My 25-year old self seems so near.
Yet unknowing, 10 years of my life has passed.
10 years of experiences that were happy, sad, painful, fulfilling, scary.
10 years filled with first time experiences. 10 years that could have been used more wisely. 10 years that could have made or broke me.
I’m glad I’m not broken yet, but neither “made” yet. But I’m sure, I will get there before the next 10 years.
It is because of these 10 years that have passed that I know my next 10 years will be much easier. It is also because of these 10 years that have passed that I know that I MUST spend my time more wisely.
Lowlights of My Last 10 Years
- Let the wrong people into my life
- Spent too little time with my family
- Moved out of home
- Tio GT
- Scared to death
- Parents’ health deteriorating as they grow older every single day
- Spent too much time feeling lost
- Spent too much time doubting myself
- Spent too much time on worrying on things that don’t matter
- Spent too much on shopping
- Spent too much on partying & siam dius
- Spent too much time in my own head
- Spent too much time being overwhelmed
- Spent too much time trying to please everyone
- Got into debt
Highlights of My Last 10 Years
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Got into corporate life
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Left corporate life
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Got my 1st $10k paycheck
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Started driving Grab
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Started my 1st small business
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Cleared off my debt
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Made many new friends
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Started my new side hustles
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Picked up new skills
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Started reading again
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Partied like crazy
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Fell in “love” too many times
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Travelled to Bangkok too many times and fell in love over and over again
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Fell in love with online shopping
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Shopped like crazy
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Quit biting my fingernails
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Quit Shopping
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Fell in love with social media
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Was introduced to Bitcoin
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Got to know of audiobooks
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Got to know of e-books
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Got to know that we could borrow e-books/audiobooks from the NLB App
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Got to know of Udemy & Online Courses
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Left “friends”
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Experienced Pasar Malam Life
These are the 14 pieces of advice for my younger self:
1. It doesn't matter how much you earn
What matters is how you use your money- how you spend, how you save.
Because no matter how much you earn, if you have a spending problem, money will never be enough.
2. Money can always be earned, but time lost cannot be returned.
If you don’t spend your money wisely now, you lose it, you can still earn it back. But if you lose 1 year now, this 1 year is never ever coming back. Cherish every single minute that you have with your parents because we have no idea how much time we have left together.
3. If we cannot say "no" to other people, we should never ever say "no" to our parents.
I try so hard to fulfil this now by giving in to all the whims of my parents to try to regain all our lost time together.
4. You don't need any more clothes, shoes & bags.
After 10 years, I still only have 1 body, 1 pair of feet. I can’t finish wearing everything before it goes out of fashion.
And the funny thing is, nobody cares what you wear because people will only care about looking good themselves.
If you’re not happy with your body in the first place, whatever you wear, won’t change how you feel about your body and how you look.
Clothes won’t make you money. You only lose money on clothes.
5. Invest your money
The earlier you learn to make your money work for you, the more time you will have in future, the more time you will have.
There is only 1 of you with limited time & resources. You cannot do all the work yourself, let money work for you.
6. You don't need to buy any more things.
You don’t need that new shirt, new pair of shoes, new whatever AT ALL.
You’re just adding more stuff to your already full house. Then you feel cluttered and the need to declutter then you feel stressed.
You just don’t need anything else.
7. People come and go. Only your parents will stay.
Nobody will ever, ever have your back like your parents. Don’t expect anything from anybody. It’s okay to lose people along the way.
8. Stop being so scared of everything.
There’s nothing to be scared of because you have nothing to lose in the first place except for your stupid ego.
Just start now, just do now. Just do something.
If you don’t start now, how many more 10 years are you going to wait?
9. You will never ever be "good enough" or "ready".
You are good enough and ready to start anything. But you will never get to the level of “perfection” that you are waiting for because nobody is perfect.
The key is to keep learning and improving along the way and to act despite feeling not good enough or “ready”.
10. Only you can help yourself.
Nobody needs to help you more than yourself.
Don’t depend on anyone.
Don’t trust anyone.
If you don’t have money, work harder to find money.
If you want something, go get it. Do whatever it takes.
11. Learn how to say "no" to people.
If you don’t learn how to say “no” to people, you just have to keep saying “no” to yourself, your dreams and your goals.
12. It's okay not to fit in.
Because why fit in if you’re born to stand out? :p
13. It's okay if people judge you
Because no matter what you do or say, there will still be people who judge and hate. Just be grateful to those who don’t.
14. Keep investing in yourself
Keep learning, keep striving to be better. Even though it doesn’t matter how much you earn, what job you have, the most important is that you make sure you get to choose.
Having the ability to choose
the job you want, the kind of life you want,
the kind of money you want to spend,
the food you want to eat,
the things you want to spend your time on,
is the most important of all.
It’s okay, I took a longer time to learn because I had to learn things the hard way. I’m ready for the next 10 years.