To Go with the Flo-w or Not?

Excuse me for the punny title, just had the inspiration to write on this platform.

It's been awhile since I've had the time to sit down and write, even on Dayre I haven't been writing as much. Most of my days start with work, workout, sleep, repeat, and on the weekends it would be sleep as much as I want and make time for the people I wanted to see and make time for.

Currently I'm on my annual 1 month break.

As you can see from my previous post, I just got back from Sydney. I will write about it more in the next few posts while I have the time.

I'm here to write about myself again. Sorry, you must be thinking what a 'self-entitled' person I am, most of the blog posts are about myself. But yeah, this is a place to document about my own personal experiences, and besides there is nothing much interesting going on in my life anyways.... Or that's what I think.

I have always wondered, why are we so afraid of doing what we want to do? Why are we so afraid of what others think of what we do? Do other people care if we were doing what we love or if we were happy? Am I doing life at 24 years old right? What more can I do at where I am today?

This has been going on and on in my head a lot.

There are a lot of onlookers who gave their opinion on how I'm living my life. I am trying very hard to psyche myself that their opinions don't matter, unless 10 of them tell you the same shit, then something may be wrong with you. Believe me I am trying to be less condescending about others too, and most importantly minding my own business, and keeping the comments about others to myself in my head wtf.

In their eyes, or what I have chosen to show to them, I look like someone who only works and works and works and complains. I guess I only use Twitter as a platform to vent out my upset feelings, and not write about the things that I am grateful, or feeling happy about. One thing to understand is when it comes to work, there is stress that comes with it and you have to express it somewhere. I have chosen an outlet where I do not complain as much in person, unless you are in the same line as me, then we would be complaining to each other about each other's work. Otherwise, no, I will not rant to you because you would find my complaints annoying. So I have turned to Twitter to vent my frustration. To an extent where a high school friend who, I am not close with, ringed me up to check if I was okay and that my life was miserable. Wow. Thank you very much for your kind words and concern. 

Not sure if it is right to talk about my career in such an open platform, I have always been generalizing it because well, it is not nice if your bosses happen to stumble upon your little blog and watch you bitch about work. But let us be fair, I haven't written anything bad about anyone and anything bad directly related to my work. Let's keep it professional wtf. (LOL)

Anyway, I have been in this line for 2 years and 4 months, and counting.

At the start of my career, I was probably questioning myself like why am I in this line? What am I doing with my life? I still question myself occasionally but I have come to a conclusion that I am still doing okay at where I am lately.

As per my previous posts, I have met all kinds of people in my workplace, ones who take advantage of you, ones who help you learn and grow, and ones who motivate you to be a better person. So I shall not talk about it from the people aspect.

In terms of work, I have to say that along the way, it is not very routine, you learn something new everyday as you progress. You are constantly given opportunities and also doing things you have never done before.

It may be more challenging on some days, and when you overcome it, there is a sense of satisfaction, or at least for me, there is. You will be like, "Oh, shit I complained damn a lot, but looking back at it, I see the bigger picture and it wasn't so hard after all, I did it, and I learnt something new!"

And the cycle repeats. Life.

Work becomes much much more easier if you question yourself, "Why am I doing this? Where are we trying to go from here? What do we intend to achieve at the end of the day?"

Or if you are stuck somewhere, you know you can always seek for help, guidance, or for comfort, from people around you, whether it's your colleagues or your bosses.

And then there is people who question like, why are you working so hard for when you can be your own boss, when are you going to resign?

Erm. Hello, why do you think I am still in the same job even after 2 years and 4 months. I still see a reason to stay. I am still learning and growing and I still see that sense of satisfaction in my job. I mean, its not too bad, steep learning curve for the first few months of the year, and other times of the year, you work, but not as hard. Which other job gives you the opportunity of letting you take a month off and still pays you? Well, mine does.

Just because you do not want to go on this career path, doesn't mean that I feel the same way about it. Maybe you didn't stay long enough to reap the benefits of this career, maybe I have seen the bigger picture of it. I still wake up each day and still see a reason to look forward to going to work.

A lot of my colleagues have been moving to Singapore.

Should I go to Singapore just because everyone is going to Singapore?

Should I go for the sake of the currency? Should I follow for the sake of my friends? Should I go for the comfort of wanting to live alone, uninterrupted, a space for myself? This has been going on in my mind for quite some time and it still is. Probably annoyed the crap out of the people I poured my thoughts to by talking about this numerous times. It isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

But what many people don't talk about often is, what comes with the three times currency. You may not be able to take as much leave as how easy it is in my current department, you may not be able to get promoted even you performed, because there will always be a quota for Malaysians, you get so lonely during weekends because well there is no where to go, no one to talk to, with three times the money, it means three times the workload. You are the senior and the junior in the team.

And also the thought of staying in Singapore, are you in it for short term or long term, do you really want to settle down in Singapore?

I am sure of there are the pros too, like how Singapore is an international hub and you probably will get a wider exposure dealing with international clients and multinational companies.

But I have come to put my foot down that it is okay to stay where I am now. My life in my current company is okay and I have a nice boss who takes care of his staff and still grows his staff. (If he leaves then maybe I shall reconsider my options wtf)

Also what is stopping me is do I really want to do audit in the next few years?

