Daily Lesson from Life 22 January 2009

The headline budget is Singapore 2009 Budget with S$20.5B of Resilience Package! And the fact that the government will dip into the reserve for the first time to the tune of S$5+b.

But I will not blog about the budget. Instead I like to share my thoughts on money and life after meeting 2 young ladies this evening.

It is hard to be a lady. I admit that even though I am a man. In the urban society, expectations for what a woman should be doing and can be are simply too much. Overly demanding for sure. A woman has to be a wife, a mother and a good worker. Not to mention good friend!

The man seems to have it easy as long as he brings in the bacon! No expectation to do house work, look after and teach the kids, no housing clearing, etc...

Well, that is the modern man trapped in the old traditional values! Modern man with modern values will be one who will help in the house chores, even enjoy cooking a meal or two, be a good husband and good father and good son.

So, lessons for me are:

1. there is no stereotyping. You must not allowed that to happen! If you are woman, do not just do the woman things! If you are a man, do not just do the man things! Have a mix whenever possible. It will be good for the soul!;

2. to do all that and more, there is a need to master prioritization since ALL of us are given 24 hours a day! Learning to prioritize if important. Also we must appreciate that priorities change in different time of the day and different time of the week or month or year! Prioritize with flexibility but make sure you finished the initial tasks prioritized instead of going from one incomplete task to another!;

3. young people have to be positive about the future. If you are not, if you concede defeat at the fist difficult hurdle, then your future will be bleak! Set a goal. Set it higher so that you need to stretch to achieve it. Focus on achieving the goal and evaluation what you have now and what you need to achieve the goals. Give yourself permission to pursue the goals with earnestness. Enable yourself and execute! Reward yourself each time you achieve a small milestone to keep up the momentum. With persistence and commitment, you will get there. Maybe with a twist and turn here and there. You will get there!

May all young and restless people see that there is a bright future if you take proactive actions to envision, enable, empower, execute and energize!