Friday, December 26, 2008

Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life

I’m 50 years old, and I’ve made my share of mistakes in my life. I’m not a big believer in regrets … and I have learned tremendously from every single mistake … and my life is pretty great so far.

However, there are a few things I wish I had known when I was graduating from University and starting out as an adult in life.

Would I change things? Off course as humans, we make mistakes. From mistakes we learn how to live correctly.........

Do I share them now to share my regrets? No, I share them in hopes that our kids, just starting out in life, can benefit from our mistakes and our lessons.

What follows isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s one that I hope proves useful to at least a few people. Here comes the first few..............

1.How to control impulse spending.

If there’s anything that can undermine our monthly budget, it’s impulse spending. Buying clothes when I don’t need them. Buying gadgets because I gotta have them. Ordering stuff online because it’s so easy. Buying that new phone.........I’ve learned to control my impulses, at least a little better. Now, I give myself some time to breathe. I think over my purchases, see if I’ve got the money, think about whether it’s a need or a want. That would have been a useful tool 25 years ago.

2.All that stuff that’s stressing you out — it won’t matter in 5 years, let alone 25.

When things are happening to you right now, they mean all the world. I had deadlines and projects and people breathing down my neck, and my stress levels went through the roof. I don’t regret the hard work but I think I would have been less stressed if I could have just realized that it wouldn’t matter a single bit just a few years down the road. Perspective is a good thing to learn. Learn to live with everyday stresses.

3.All that time you spend watching TV is a huge, huge waste of time.

I don’t know how much TV I’ve watched over the years, but it’s a crapload. Hours and days and weeks I’ll never have back. Who cares what happens on reality TV, when reality is slipping by outside? Time is something you’ll never get back — don’t waste it on TV. I seldom watch TV anymore now!

4.You gotta stay active and have regular exercise.

Ask any old folks and what do they regret most? Not having regular exercise and getting sick in their twilight years. Off course as we get older, all the dreaded disease will haunt us such as High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Heart problems etc etc. What if we were very active and have regular exercise during our younger days?

5.Junk food will come back to bite you in later life.

Yeah, it wasn’t just the sedentary lifestyle that got people fat and sickly. It was all the damn junk food too. Nowadays kids eat pizza and burgers and sugar cereal and desserts and donuts and coke … well, you get the picture, as their regular meals. When you are young maybe you can eat anything, as bad health was something to worry about when you got old. But then when you are old, you can't reverse all those stupid eating habits. Stop all the thrash food now and eat healthily.

6.How to plan finances.

You have to teach your kids how to plan their finance. You are supposed to budget and track your spending, when becoming an adult. Everybody has to learned how to plan, and how to stick to that plan. Surely you'll deviate from your plan, but you've to learned how to handle that too. Maybe that’s not a skill you can learn from book reading. You just gotta practice. The basic budget rule for our income is to keep 30% as saving, 30% for paying the housing loan, 30% for food/utilities/transport and 10% for contingencies.

7.Smoking is just dumb.

I started smoking when i was in form five. I won’t go into why I started, but it didn’t seem like a problem, because I knew I could quit anytime I wanted. Or I thought I could, at least, until many years later I gave it a go and couldn’t do it. Five failed quits later and I realized with horror that my addiction was stronger than I was. Sure, I eventually beat the habit (quit date: Sept. 15, 2003) but it took a piece of my soul to do it. So make sure your kid does not smoke (that includes smoking shisha).

8.All the stuff you’re doing that seems hard — it will be of use.

This is the first one that might not be as obvious. There were times in my life when work was hard, and I did it anyway, but hated it. I did it because I had to, but boy did it stress me out and leave me exhausted. Hard work isn’t as easy as I wanted it to be. But you know what? Every bit of hard work I did without knowing why I was doing it … it’s paid off for me in the long run. Maybe not right away, but I’m using skills and habits I learned during those times of high stress and long hours and tedious work — I use them all the time, and they’ve made me into the person I am today.

