streetperson

It’s amazing how dots connect. Three weeks ago, through a series of coincidences, I attended a Wealth Management Course — The Wealth Academy, run by the Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group — that focussed on wealth creation and management, with specific emphasis on investment instruments in the stock market.

It was really a first for me, in a long time, to venture beyond what was familiar, to break routine, to pay for a 3-1/2 day course when i could hardly claim to have been a model student in school, having only attended lectures during the final term in my entire tenure at NTU. So there I was, prepared to pick up a subject that I had brushed off time and time again. What was amazing was the series of events that took place, that led to the group of people who came together, now fondly known as the “Think Different” group. People whom I had met separately under different circumstances during the 3.1/5 days who just naturally came together when the call was made.

So here we are, we had our first informal get-together/excursion to the beach last Sunday. We’ve shared our live-stories and aspirations. And it’s just amazing how we have such a diverse group of people — I have a good feeling about the group, for all the diversity, there is a reason that we have come together. We are 9 members right now, with a possible 10th member, when the recommendation was to not have more than 8. But when pieces of the jigsaw seem to fit so well, if there be ten, there will be ten.

The dots will connect.

Where will we head? I don’t know. I DO know that we each have a lot to offer to each other, richness of our experiences and spirit to forge ahead through unchartered territories.

I started with some healthy level of skepticism (can that be?) — I’m looking forward to a great 18 months ahead, and more beyond that.

Made a major decision last weekend, to sell the Hollandswood Court Apartment. It was time to move on, the signs were all there, the stars were aligned.

It was love at first sight when I first saw the apartment 2 years ago, the first apartment I came to look at when we decided to buy and after 6 weeks of apartment-hunting, I came back to this one. It was a little over our initial budget but there wasn’t another that came so close to what I was looking for to call a home.

Since then it had evolved, the plants have grown, the koi are huge and we have all settled in nicely. Nice little routines each day, sending G to work, walking the dogs, feeding the fish, watering the plants and then settling down to work. It’s a nice little hole in the sky to call our own.

The apartment has been really good to us, for all the things that it’s not, it’s everything that it needs to be, a place to come back to, a place to have friends over, for dinner, drinks or simply a game of mahjong. A sanctuary, just at the edge of the city, close enough to be convenient, far enough to be away from the crowd.

The time has come to move on, all happy banquets must come to an end. The market is right, the timing written in the stars. For the short 1.5 years that we’ve been here, we’ve had fantastic memories. Already strangers are coming into our home, and one day it will be a great home to one of them. Already I’m starting my hunt again, for the next place for friends and kin — and it will present itself, just as this one did and it will be a love affair all over again.

I think I am a naturally gregarious person. Outwardly rather reserved in nature but I absolutely love to meet people. It’s always amazing when we discover others and how their lives have been, in the exchanges that take place in the process of becoming friends. The similarities that are discovered and the differences that make us the unique individuals that we are.

I like being with people, being around people or interacting with them. Everyone has a story to tell. Personal accounts and experiences. Of laughter and tears, of celebration, of sorrow.

Over the years I guess I have made my share of friends, met hundreds of people, some of whom have endured and gone beyond being mere acquiantances to soulmates and friends who have been there for me, who have stood by me when the going was tough. People who know my deepest darkest secrets and yet accept every single bit of me. Makes life really a less lonely journey to take.

At the end of the day, when I look back, I think it will be nice to remember the lives and people whom I have touched and hopefully made a positive difference to, but most of all, I think I will appreciate the people who have touched mine and made it all so worthwhile. Friendship should be a continuing celebration, for the immense value that we fail to see or take for granted most of the time.

So I want to say thank you.

Thank you to friends who have been there. With their quiet smiles and unspoken support.

Thank you to critics and nay-sayers who’ve told me the many many things that cannot be done, that gave me that extra push to prove them wrong.

To friends who didn’t know how to be nice but were brutally honest instead. Who showed me the stupid things I did, and congratulated me on the right choices I made, without judgement.

To people who are friends for a reason, and to those who will be just here for a season. There’s a purpose in everything, for all the we do not see or understand. Thank you.