What is Success ? Are you a success ?

You need Grit, Pick Up after Massive Failure and Get On with Wiser Eyes.

This endearing picture above shows a little boy standing on the beach, with his hands clenched on a fistful of sand and staring determinedly at the photo-taker. He has a look of determination on his face, which seems to say "come what may, I will overcome". 

Well, it is only partly true, in my book. Having been running a business as well as raising a family, for more than 20 years, we should all look at ourselves and ask point blank, 

Is my life a success ? 

I recall playing the board game called  "Careers" or  "The Game of Life" whereby the playing board represents Life and one goes out to achieve a total of 60 units of either  

a) Fame ( become a celebrity)   

b) Money (be a tycoon) 

c) Love (Hard to define this person, but I guess someone who is in Love).  

If only life were that simple.

Money, 

For almost everyone on this planet, with the exception for a few lucky souls like Royal families, and scions of billionaires, is very important to everybody. There are many people who have worked and slogged and made a pile and find that at the end of life, a certain emptiness. A lack of creating a footprint for others to follow. So while Money is important, the endless pursuit of wealth will leave one devoid of empathy, or concern for one's fellow man. I find these never ending pursuits of the so called 5 Cs quite disturbing in our rich and plentiful Singapore. For those who are not familiar, the 5 "C"s young people strive to achieve without a thought for anything else : 

a) Condo 
b) Car  
c) Country Club 
d) Career 
e) Cash

All these have to do with material things.  Young and not so young people strive to drive the latest sports car or status car offerings, while the women carry the latest designer handbags and sport the 3 karat diamond rings. They may offer satisfaction, but only for a short while, before the yearning for something bigger or better or flashier. It is like hunger pangs which once fulfilled satisfies for a while before the yearning to make more comes along. 

So making money for the sake of money is not Success.

Fame

Some people want to be seen with the stars and crave attention. See all the famous Hollywood, Bollywood, JPop, KPop and HK stars. They make alot of money, have all the attention BUT have no private life. They have major crises, take drugs, gamble, have affairs and are afflicted with all or even worse problems than us 'nobodies'. 

As recently as last year 2 KPop idols, Sulli and Goo Hara committed suicide due to loneliness and depression as a result of leading the so-called 'perfect princess' lives which turned out to be lies. So sad.  

So, Fame as an Ends is also not Success.

Love

Ah, Love is always the one pure emotion. Yes, one can have alot of Love, but can we get by with giving Love to our loved ones and live on fresh air, love and music ?  Dream on Love is an emotion, so we all have the capacity to give and receive Love. 

So Love by itself is not Success. Having and Giving Love probably is one facet to leading a successful life though. 

So what does one do to achieve Success ?? First lets try to define Success.

In my humble opinion, first look critically at your own life. Identify what you want to change for yourself. It may be trying to improve your standard of living, your car or apartment, or even taking more holidays. Once you have identified and managed to achieve them, STOP. Look around you, there are many many more millions of people worse off than you. Why go on and on the merry-go-round of endless upgrading form HDB flat, to Condominium to House, to MASSIVE DEBT ?


GAINING OF MATERIAL THINGS IN LIFE IS NOT SUCCESS, ITS MEANINGLESS !!

SUCCESS IN LIFE IS  TAKING THE PURPOSEFUL JOURNEY.

IT HAS NO END POINT.

Living a purposeful life helping one's family, community, friends or religion without a thought for one's situation is a Success story in itself. But before one can start doing that, he must be financially secure and have relevant income streams so that Money and Family stability are not compromised. Here is where, everyone deviates or does not agree upon. What is Financial Stability ?? $10,000 ? $100,000 ? $ 1 Million ? $ 10 Million ? 

What's the Magic Number ?? 

That magic number depends on one's personal sense of comfort. A hypothetical example, take Mr. A : " I am 45, I have a flat, my kids have finished school and I take public transport to work. Wife is a good cook and we dine out at restaurants once a month. I have saved $ 100,000 for my next 5 years and can start to do some community work or help out in my Church outreach. Its time I gave back after having taken from others all these years. "

Very noble. I salute these people. These are the true Success stories in this dog-eat-dog world.

So, in the end, the church, temple and mosque helpers will say, "Doesn't matter. God will provide"  However, in many  circumstances, but there are many hard luck stories who have fallen by the wayside in the pursuit of the wrong goals and have relentlessly used or adopted these mannerisms in their daily life. I list them down, these are the 7 Deadly Sins.

