Thinking Layers

Hi friends,

Today I want to talk about the classic mistake that I usually make, which is to assume that things will be okay without doing any preparations on my side.

There have been several occasions throughout this holiday that has made me a little frustrated with myself due to some turn of events that could easily be avoided if I've had put just a little more effort to ensure that things will be alright. Some example includes, glancing through the map of a building, taking into account the distance of one destination to the next, the peak period of the crowds depending on location and timing, the duration that I'll go on without food and etc. As a result of not going through that extra steps of preparation, I find myself in some slight inconveniences such as, getting lost in a building/place, walking when I should be taking the bus, burrowing through the scuffle crowds, getting a slight headache due to hunger and etc.

So the lesson for me here is to always take that extra step to ensure that things will indeed go well. However, when I take this lesson to the extreme spectrum, how much is too much when it comes to preparedness? I like to call this approach as the thinking layers. So the idea is that every questions that I think about in terms of preparing myself, that's a level of thinking layer that I've made. So the more question/solution/preparations that I'm taking from my initial condition, that's an additional layers I'm progressing. I've had a personal threshold that has been set by my physical self based on my own capability through experience and that threshold is only three layers. So here's an example from one of my most recent experience.

The situation is that I'm stranded on a train platform due to some technical issue. Only short bounds are permitted. Long bounds are still in the unknown in terms of when's the next available coach are available.

So in this particular situation, there are two things that I can do, either stay and wait for the next available train or to travel to nearest main station to see other means of transportation. Waiting in the current station has its benefits due to its relatively location that is nearer to the previous main station. So if any emergency train that's going to come, the current station provide convenience in terms of guaranteed seats available. However, the second option which is to travel to the next short bound main station has its benefits as well in terms of the variety of options available. So what options are there?

So here's where I've ventured into the second layer of getting myself prepared, taking that extra step to ensure that I have enough information to proceed with any decision making.

The next short bound main station has options for taxis, busses and hotels. Mind you that the distance between that main station to my Airbnb was about 50 km. So where do I go from here? At this point, everyone is already restless due to the uncertainty. Tired, hungry and a little cranky because of the hectic all around. Not to mention that I kinda have four choices to evaluate before making the best decision. Should I,

Wait for the next available train with no certainty of when?

Take a taxi from the train station to the nearest available train station near town? (So instead of travelling 50 km straight to Airbnb, it's only about 40 km to nearest city station to take the train there to Airbnb).

Take a bus to the city station? Cheapest but the most time consuming option with an additional two hours journey.

Crash at the cheapest hotel available and avoid all the pandemonium by starting fresh again first thing tomorrow?

Also bear in mind that I'm travelling in a group here where the age gap varies. So taking that into the equation, considerations must be made in terms of mobility and group expenses.

And now, having all this information in mind, for me to get the definitive answer, it all boils down to two factors, the cheapest most time effective solution.

At this point, I have to dive down to the third layer of thinking/preparations. Not gonna lie, I was at my wits end by this juncture. Each options need to satisfy the question of "How much would this cost me?" and "How much is the time-frame for me to allocate?". Here's the conclusion by the end of getting those questions answered.

Hotels are the most expensive considering there is a whole accommodation cost on top of what was initially just transportation cost. But it gives me the highest peace of mind in exchange for the steep price. At that breaking point, this option looks like the most tantalizing one.

Taxis are the next in line for the most expensive option. To give you and idea of how expensive it was, before I got stranded on the train station, I went to the outskirts of town which is approximately 100 km from my Airbnb. It was a round trip so in terms of distance traveled, it is 200 km. And the cost of the taxi is almost equal to the price of my trip to the outskirt. Just the thought of this could make me go bonkers! Oh and the price for the hotel? It is more than twice as much as my round trip to the outskirts. Which I could kinda half-heartedly agree because it was for accommodations afterall.

Next, most cheapest option is riding the bus to the central station in town. It's what you'd expect for a one-way bus trip but the journey takes approximately two hours. And that's only to the central station. It's going to take another one hour, considering the large crowds, to go to my Airbnb area. So it was highly unfavorable, time-wise.

The thing that went through my mind at this point was just to hope for the best. I decided to take the taxi option but to always be on the lookout for the emergency coach coming by. Every now and then, I would eavesdrop on the officers to listen if there's any emergency coach approaching because taking the longbound train is the best option still if there was no technical errors.

The only thing that kept me going was hope.

In this scenario, no matter how bleak things get, I have to always be on the move, searching for the next best thing, and hoping for the best.

