Pensive Reflections
2015 is closing shop soon.
2016 will bloom in a bit.
I’ll be one year older – 38 to 39. What have I achieved?
Not much honestly. More than that, I’m at the age where I am quite nostalgic (although not as hairy) about easier older times. I suspect that most of you would be too.
As such, I’m casting eye back on my ages to see what I’ve grown into.
Ages | Main Activity | Looking Back | Regrets |
21 to 25 Study |
University. Got a girl, lost a girl, made out with some. | Fresh out of the army and into NUS (Computing).
Hung around the pink tables and yakked the day away. Felt proud that I could hold my alcohol. Lots of parties – whee! Decided on three things to try after I graduated: teaching, IT, and writing. |
I wished to have learnt how to think, dissect and construct arguments, hypotheses and experiments.
I had focused too much on University being the “it’s the last stop before the real working world”and hence played too much after my first (most intense) year. |
26 to 30 Experiments |
Worked as a programmer & teacher. Did a writing internship. Took 6 months off to travel. |
I couldn’t figure out code. It felt dry, lifeless and lacked humanity. (Ironic that I now see people as the problem mostly.)
I was – and still am – curmudgeonly, stand-offish and wanted to be a leader, regardless of whether I am correct. Best parts of this period: 1. Writing internship at I-S This was one of my best eras – I was rocking a power-packed body that could do anything that I asked of it. |
Again, I wished that I had spent less and invested more.
I wished that I had taken all those relationship red flags seriously. It would have helped me to deal with people. And perhaps I’ll be less stressed out in the future. |
31 to 35 | Returned from travels. Became a travel writer. Became an online editor. Stepped into an Account Director’s role
Buried myself into work |
My first foray into advertising and marketing with Saatchi and Saatchi as a social media guy. I kept on working with editorial but soon I was disillusioned by the amount of work for very little pay.
Hence I supplemented it with freelance work. I took on anything and everything. Sometimes working up to 12 hours a day for months on the end. Resulting in a nice nest egg. But by the time, 35 came around, I was burnt out from working and working and working. Unlike previous eras, I started investing – even though it was haphazard, clearly too ambitious, and hopelessly emotional. |
I wished I had gone out and made more good friends, not just drinking buddies.
I wished kept all of my dividend stocks. And I wished that I had experimented with getting my writings out there instead of just writing to a brief. |
36 to 38 | Retrenched. Joined a digital agency. Doing Strategy and Inbound Marketing. Learning data science | I’ve researched and made pitches, and did some data analytics.
My investments are paying off now – they cover my monthly cost. |
I wish that I’m doing something useful instead of marketing.
I wish that I don’t have to deal with clients or people in general. I wished I could take a few years off. |