1. Lust
2. Greed
3. Sloth   (Laziness)
4. Anger
5. Gluttony
6. Hatred
7. Envy

I would define Success as this :

Living one's own sphere of life, as being able to do what he / she wants, growing in character, and ultimately in helping others without much thought of one's well being. 

To get to that point, one needs to take stock of one's own life and be SATISFIED with whatever he already has, and not be green with envy that the neighbour has gotten a new and bigger car than him, or is going for holidays every 3 months while he has to slog just to pay the bills.

To achieve success, one has to have these traits or acquire these attitudes :

a)  Dogged Determination to reach the goal   40%
b)  Resilience in bad times   30%
c)  Vision to dream where he wants to be 30%

Seize the Day my friends. 

Life is there for Living. Don't Moan or worse Bad Mouth others. 

Don't be a whiner and whinger and drop out at the first sign of difficulty.

Be a Winner and Doer. 

Possess Grit, Resilience and Positive Mental attitude come what may.  

Set your goals, however small, achieve them and then help the less able.

That is Success. 

The Purposeful Journey - first written in June 2017

During my long and sometimes hard run today I thought deeply about life and the journey which each of us must take. To me, life is about taking that purposeful journey full of goals set for you either by yourself, or other significant people in your life, it could be your school (exams), spouse or partner (living together, starting a family), office (objectives, KPIs), friends and business associates, principals and most importantly,yourself.

If you set you goal in life, you will just go with the flow and don't be surprised how fast time flies and before you know it, voila, you are middle aged, the kids have grown, and your nest egg isn't almost there (where had all the money gone), friends, acquaintences business partners have passed on and you are facing challenges in health, work, family, business and even the foriegners are coming in to 'steal your lunch !'.

Let me state, that this is my opinion of life, to make it your success, take the purposeful journey.    Only you be the judge of how successful you will be at the end of it. The end is when you take your last breath and close your eyes and you are no more. So I would state that the following values are absolutely necessary for you to bring along the purposeful journey :

1. Clarity of the mind 

2. Purity of the spirit

3. Set clear goals and Relentlessly Pursue these goals 

4. Focus on the process to reach those goals and work to continually improve the process    

5. Discipline yourself in mind and body

6. Sacrifice time, energy and sweat to reach in within a set deadline. 

It will never be easy, I have picked up bad habits along the way, so I need to shed these if I truly want to achieve what I set out to do. 

There are no short cuts - especially in life.

Seize the Day      

More 6 Adis Road Pictures and Memories

My maternal grandfather P.C. Wen with my brother (3 years old) 

This picture above shows my maternal grandfather PC Wen, sitting out at the driveway with my younger brother. The Simca is in the background and the main hallway of the house is also in view. The room to the extreme right in the picture was never occupied for some unknown reason, and the entry to the house was to the left up the step from where the car is parked. The house and the entire plot of land was easily 200,000 ft2. 

To the left of the house was where my mother's car was parked and behind it was some shed structure where the workmen would leave their tools and stuff, as well as the dog kennel and lots of overgrown bushes leading to a 6 foot fence. We had lots and lots of play time fighting with the neighbourhood kids, catching spiders, climbing the rambutan and papaya trees, riding our Chopper Bikes and general carefree mayhem of early childhood.

There was a Malay neighbourhood Kampung nearby up the road, and the houses lining up Sophia Road had plenty of colorful facades. The main road which was about 10 minutes walk was Selegie Road, and I would take the 111 bus to my school, St Andrew's at Woodsville when I was about 11 years old (Primary 6). The return journey would be from Woodsville back by Jalan Besar and I would drop off at Bencoolen Street. I would pass the 'mamak' (Indian Muslim) shop on the way back to the house and every week without fail I would save up my pocket money to buy the "Shoot !" magazine from the UK which would be full of colour pictures of my boyhood football team Wolves.   

I recall, in the early days, my father drove the Simca, then had a Mercedes E230 for quite a while whereas my mother drove first a Datsun 323, then a red Mini Cooper, a Mazda 626 and then an old E200 in her later years as I recall.

