goes 人生不如意事十之八九), it is important to focus on risk management in our daily lives and how to become anti-fragile. Buying insurance, setting stop-losses, cut losses and bad connections out of our lives, look before stepping and don't seek cheap thrills. That's risk management at its very least. Taleb's concept of anti-fragile is one level above risk management and robustness. It is about how chaos can make one better and stronger. Don't fear volatility, uncertainty and disruptions. Instead view them as opportunities. Quoting the video, we should learn to "transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation and desires into undertaking" . If you have tough desire, then be prepared for a tough process working towards it. Another point in the video is we can imagine the worse, imagine we have nothing, how we are able to emerge and survive if that happens. It takes the righ
My SAYE account has just hit its 25th month anniversary which is also the "month of maturity". Anticipating to get the 3.5% bonus interest for all these months of saving, I was shocked to see only $17+ cash gift credited as opposed to a few hundred dollars. I was about to send a message to query the bank what caused this interest plummet versus what I got in the 13th month when I came across a debit transaction in my account history (GASP!). To my oblivion and horror, I have accidentally selected my SAYE account to transfer $50 to a joint account to foot some bill in one of the months last year. Here's the terms and conditions for those who are not familiar with the SAYE account of POSB. "To receive the additional 3.5% p.a. Cash Gift Interest, ensure that you do not make any withdrawal from your POSB SAYE account." "If a withdrawal is made in the month, this will result in the previously accumulated additional 3.5% p.a. interest to be forfeited." Damn.
Some time back last year, I briefly penned a post Time or Money? at a point when I was gloomiest about work. Today incidentally, I caught something interesting in the book 4-hour Workweek : "People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture. Perhaps rubbing cocoa butter on your belly in a hammock while you listen to waves rhythmically lapping against the deck of your thatchedroof bungalow? Sounds nice. $1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows. The question is then, How can one achieve the millionaire lifestyle of complete freedom without first having $1,000,000?" This set me thinking.
This year has not been kind to many. Who would have predicted that the impact of the Wuhan virus can be more fatal and widespread than SARS? I can only say that we are really fortunate to be living in Singapore, where our government really took good measures against community virus spread and also took good financial care of its citizens hit by this economy seismic. View from the MBS Skypark I was half-joking with my friend, at the beginning of the year when discussing FIRE, that I will be forced into FIRE soon. As I am drafting my plans, I know very well that I am not ready for full retirement (RE) despite scrapping a financial independence (FI) enough for lean FIRE. Things just happened and I do not have much choice (or motivation) to be working full-time. From 'The Personal MBS' - What's sufficiency? I am confident that with less going out with friends, eating out and no overseas holidays, my expenses would be much reduced this year. I don't do budget down to the c
Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond by Vitalik Buterin (writing from Singapore Dec 2020) "People are motivated not just by earning as much money as possible in the work and extracting enjoyment from their money in their family lives; even at work we are motivated by social status, honor, altruism, reciprocity, a feeling of contribution, different social conceptions of what is good and valuable, and much more."
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