Losing Track of Your (Financial) Purpose
The thing about drafting a blog post is that it isn't like posting instastories - you don't get that instant gratification, and if you let your thoughts sit around for a bit, the feelings of jotting it down start dissipating.
So that kinda explains my (almost) 2-month long hiatus from this space. I had these fleeting thoughts about life and such (#adulting, y'know. life thoughts errday everyday), but my mentally exhausted self couldn't find that motivation on weekdays. We all read articles on the routines of billionaires, them waking up in the wee hours of the morning and breaking their days into chunks of productive work, and I'm like "ok. I can never be like them.".
Anyway, I woke up this Sunday morning to lovely weather, and felt extra happy to snooze in bed without an alarm. I ate my breakfast at 10:30, and while working through the meal, I had a sudden thought about the productivity these billionaires had. Though I mostly enjoy sleeping in on the weekends, I do sometimes think of how these hours spent in bed could potentially be turned into hours of productivity, and ultimately becoming little building blocks of my eventual 'success'.
It's weird but I kinda feel like I'm losing track of my financial goals.
I started my post-graduation journey feeling very motivated, excited to use my youth as my advantage, to learn as much as I could so that I could have a 'head-start' with these newly gained knowledge. However, it feels like thoughts like these have taken a backseat recently. The desire to swim against the current has always been purely self-driven - people around me seem settled with the fact that they are going to be part of the norm. Advancing through the career ladder, settle down with kids, retire at 65 with a fat cpf account. I have always felt like the only one wanting to do something different, and lead another version of life. I've been seeking motivation from people online, keeping a lookout for a like-minded community, which undoubtedly provides a level of reassurance and inspiration.
However, on days where I don't remind myself of what I ultimately want, I feel like I slip comfortably back to square one. Sometimes, I have thoughts of being okay with where I am. Hustling along with life, safe in this comfort zone. Getting used to the notion of having Monday blues, and looking forward to weekends. And this scares me. It scares me knowing that if I don't want something hard enough, I might just lose sight of it.
All these while, I have been focusing on saving, learning the basics of investing, learning to stretch my dollar through the various apps, finding tips and tricks of credit card rebates and such. Even though it always feels shiok to see that money credited to your Shopback account, or seeing the figures in your bank account slowly climbing up, it sometimes feels like I'm getting nowhere with it.....? Not sure whether it even makes sense. It's like you are painting this huge painting with this incredibly tiny brush, and you wonder how long it's gonna take for the painting to be completed. Or whether it'll even turn out to be a decent painting.
And it feels like if I don't remind myself of this big goal that I have, I might just slip back to being a regular wage slave, struggling to survive in SG. Clocking in and out through my daily life, doing what I told myself I should never do. :'(
What a scary thought huh?
This journey is indeed a marathon. So how do you keep the momentum, and the drive to do so?
So that kinda explains my (almost) 2-month long hiatus from this space. I had these fleeting thoughts about life and such (#adulting, y'know. life thoughts errday everyday), but my mentally exhausted self couldn't find that motivation on weekdays. We all read articles on the routines of billionaires, them waking up in the wee hours of the morning and breaking their days into chunks of productive work, and I'm like "ok. I can never be like them.".
Anyway, I woke up this Sunday morning to lovely weather, and felt extra happy to snooze in bed without an alarm. I ate my breakfast at 10:30, and while working through the meal, I had a sudden thought about the productivity these billionaires had. Though I mostly enjoy sleeping in on the weekends, I do sometimes think of how these hours spent in bed could potentially be turned into hours of productivity, and ultimately becoming little building blocks of my eventual 'success'.
It's weird but I kinda feel like I'm losing track of my financial goals.
I started my post-graduation journey feeling very motivated, excited to use my youth as my advantage, to learn as much as I could so that I could have a 'head-start' with these newly gained knowledge. However, it feels like thoughts like these have taken a backseat recently. The desire to swim against the current has always been purely self-driven - people around me seem settled with the fact that they are going to be part of the norm. Advancing through the career ladder, settle down with kids, retire at 65 with a fat cpf account. I have always felt like the only one wanting to do something different, and lead another version of life. I've been seeking motivation from people online, keeping a lookout for a like-minded community, which undoubtedly provides a level of reassurance and inspiration.
However, on days where I don't remind myself of what I ultimately want, I feel like I slip comfortably back to square one. Sometimes, I have thoughts of being okay with where I am. Hustling along with life, safe in this comfort zone. Getting used to the notion of having Monday blues, and looking forward to weekends. And this scares me. It scares me knowing that if I don't want something hard enough, I might just lose sight of it.
All these while, I have been focusing on saving, learning the basics of investing, learning to stretch my dollar through the various apps, finding tips and tricks of credit card rebates and such. Even though it always feels shiok to see that money credited to your Shopback account, or seeing the figures in your bank account slowly climbing up, it sometimes feels like I'm getting nowhere with it.....? Not sure whether it even makes sense. It's like you are painting this huge painting with this incredibly tiny brush, and you wonder how long it's gonna take for the painting to be completed. Or whether it'll even turn out to be a decent painting.
And it feels like if I don't remind myself of this big goal that I have, I might just slip back to being a regular wage slave, struggling to survive in SG. Clocking in and out through my daily life, doing what I told myself I should never do. :'(
What a scary thought huh?
This journey is indeed a marathon. So how do you keep the momentum, and the drive to do so?
Hi Mel, I understand what you're going through. As a male going through NS about to ORD. Seeing my colleagues all plan for university, is disheartening to my own goals to self educate as an artist. I think to myself if I ought to drop the struggles and to simply follow the herd. Maybe I'm just a fool who's drunk in pursuit of his personal goals. But I wouldn't want to have regrets not doing the things I wanted to. And I suppose that just keeps me chugging along.
ReplyDeleteIt's not much, but I hope from a struggling millennial to another. It reassures to know you're not alone in this.
Good luck!
I feel it's ok to drop off every once in awhile unless you're extremely disciplined. As long as you took the first step in the right direction to take charge of your pers fin, wherever you slack off, you can pick it up right from the bat. Life is a marathon not a sprint.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who came out to work not too long ago, I also get the feeling that i'm not hungry enough. I feel it's not something you can change instantly, so i'm happy enough that I took baby steps in the direction of my goals. Someday i'll get there.
All best to each of us!
P.S. I try to complete more tasks whenever I'm in the motivated mood.