My father's love for the E230 (which happened to be my mother's ex-boss'es car Dr Eddy Ho) has indeed rubbed off on me. I used to drive the E230 from 2012 till 2017 and am full of praise for its roadworthiness and safety. His car was silver grey in colour which is just the way I like my cars too. 

2 Monkeys and a Simca

Life in the late '60s and early '70s were really carefree. We did not study very much, if at all as I recall. As expected, our Mandarin was atrocious and I recall always failing the 'ting xie' test or listening comprehension test (because I did not study at all) and would end up going to the front of the class and getting my ears twisted till they hurt and turned red (well, for a dark brown skinned boy, it still turned red). Our Chinese teacher was a rather overweight Mrs. Pang. That was in Primary 3.

Speaking of Primary 3, our class teacher was a Miss Ang who had a rather catty personality and dressed very much the sophisticated single lady. She made an arrangement with the taxi driver who (then) drove me to and from school to pick and drop her off from her house - as I recall. So she caught a lift from the driver who was all too happy to drive a pretty lady home. 

Our family when John was barely 1 and I was approaching 4

I had a rather large head as a kid, the front was protruding and my Mum used to call it 'mango head'. So while my head was large, my then puny body made me look a little weird.

I recall my parents taking me to a peaditrician, to get some sort of injection - I think it was 'placebo' actually on their part !

Only later when I started to stretch out (in terms of length), did my head seem more in proportion to the rest of my body. 

Work from Home Staying Connected

With Primary School Classmates on WhatsApp last week

Work, that ubiquitous 4 letter word, is one of the primary reasons for Raison D'ete. Or the Purpose of Life for perhaps 2 - 3 billions of people the world over. So when the COVID -19 took over the stage and Governments around the world made their respective countries go into lockdown where people old, young, rich,poor had to stay at home for durations of 2 weeks to 3 months, it caused alot of major upheavals in all of our daily lives.

Singapore has been in Code Orange with Circuit Breaker restrictions and 80% of the population who were in work, had to work from home.In addition, schools were shut, the National Service conscripts were asked to stay at home, places of worship had their services moved online, and all dining, drink, hawkers, retail, entertainment, clubs, all were shut with effect from 7 April 2020. Now we are in the 6th week of lockdown and if everything goes according to plan, we should see some easing of restrictions early June 2020.

Last Tuesday week, we had a 'meeting' amongst old schoolmates and I had a great time connecting with 3 other 'boys' from Primary and Secondary school. 

Sunil, Kent, Marc and I spent the better part of 2 hours and 2 beers each reminiscing about the 'good old days' and promised each other to get together once this 'thing' is over to meet in person and have a memorable 'do' once this once in a lifetime plague is under control.

We live in positive hope and expectations for a better healthier tomorrow.     

Hokkaido Japan Dec 2 - 14 2012 ; Rusutsu Resort ; Powder Snow.

Throwback 9 years ago at Hokkaido, Rusutsu Resort. The powder snow was really cold and we had just finished dinner.The elder boy Noel was 17 and the younger son Andrew was 14.

We had 5 nights of stay at the Resort, then followed by another 2 - 3 nights at Noburibetsu, an historic town famous for its hot spa and hot sulphur springs. It was a great time for bonding, and our skiing competancy was Intermdiate.

I pledge to go back to skiing for one last hurrah before I get to old or my knees get too weak to take the twists and turns of the pistes.    

Once Time has elapsed you can never get it back. So all we have are these faded memories and videos like these of the past.

  

George Yeo ex- PAP Minister's speech at Beijing Forum 2013 ; an eerie prediction come true today

Some recollections of my childhood days at Adis Road.

Me at 12 

I was born on 27th November (no year) I believe it was 6.42 pm in the evening. The day was a Wednesday.  Strange with all these new smart phones, you can determine the exact day of your birth from the Calendar function on your Andriod phone.

I was born in Kandang Kerbau Hospital (at Middle Road), I believe Prof. Salmon (Yvonne Salmon's father) delivered me. Nothing special to mark the occasion but I do know my early years (since cognizance or mindful recollection) started around 5 to 6 years of age.