9.Make time to pursue your passion, no matter how busy you are.

If you love traveling, just do it. If fishing is your hobby, allocate time for it.. If you like carpentry, go for it. With a family and school and a full-time job, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Well, I’ve learned that you have to make those hours. Set aside a block of time to do what you love, cut out other stuff from your life that take up your time, and don’t let anything interfere with that work. If you wait till you are old enough, maybe you don't have the energy and vibrancy to enjoy it.

10.Keep a diary. Seriously. Your memory is extremely faulty.

We forget things really easily. Maybe not short-term stuff, but long-term. We can't recall all those incident in secondary schools and maybe don’t remember things about our kids’ early years, because we didn’t record any of it. I wish I had kept a diary.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Bantah Bantah Bantah

Sime Darby Healthcare, the health care arm of Sime Darby Berhad, is buying over Institut Jantung Negara, the institute founded by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to treat patients suffering from the nation's No 1 killer disease.

If you have a heart problem and you are short of cash, a visit to the hospital will probably kill you before the heart attack can reach you.

I hope Pak Lah does the right thing before he goes off, i.e to make sure IJN stays as it is today.

Latest pics of our former English teacher Mr Paul Francis


1975




2008

Courtesy of smsjohorkluang.blogspot.com

Things that took me 50 years to learn

1. Don't waste money buying thread mills, stationary bikes or the likes. Ultimately it will become a white elephant in the house and are use to hang your clothes. Only way to slim down is to eat less and exercise more.

2.Don't delay going to Haj because the kid is facing an exam, still small or any other excuses. If you wait till they get married, you'll end up as a nanny to their kids and still cannot go to Haj. If you want to go to Haj, Just Do It.

3.If the meeting is more than one hour, the chairman is wasting everybody's time.

4.Pak Man Telo scheme or the likes will never make you rich and you will never make a fast buck.

5.Multi Level marketeers are always a hassle but will never go away. Buy the cheapest product to keep them at bay.

6. People who want to share their religious or political views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

7.The most destructive force in the universe is gossip and jealousy.

8.You should not confuse your career with your life. Start living...........

9. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think
she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

10.Never say to a woman that she's fat or obese.

11.Never envy those driving fast and flashy cars. They might be pimps or loan sharks.

12.A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person.

13.Yes it's true. If it's not broken, don't fix it.

14.There is a fine line between genius and insanity. Those with high IQ's think on a different scale than the average person. They make themselves that way, through over-analyzing, internalizing everything, predictive thought patterns, unrealistic expectations of society and the people around them, and an array of other self-defeating, self-destructive thought patterns. Pray hard your boss is not one of them.

15. Never never never lick a steak knife.

16.I don't understand why people celebrate birthdays! Why would you want people to rejoice you growing a year older!

17.Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

18.Never love your spouse/kids/sibblings/parents/friends 110 percent. They are not yours and God will take them away one day.

19.Friends in need is a friend indeed.

20.Tough times never last, tough people do.

21. The Mercedes CLK sport car driver picking his nose at the traffic light might be rich, but he has no class.

22.Never argue with a traffic cop. Plead with him or get the summon.(No duit kopi O).

SMSJ junior gals (30 years ago)




Click pic for a larger image. Kenal sesiapa? Cute cute juga depa ni!
Courtesy of Azida

Monday, December 15, 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008

Climbing the slopes of the Football field 20/8/1975


Sorry for the long absence, as i was involved with some messy projects. This photo of us climbing the slope to the football field. The field was only completed much later and only can be use after a year of us staying in the school. As you can see from the photo, the grass were only recently planted then.

Being the pioneers of a new school were really terrible as one cannot use all the facilities that were intended. We were deprived of our football and rugby games and we were also deprived of good laboratories. We could have scored more A's if all the facilities were in place!!!

From left Lee Meow Choon, Murtaza, Ghizan, Azman, Bahau, Tahir, me and Ghaffar/Nordin.