This is another round of my personal writing, on areas such as topics of interest, thoughts and updates. I had been thinking about them, consolidated and summarised into an article below. Due to the heavy load based on the nature and sensitivity of the things I have written below, they would need a more thorough read into and understanding.
Thoughts
Are things getting easier?
Things doesn’t look like it would get easier in the upcoming quarters ahead, the world economy and markets have changed a lot over the past decade, market cycle is shorter, we are still learning to adapt to the modern business world and market cycle.
The economic situation would still be slow, hope it doesn’t turn into a downturn, overall, there would still be economic growth, in smaller percentages not like a decade ago. Adapting and building up the new foundations for this new era of doing business, working extra hard to ride on it when the waves pick up and rise, somewhere in 2019.
Have we lost focus on growth and improvement? Have we become more lazy and complacent?
Another area that I am worried, we seemed to be too lazy and complacent right here in Singapore, some have started to wake up, make changes to improve themselves through courses, upgrading and improvement. In this fast and furious world that we live in, the pace of change can be relentless, we have to be on our toes, so that we can ensure ourselves and your future generation to have opportunities and a future.
Self-entitlement and complaining, has it gone out of hand?
2 areas that have make me very worried for the future, we adults probably played a bit of a role in our self-entitlement and lots of complaining. We are too comfortable and sheltered here in Singapore, away from the outside world out there.
The younger generation self-entitlement is something worrying and the adults complaining, at times, it seem to me that it is getting out of hand, from the conversations, chatter and “fighting” on various social network services.
You think you know everything and want to teach people what/how to do.
Running my own sole proprietorship photography business, I faced quite a lot of such people, from non related industry people who like to say, “You have to do this”, “You should do this”, “Why you never do this and that?”
Many a times, they are not helpful, painful to my ears and brain. I wasn’t trained well enough to handle them and my old primary school classmate, Wendy, told me to close my 2 ears and block them off. Yes, I really need to shut those noises off and away from me.
I have also refrained from telling people what to do, I still have a lot to learn and improve, not just in my own small business, in other industries, skills, knowledge and experiences too.
Topics of interest
99 years lease
A huge and very hot topic in our local Singapore news, the 99 years lease that started to surface some months back. This hot potato topic would need a cool head and understanding, to read, learn and understand from both sides of the equation.
En-bloc sales fever? Money over history, heritage, conservation and preservation?
A number of iconic buildings in Singapore that were part of Singapore’s early decades of independence were in the news, the Pearl Bank Apartments had been sold to CapitaLand, Golden Mile Complex is also poised for collective sale, placing another unique architecture from Singapore’s early days under the limelight and its future is unknown, this building might not be there in the near future.
More old iconic architecture buildings in Singapore might go down this route too, such as those in Chinatown and other private residences in Singapore. This is not something with a straight forward answer, private properties and ownership, money over history, heritage, conservation and preservation?
Is it time for the authorities to step in and conserve some of them? How about from the perspective and views of the private owners from those properties?
Updates
Finding new partnerships, collaborations and other business opportunities
In this modern era that is highly competitive and cut throat, is a single job or a single business enough for you to survive? Or do you depend on your partner’s job or business as dual income?
I still stand by my philosophy that a single income or business is never enough, not even a dual income household, especially if you or your family lead a high social economic status (SES) lifestyle. For my case, I am currently low SES overall, maybe except for my photography gears and technology gadgets whereby I invested heavily into them for my business operations.
I am always on the lookout for new partnerships, collaborations and other business opporunities. There were more disappointments than anything fruitful over the past few months. Nevertheless, I am not giving up at all, still in the midst of “cooking’ up something, let’s see how it goes, working on it and keeping my “cooking style and methods” correct. Here’s a clue, it can be found here inside my photography/travel website/blog article.
Reducing time spent
A recent spate of events, happenings over the past few months, made me reflect upon some organisations, people, what they had done. Things change, directions change, people change, for all the hard work put in previously for them and there were no monetary value involved, it seemed that they have totally forgotten about all the efforts that I produced for them.
Therefore, this is now the time to reduce my time spent on them, instead, I would devote time to projects, things that I care for more deeply inside my heart, mind and soul. Now is also the time to spend more time on myself and protect myself against nasty people, self proclaimed gurus.
With a number of thoughts, topics of interest and updates, I didn’t go into in-depth analysis for some of them. I might look into some of them into greater details and analysis, if my time allows and I have a strong interest to go in-depth into them.
A reminder to myself to keep learning and improving, no matter how difficult and tough this journey that I chose to embark on.