uncle lim kopi

 What are values? These are things I believe I should do, rules of life that I follow.  First of all, be honourable, honest and have integrity.  Be respectful and polite by default. But stand your ground so you are not a pushover. Don't harm others, but be ready to defend and protect with all your means. Be responsible. To your family, especially your partner, children and your parents. And, keep your word. Don't make promises you cannot keep or have no intention of keeping, especially to someone close. Don't belittle what's important to someone else. And if you do end up making one and breaking it, take ownership of the consequences and apologise.  Personally, I am dealing with the consequences of a promise someone made but broke on me. Its horrible. It's an open wound that did not heal.  As much as I want to let it slide, I can't. Why? Because, in order to let it slide, I had to take action to rectify a situation. And taking this action, to me, violates my val...

Your body needs maintenance.  You can work and grind hard at your job BUT, you must always take some time to maintain your body.  Else you will have to pay for it in future. If it can be fixed, you pay for it with $ and suffering while it’s being fixed If it cannot be fixed, you pay for it in perpetuity suffering, and also $ to find and find solutions  Always exercise. Strength training, stretches to keep joints nimble, runs and walks to keep heart strong Always watch what you eat. Ensure you have sufficient protein, fruits, etc. eat your greens, drink milk. Take vitamins, they are really cheap these days. Just pop a multivitamin a day. That’s costs like $0.30 per pill. Don’t be stingy. It’s cheaper than your useless Starbucks coffee. Always take time to clean your teeth. Brush them properly, use good paste and brush, then floss properly. If you can afford it, get a good electric toothbrush, it will do wonders for your dental health. You won’t want to lose your teeth befo...

 We all want security. Personal security  Economic security  Emotional security  In this modern world, as long as you live in a capitalist country, I believe, for all practical purposes, economic security is what you must strive for. It is the bedrock for everything else in your life. No one will have mood to enjoy music, joke with your partner, take time to whip up a nice meal, if they are struggling economically, unsure if they can afford to have a roof over their head, or food on table

 It’s more laziness than anything in these days of ultra conveniences and internet.  We can read any book we want anything We can drink any coffee by just going to a nice cafe and spend a hour there  We can prepare any nutritious food we want with all the fresh produce available in supermarkets  When you have time on hand, no work commitments, good health and have some money, you can do anything  Don’t say it’s boring You are just fucking lazy 

Meta yesterday laid off 10% , or about 8000 of their global workforce. Probably some of my acquaintances were affected. I feel for them. I hope they saw this coming and are prepared.  Layoffs and reorgs at Tech firms are not new. It has been happening since 20 years ago.  So what's different this time? Previous layoffs are mostly reactions to market dynamics and external economic situations. Think the DotCom crash, the subprime blow up leading to the great recession, wars, pandemics.  Also, move to cloud, where in-house IT shop workers were laid off.  But this time round, it's a fundamental shift in how IT is delivered as service. Every IT shop now banks on AI to deliver services or most of it. This include creating the services itself (e.g writing a new application).  And then, such services will also replace the actual human workers that do the jobs today. e.g. translators  The big tech like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, they are showing the way now. They need...

As I reflect on my journey thus far, I felt I got really lucky, even though I am sure I worked very very hard compared to most as well. Without that luck, things would had turned vastly different.  One of the fortunate thing that I had was marriage + money My wife and I, so far, had never encountered money problems since we started working and then got married. Now, let me explain. There are many roots of money problems. First will be your family, i.e. your parents and siblings if you have any. We were lucky. There were no money problems originated from either side of our parents and siblings, so far. This itself is already very lucky. There are so many people who were tied down by money issues created or faced by their parents and siblings. These are blood ties, you can't just walk away and live your materially comfortable life and let your parents and siblings suffer, at least when you were still young. Now, at some point in time, if you had helped enough and these folks continue...

Retiring earlier, while seems enviable (and should be!), is kinda scary TBH All the computations and analysis done to ensure financials are in order were key. Even then, there is always a risk of something going south. That's why the plans have backup, which themselves have backup. Still, once you made the leap, there's almost no turning back. You can turn back to find a job, but its going to be hard (once you tasted the honey of freedom, which I did, its very hard to accept its loss) Now that I made the leap, I am on my own. There is no safety net of a job, and large corporation that pays the bills and medical expenses.  I have to be on my toes on financials, not everyday, but still, be very conscious on expenses and projected expenses and if there are looming changes coming.  You will want to not step onto something that gives way to your weight, if you get what I mean.  Still, confidence takes time to grow. Bit by bit. It takes discipline, stick to your plans, be brave...