My parents owned a bungalow house at 6 Adis Road, Singapore 9 (those days the postcode was only a single digit). I was the elder of 2 boys by 3 years. John's birth month is September. My father told me that the bungalow house was the family house and he bought it. During the second world war, the Japanese occupiers used the house as a command post as it was midway up the Mt Sophia Hill and overlooked all the smaller houses and Malay kampung. If you followed the road to the end at Adis Road, it was the mansion of Lee Kong Chian, the renowned businessman of the early 20th century Singapore. Flanking our house were 2 schools for young girls, namely Nan Hua Primary and Secondary and Methodist Girls School. Our house was right smack in the middle of both these fine girls schools.   

The first floor of the house had a driveway for the car (Simca was the first car I recall) and the porch area was brick stone with both sides leading to a rather run-down drab garden.

All the memories come flooding back at the sight of our old house. It had long been sold in 1976, and currently. the plot is part of a condominium estate

Our house did not have the nicely kept lawns of the US in those days (60s to early 70s). When you reached the top of the driveway and upon entry to the left side of the first floor, you would come into the the main outer hall (where we played our football) and then enter into the ante room leading to the upstairs living and dining rooms. The entire bungalow had10 rooms and a huge hall both upstairs and downstair. For the downstairs area, the darkened hall kept my father's law files, and there was a line phone with poor electrical connectivity. I remember getting electric shocks whenever my ears touched the phone headset ! 

Those days (60s till early 70s) people were dirt poor. The average salary of a common secretary or teacher would be approximately $200 - 300 per month. People had no proper acess to running water, sewage, housing and medical facilities. Poverty and crime was rife in those days, so I was indeed extremely fortunate as a child, living with my brother, kakak (malay name for sister, she was infact our family maid),my parents and the tenants living in the back shacks.

London June 1974 

My father Geoffrey was a top lawyer in the late 60s and 70s and we recall the many nights when he had very tough criminal cases in the day he would come home to our family and at night had pretty nightmarish 'screaming matches' as if he were in high court !  We dared not to wake him during those stressful periods.

My kindergarten (nursery) years were delightful and full of play. I was the 'king of the playgorund' as I recall. (I will leave it at that). The church and kindergarten are still there at Prinsep Street (Presbytarian Church and Kindergarten) and they do indeed hold fond memories for me. I was quite the tough guy in those days, as I recall. My father once dropped by and saw me wrestling or thumping 3 boys in the sandpit. I even had all the kids pushing my go - kart in the palyground !  

Bully me ? Maybe or maybe not.  

One of my earliest recollections happened when I was just 6 years of age. I was barely in Primary 1. We used to watch this series every week called the Flying Nun starring Sally Field. So one day while I was at the back of the house on the steps, I saw the pipe which was extending from one wall to the next and decided that I could 'fly'. So at the top of the steps, I decided to 'have a go' and leapt (totally brainless thing to do) from the top of the steps and try to catch the pipe some good 6 feet away and perhaps 10 feet from the ground.

I failed miseralbly and tumbled down the steps with multiple knocks going down. I could have been on the main selection list for the Darwin Awards (ultimate stupidity) for that year.

I tumbled hit, bashed, and thrashed myself all the 10 or so steps down. I cried like a baby and I blacked out.

The story (from what I heard from my Dad) was that, fortunately we had a Japanese tenant called Ken Omemuri and he heard my cries and came rushing out. He brought me straight into a taxi and called my Dad at work.

I woke up in my Dad's car on the way to the hospital. I had blacked out and my head was a bloody mess. The legend then went on like this. Upon arriving at the Singapore General Hospital, my father called (more like bellowed) the nurse to call Dr. Yayha Cohen the top surgeon in Singapore then. The nurse gave him the sarcastic response that even the President of Singapore could not get that kind of attention from Dr. Cohen.

My father and Dr Cohen were best friends and my Dad told her off to metion his name and she quickly obliged. Dr. Cohen came running and I was immediately put into the operating theatre and given general anaesthesia and I saw the entire operation while being fully lucid but in no pain ! It was surreal watching the needle going through the top of my head and coming out. 

It took 6 stitches on my left forehead and in about 2 hours, I was back at home sitting at the top of the steps and all the neighbourhood boys, girls, uncles, aunties came to visit me, and marvel at the brown patch above my left eye.

at Swimming Club with my brother and cousins 

I am so grateful to my father, Dr. Cohen, Ken Omemuri and the numerous others who came to my aid. A stupid young kid who was so full of himself and thought that he could 'fly' like the Flying Nun at 6 years of age.

The folly of youth !