What do I want to do next?

Indeed, I have been talking about that a lot too, hopefully, I would find the courage to sign up for what I want to do next once I have settled getting my chartered accountancy. At least if I screw up in my future intended plans, I would have at least still have my chartered accountant status to fall back to.

If you have been a follower of my instagram or my blog, you would have known that I have loved visiting cafes. I have always envisioned myself to come up with one myself in the future, but I definitely know that it isn't an easy journey.

What makes a person want to revisit the cafe again and again and not just a one time consumer? Is it the food, the coffee, the service, or all three of it?

First of all there is the rental to think about, how are you going to earn enough to cover the rental cost? How to sustain the business to keep it running long term? Also what kind of concept do you want to do? How should you style your cafe. How much will renovation cost. Where to get all that money from? Do you want to specialize in desserts, or serve hot food? What type of food then? How are you going to come up with the menu and how much will it cost? What is your margin? Who is going to cook? Am I going to take a barista course so I know what beans to serve? What about the staff? Who is going to train the staff and how can you keep the quality in line?

Through a platform like instagram, I got in touch with an instagrammer with quite a reputable number of followers and met up to 'cafe hop'. I was really disappointed in how there is so much work behind an instagram photo, taking up to half an hour and by the time we could eat, the food was cold. I hated it. If you must know, I still eat my food warm, despite me taking shots for my instagram feed. I just take like less than 5 minutes to snap, then I eat my food. I am not too fussy with my photos I guess, I thought I was, but I discovered that there were more fussy people than me. Also in these day and age, such minimal shots are not actually minimal shots, some details in the photos are actually edited out to give it that clean vibe.

Sort of a reminder to tell me, I don't wanna be like them. Now I know why certain restaurants come up with a no photo policy in their restaurants wtf, because when the food gets cold, it isn't as yummy anymore.

However when out with this instagrammer, he talked so much about coffee, how 'balanced' it is, or what type of beans are used, what method of brewing the coffee, I totally felt like a retard. How to pursue this dream and how I call myself a person who loved visiting cafes when I didn't know any shit like that about coffee?

I have still so much to learn I guess, and I question myself, how passionate am I in this? Do I really want to pursue this cafe interest? Hmm.

Other than that, there are a few friends who told me that I could 'be my own boss'. Start a business. What harm is it to try when you are still young? I mean sure, hey, being your own boss sounds fun and looks nice, but it takes more hard work, time, effort and passion to start up something. Also you need to at least have some savings to start up something, which is what I am currently doing, as I don't have a convenient, big fat ATM called my parents. Don't get me wrong, my parents are still around, but I definitely do not want to start a business with their hard earned money.

Do you know how tough the journey is when you start up a business? You definitely can't call yourself a 'start-up' or an 'entrepreneur' if you never experienced the hardships of starting your own business. Hopefully the day comes soon when I find the courage to step out to start my own business, until then, wait and see.

Adulting is tough, it definitely is when you are trying hard to adapt to the adult world.

Life is no longer as carefree as you thought it was.

People around you talk about buying cars, houses, insurance, stocks, unit trust and all that shit you call financial planning. You wish to push it away, delay it as far as possible so that you won't have to put a chunk of your salary paying for all these things. Unfortunately for me and for you, I've learnt that the longer you delay these things, the more expensive it gets, and touch wood, you may not have enough money for your future if you do not invest in such things.

I guess it is time to take the initiative to learn about all these things and be responsible for it. Take your time to find a suitable person selling those kind of things because the person really wants the best for you, not because they just want to earn your commission. Talk to people about all these. Ask many questions until you are certain and comfortable of where you are putting your money and what are they doing with your money.

Also about savings, I have been talking about this with my group of friends a lot. How much of your salary goes to your savings? And it scares me that I have not been saving enough. I am very ashamed to tell the world that from my first month of work and today, after 2 years and 4 months, the savings each month is the same. You have to realize that your spending power increases when your salary increases, but you must also make sure that your savings increases too, which I am trying really hard to practice.

I recently have gotten my first credit card. It is definitely nothing to be proud of, just something to use if any emergency needs comes up.

I have certainly heard about a lot of credit card horror stories, in my circle of friends and also in my line of work. It is fun to swipe card and you thought that you have extra money to spend, but actually it is not extra money, it is just having money to roll around for the current month, but you still need to keep the aside that money to pay your credit card bills at the end of the month anyway. And many people forget that bit and continue to spend it off, and end up not being able to pay off their credit card bills.

I have gone through personal loan application forms and the reason for taking the personal loan was 'to pay off credit card bills'. A loan to pay off another loan.

That is scary.

And what is more scary is that the loan applicant was around my age. I start to question, how aware is our generation regarding financials?

Other than that I have been working on myself, going to the gym, watching Youtube videos, catching up on movies, listening to music, reading e-books, going to cafes and savouring the cup of coffee and thinking about where I am in life lately and walking around the mall aimlessly. I am definitely trying to pick up on where I have lost myself in this whole work routine (and get back to work feeling more motivated).

Anyway, this is all that I wish to share with you guys lately, to the ones who are still reading, thanks for sticking with me. Much love.

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