uncle lim kopi

 Acknowledging this is important to my mind to properly move to next phase which is retirement (or anything other than corporate) My career is completed. Just like my life as a student in school was completed. You can say it is the end of career but that sounds pretty sad. Completion is better word. Time to fly 

Something eats you Something eats you What is it What is it  What the fuck is it What the fucking hell is it  What eats you Slow and steadily  Without fail Without giving up Will finally consume you 

 When you are retired, especially young, most of your friends and your spouse will still be working. So you will be alone most of time during weekdays day time. What do you do?  You can do exercise, you can read, you can just while time away on social media. You can also journal But you must remember to put sometime to learn new things, albeit without pressure or stress. Why? You need to expand your brain if not it will close up. It will become an echo chamber, reflecting to itself things it already know for years. Nothing new  It’s like an AI model that isn’t given updated data to train. It can guess the next step word based on initial training, and those words could be fed back into it but how good will that be? It will not know new inventions by others that came up after its initial training. No corrections to errors earlier So, please learn something new  Simple ones, even basic foreign languages, or new terms and words in native/working language. Exercise and ex...

When you are facing health issues, and need to take time off to nurse, go for procedure, rest and recover, it's normal to worry about what happens to the work you dropped.  But you are on medical leave, you need rest. Ideally you should do that, and not worry about work and definitely not go read your emails, and attend any calls.  But in the real world, you may not be able to do this.  But it's still important to chart your course by thinking about what are your priorities. Is any work above your own health, right now and into the future? If you ignore the signs, neglect recovery time, and think you can pull through fine, it could be a huge mistake. You are sowing the seeds for a future wrought of ill health, conditions that will burst out into your life at the worse possible times, e.g. just when you think you are ready to retire and enjoy life. Our body needs care and attention, especially when we age. It's not a machine Heck, even a machine needs maintenance to contin...

Same question all the time when someone first find out I am retired (early). And, it comes from not just adults who are still working, but also from younger ones who are still in school. For the young ones, I will explain how long I had been working, and how hard I worked, and how hard I saved up (and invested), so I can retire early. It was never my plan to work as long as possible or up to a commonly known retirement age of 65. And I told them I am happy I achieved my goals and now I have freedom to pursue things that I couldn't due to my commitments to my previous jobs. I hope this inspires them to think for themselves and plan.  For the adults, I just play along and have some jokes on how I spend my free time. But deep inside, I feel for them, as I can understand some who do not have such a choice at all, while some are so deeply brainwashed that I do not plan to unwind it for them since it will be a waste of time. 

In tech, these came up. Think Google, Meta and the likes. Free food, massages, snack bars, beer after 7pm, sleeping pods, kombucha and so on. Other tech companies emulate these, because they all want to attract the same talents who had been “spoiled” by such perks and comforts and would not settle for less.  Seriously, don’t fall into such trappings.  Especially those that make you feel that office is more comfortable than home. You linger around, stretch your time to do work that could had been completed in shorter time, because you want to take a few minutes to go to the lobster live station at tea time.  What are you losing? Your personal time, your freedom, your time to live a life outside of work.  You are now a hamster, trapped. You work longer hours. For the same pay. Geez.  Isn’t it ironic that we have all these technology that supposedly make us more productive but yet we end up working long hours?  Then I’ll rather do away with the tech.  You...

That's probably the most common question I get from others when they found that I have stopped working. 2nd question, which may not be asked directly or at all, is "how you pay your bills?" Let's dispense with the second question immediately. If you don't ask me, you get no answer, I won't volunteer it. If you ask, my answer is "Investment that pays cashflow". That's all. It's simple but not possible for anyone. I worked hard, but I also got a healthy dose of luck and opportunities, for which I am grateful and appreciative of. Now "what do you do?" is the main question.... The answer would be easy if I am still employed. I am a XXX engineer. That's all.  But now? Well, I think its way for meaningful now, and I am proud of it. I am not working anymore. What do I do?  That's a good question I am full time in taking care of myself, mentally and physically and financially. I am also a full time stay at home husband and father. I...