About Me

Dear readers,

I was an IT executive for a year and currently I'm working as a control engineer. My journey as a working adult has made me realize that there are unprecedented wealth of knowledge in the world and I've barely scratched the surface of it. 

Not long ago I came across the psychological concept called the Dunning-Kruger effect. It essentially illustrates the cognitive phase of people throughout their journey in gaining knowledge. 

Safe to say that in these past two years, my experience as a working adult has humbled me in many ways. I now have a newfound respect for people who are really grinding their way to make ends meet. My admiration for them grows deeper especially when they have found their true calling in what they do. I too aspire to find my own meaning in life and live through it in full content; Living through my own Ikigai.

At this current stage, "Valley of Despair", I have trained myself to be an open book. I've set aside all feeling of self-entitlement and to really accept constructive criticism in going through the learning curve of life. I'm willing to learn everything and anything in life and I humbly ask for your guidance. 

In the current state of the world right now, the only thing that keeps me going is my family. They are my strongest WHY. The reason why I wake up in the morning and work. The reason why I strive to be a better person and practice the habit of aggregation of marginal gain. The strongest WHY to get me through any hardships in this world.

I seek to throw myself out there and squeeze all the opportunities that life has to offer. I appreciate all guidance and help that I can get and looking forward to more adventures ahead!

Things I Want To Do

Hello world,

I'm a huge fan of the idea of optimization. Anything optimization related can get me excited and that includes, the idea of refurbishing, restoring or recycling. Thus, I want to list the activities that I would like to do or learn because I feel like this will give me happiness.

1. Urban farming and aquaponics
2. Repairing/refurbishing laptop, desktop, phones and gaming consoles.
3. Car maintenance/upgrade.
4. Home automization for efficiency
5. Health activity progress.
6. Furniture and general carpenting.

Here's the list that I could came up at this point of time. I wish to be the jack of all trades in these areas because I will feel happy if I can create things using my hands.

Thanks for dropping by!

Identity

Hi friends,

Have you ever wondered who you truly are? If you were to describe yourself, how would you put it into words?

I've been referring to few key interest in my life as my 'life bubbles'. However, recently I've been listening to podcast about life optimization and they were discussing about the the idea of designing your life. Part of the conversation stems around focusing on doing the things that reinforce your identity.

Identity here essentially means the meaningful things you do most in life.

I think that this is the more appropriate language for me to use when describing my 'life bubbles'. Now, what's my identity?

I want to be a runner, a personal finance enthusiast, a macro-value investor, an optimizer in life and a nice person.

That is what I want right now.

What's your identity?

Pulling Your Lever

Hi friends,

I just cut my nails and now it feels so comfortable to type on my keyboard!

I've been trying to get myself to listen to podcast again. I really love the idea of having background sounds to fill-in the silence while also teaching me a thing or two about life.

Recently, I've been binge listening to The Motley Fool content. In general, their topic of discussion revolves around personal finance, investing, and a little bit of insight into the whole causes and effects of the economy. 

One of the things that I distinctively remember in one of their episodes was about your ability to "pull the lever" in order to react based on your current financial circumstances. 

Some simple examples of pulling the lever includes, cashing out any profitable investment to keep extra cash at hand or to divert all incoming dividends income towards your emergency fund to beef up your cash cushion. These are the most typical lever that you could pull in order to sleep better in this tough times.

After listening to that episode, it gave me the motivation to take advantage during this crisis. Things will ultimately get worse before it gets better. As of right now, I am consistently deploying extra cash into my emergency fund and into the market. The amounts are small but I believe that building this habit will instill proper attitude towards building wealth. This is the lever I chose to pull.

Making progress in this matter is the only thing I look forward to everyday.

I hope you have your own thing to look forward to after pulling your lever in life. Cheers!

Al-Insyirah

Hi friends,

Fear has engulfed me this past few days. I'm constantly worried about many stuff.

1. Facing a berated supervisor.
2. Not performing at work.
3. Getting fired.
4. Living through this excruciating work for the rest of my life.
5. Getting sick.
6. Family getting infected with the coronavirus.
7. Family losing their source of income.
8. Living through a cycle of stress due to inconvenient circumstances created by this constant worry.

I boast myself to be the source of positive vibe. I like to believe that I have a positive factory within me that can constantly churn out positivity whenever I need some morale boost. However, lately it seems like churning out those positivity seems to get a little bit harder as day goes by. 

I wish for many things right now so that I could feel better about myself and for the things around me. But I know nothing will come if I don't work for it.

So this is me telling myself, to trust the process. To go through the learning curve of adapting to life, to the best of my ability. Or at least as consistently as I can possibly commit. 

Because for every hardship comes ease. Verily, with hardship comes ease.

Idea Of Being Energy Efficient

Hi friends,

I hope you are doing well. I hope that this pandemic hasn't extinguish that flame hope for a better future. News are getting scarier by day. Best for us to block the negativity and focus on the things within our control. Practicing good hygiene, having a still mind and always on the move making progress in your everyday routine. 

In the spirit of making progress, I'm here today to write about some ideas that I've been having in mind. Ideas that spurs based on real life situation that forced me to think about what I can do to make everything a little better. 

