ASSI celebrates third birthday!

On the Christmas Eve of 2009, ASSI was born. ASSI turns 3 today!

Blogs take a lot of energy and time to maintain. Of course, everyone has only so much energy and time. So, it is not surprising that with changes in one's priorities and interests, the amount of energy and time allocated to different activities in one's life would change.

Some bloggers have become very sporadic in their blogging efforts while others have stopped updating their blogs altogether. Of those who stopped, most just faded away quietly without any announcement or fanfare. Some of these blogs were updated for a few years while some for a few months.

Personally, I have been spending relatively less time blogging compared to when I first started. At various points in time, I also entertained thoughts of taking a long break from blogging for various reasons. Unless blogging is a livelihood, there is really no harm in taking a break from blogging. The fear is how a break could become a permanent leave of absence.

By some accounts, personal blogs which are still actively updated 3 years on are much rarer. ASSI now joins the ranks of these blogs.

This was taken in Shinjuku, Japan, last December.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Related posts:
1. ASSI celebrates second birthday!
2. A sabbatical.
3. Happiness in 2012.
4. Top 1,000 websites in Singapore.
5. My tickets to Value Investing Summit 2013.

Change to become richer. A need or a want?

Much of my writing is geared towards having people making positive changes in their lives. I also blogged about how some people told me that I should have good debt in life and how I have been described by some to have a peasant mentality towards wealth building. Are these people also trying to encourage me to make positive changes in my life?

There are so many types of people in this world all with their own ideas on how things should be. They have their own realities which are very much conditioned by their own beliefs. While it is true that what works for some might not work for others, we do not want to be dismissive. Why? What if it could work for us? We should keep an open mind, shouldn't we?

People often say, "If you don't try, you won't know."

There is a second half to this which is often not said, "Some things, you should not try."

So, we should not blindly adopt ideas and hope that they work for us. Then, how do we know which ideas to try out? There are so many ways to approach this but I feel that "self" is the most important consideration.

Sun Tzu said, "Know thy enemies and know thyself and be victorious in every battle."

We might have also heard the saying, "We are our greatest enemy." So, knowing thyself is more important than knowing thy enemies.

At the very basic level, we have to question our ability to see something through. This is, however, not enough. We also have to question whether we have the temperament to make an idea work for us. If we do not have the right temperament, it would be hard to have a strong will.

So, for example, I keep saying that one should take risk to protect and grow one's wealth but should a risk averse person do this? His temperament is clearly against this. Even if he had the ability to do this, he might not have the will to do so. He would worry too much and could suffer from anxiety.

Now, I have a preference not to have debt in my life, given a choice. I like the peace of mind that comes from being debt free.

To anyone who is thinking of taking on more risk, a pertinent question to ask is, therefore, how much risk would our temperament allow us to take on comfortably. Then, ask if we are willing to push beyond the limits of our comfort zones.

All of us would like to be comfortable in life. Is there any reasonable person who would rather be uncomfortable? However, sometimes, we cannot afford the comfort and that is when we would have to go out of our comfort zones. Sometimes, we are forced to make changes.

So, some need to change to become richer while some do not need to change to become richer although they might want to change to become richer. To change or not to change? This could be a question of necessity for some and a question of desire for others.

Related posts:
1. Good debt is always good?
2. To be a happy peasant.
3. Money making.
4. Three point turn.
5. A good cat.