The weather is getting hotter here in Malaysia and it seems like the heatwave is never ending. I can feel that it's getting worse because I've been sweating just by laying in my bed. As such, this has got me thinking, "Why is my room so hot?"

The most prominent reason that threw itself at me was that my room has poor ventilation. It only has one large window but that window is most of the time kept closed. Since the window is just beside my bed, keeping it open when I'm asleep would be a huge safety hazard. That's why, I have came up with several solutions to overcome this problem. I may or may not act on this solution because I don't have the financial means for that. But I do like to think about this because it gives me some sense of satisfaction.

Since the biggest constraint in this situation is the financial means, lets start with the easiest most cost effective ways of solving the heat problem in my room. Then, we'll gradually proceed with other potential solutions that could be better than the cheaper alternative.

1. Putting an exhaust fan. The purpose of an exhaust fan is to draw hot air out from your room. So ideally, an exhaust fan should be placed at a higher level and facing towards the side of the building with the largest wind blow. Hot air rises and thus the exhaust fan will suck the air out from the room and be carried away by the wind. In theory, this should at least balance out the temperature inside and outside of the room. If we want to go a step better, you can opt for a dual direction version of an exhaust fan. Not only it can suck air out from the room, it could also suck cold air in from the outside at night time. The best way to operate this is to attach a timer that automatically changes direction of air intake every 12 hours.
2. Evaporative cooler system. I got this inspiration after buying a mini air cooler. The idea behind this evaporative cooler is that there's a damped layer of honeycomb textured paper behind the blade of a fan. So when the blade spins, it pulls the "coldness" from the damped honeycomb layer. Thus, blowing cool air. This takes a step higher than an exhaust fan because there's a step incorporated that tries to introduce cool air in a room. However, the challenge on operating an evaporative cooler is that it needs water to dampen the honeycomb layer for the presence of cool air. Hence, for the system to be fully automated, it needs to be connected to a water source where a buoy can control the amount of water in its tank. Slightly complicated but works significantly well than a regular fan. There's also the aspect of ensuring the water is cooled for maximum cooling effect. Easiest way is to put cool substance such as frozen bottle of liquid and change it from time to time. If you'd like to push this idea a little bit further, you can create another system for creating this chilled water by running the water underground, storing it in a tank, let the heat from the water dissipate into the ground, then pumps the relatively chilled water back up into the evaporative cooler tank. Another aspect to think about when installing an evaporative cooling system is to decide on the cool air distribution into the room. Will it be through a duct being wrapped around the walls of the room or from a central opening to the middle of the room? Considerations such as air volumes, dead zones and cooling time should be examined here. Personally, since my room is small, a single blowing vent is enough to keep the room cool with the expense of air circulation. However, a simple wall mount fan could easily increase air circulation.
3. Mini air conditioner. Air conditioner is pretty self explanatory but I don't prefer the typical split units you see in the market. If I could, I want an AC that doesn't consume a lot of power and it should be as efficient as possible. But usually the only logical AC that fits this mold is a portable one and even then, it still has its limitations such as slow cooling effect relative. 

This whole post might seem an overkill for a simple problem. One could easily put in a good quality ceiling fan and get it over with. However, my dream is to have my own system of ventilation that perform its function well while being energy efficient. I dream of connecting it to a solar system that comes with huge packs of batteries. For the time being, I dream to have a separate solar system where it could just be a few panels hooked up to a solar generator. I feel like that could be a good start before having a total solar system integrated with a house and the grid. 

That's all the thoughts I have to write today. Thanks for reading, friends. Stay safe!

Pause And Some Reflection

Hi friends,

Lets take a pause so that I can reflect on my game plan in investing.

I'll ask myself a series of questions that would help convey a good idea behind my journey towards financial independence.

As I'm starting to write this, the time is 4.38 PM. It's 30th March 2020 on Monday. Typing from the sofa of my livingroom due to this Restriction Movement Order (RMO).

What do I really want right now?
I want to come out ahead in this recession.

How do I mean by that?
I want to be part owner of a good business that gives out dividends and appreciate in price over time. Buy low, hold, collect dividends, sell high.

Why do I want it?
I want to be ahead in this recession because I see this as the best and rare opportunity for me to build my wealth. The earlier I start, the lower the share price I buy, the better the chances for me to succeed.

How do I plan to do this?
I plan to dollar cost average throughout this recession. Ideally, committing to a weekly purchase but also setting aside some reserve for lump sum capital deployment when share price hits a certain lower limit. The lower the price goes, the bigger the lump sum payment I plan to commit.

Where am I getting the capital?
30% out of my salary and dipping into savings for the small lump sum deployment.

Why do I want to be rich?
I don't want to be financially dependent on other people. I don't want to live paycheck to paycheck. I don't want to owe anyone before getting money. I want to live off of my investments' dividends. I don't want to get taxed because I prefer community donations. I want a passive income.

What will you get out of this?
I will get the peace of mind because I will be stable financially. I will expand my options in terms of careers. I will also expand the activities in life and experience.

In conclusion, this recession is also the best time for me to build a habit of committing to a framework in regards to investment.

That is all. Thanks for reading!