As I was already on the long queue for the taxi, I decided to head to the tracks for one more time to listen to any incoming emergency longbound train.

Thankfully several were already on its way and we hit the ground running towards the line for the emergency train. At this point, I thought that, "If I have to go down one more thinking layer, I'll be done for it." So all in all, what was initially supposed to be two hours trip to home, turned into about a five hours trip.

The greatest lessons from this experience are hope and thinking layers.

Thanks for reading, friends. I've been pretty sinful in terms of proofreading my post lately because I'm just feeling a little lazy. But hopefully you'll get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

Cheers!

Cost Of Convenience

Hi friends,

Today has been pretty hectic because it is almost at the end of my travel and I just had a hit of realization that my time here will end. As such, loads of things that haven't been done yet must be compressed into whatever time that is left.

As a result of such hastefulness, it has created a daily journey that often involves ad hoc detours because eureka moments often comes at the eleventh hour. Having heavily reliant on public transportation, these ah hoc detours has caused a lot of unexpected cost. It has, to a point, that I have maxed out the daily quota which automatically turned my pass into a daily pass. I'm very thankful for this auto switch to daily pass because if I were to just continue with those detours, the cost would rack up to almost twice as the daily pass. 

This incident has got me thinking, the calculations I made for the transportation cost, with specific destinations, was definitely cheaper than the daily pass. Further calculations also shows that it is much cheaper than the weekly pass. However, it has left me with little room to wiggle with. The assumptions made was limited for one travel destinations daily only. With that as the base of my assumptions, any detours made would compromise the overall transportation cost. As a result, if I ever maxed out my transportation cost to a daily pass for more than three times, it would change the cost-benefit analysis to value the weekly pass instead. This would certainly defeat the purpose of choosing the pay-as-you go method. 

So this whole incident has got me thinking about the cost of convenience. If in the first place I opted for the weekly pass, I wouldn't have to get all worked up with those unexpected detours. Which route I take? At what time (peak hours or non peak hours)? How many stops and at which zones? Using which vehicle methods? All those questions would be something I wouldn't have to think about because I'll have unlimited access to all of them. Thus, to attain that state of mind where I'm worry free about transportation cost, I would have to pay extra for that. That extra cost is what I refer to as the convenient cost. At this stage of life, where my purchasing power is not at the level where I could afford that high level of convenience, I have to be a good planner to maximize the value of my money spent by strategising my routes. However, one day when I do have the purchasing power, I would not hesitate to spend a little extra for convenience because part of the factor that makes a great vacation is to worry less about small matters and enjoy the moment at hand.

This is a reminder to myself to work hard and smart so that I can afford the weekly pass for convenience.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Thoughts Over The Vacation

Hello friends,

Here are some of the thoughts that have been lingering on my mind throughout my vacation.

1. The most optimized solution isn't necessarily the best solution. Handling different currencies has given me some polarizing thoughts of which is the best action I should follow in terms of maximizing my monetary value. I just realized that money changers generally doesn't accept coins. Only paper money is accepted due to the ease of handling paper money. As such, my priorities in every expenditure would be to finish off the coins first before using a bank note, whenever possible. So I've been thinking of ways to solve this coins issue because to think of finishing off coins is more cumbersome than I expected due to some currencies has up to eight coin denominations. Very confusing to juggle all that denominations especially when you're at the cashier with a huge line behind you. So the solution I found is to use a credit card. Some online materials suggest that a credit card would be the go-to method for managing expenditure because it doesn't involve physical currency and each transaction would be recorded. So you'll know where your money goes. However, the downside of it is that the bank fees could be ridiculous so the total would be expensive. There is a solution for this one as well which involves using the BigPay card. It works like a debit card but the most intriguing aspect of using it is that it's from mastercard so pretty much it is accepted almost everywhere. So at this juncture, I've been thinking, which approach is the most optimized way? Should I spend more on the credit card bank fees and earn credit card points along the way OR should I try my best to reduce the cost in total and use BigPay/cash by hedging the bank fees and choosing the best exchange rate? In order to get the definite answer to this, I figured that I need to know the worth of the credit card points and the amount of money I saved in exchange rates and bank fees. However even then, the answer couldn't be definitive because there are certain cases where the shops/restaurant itself would make customers pay for the 2% transaction fees because they do not want to carry that cost on their side. Seeing the time I've spent deep diving into the hole of finding the most optimized solution has cost me unnecessary feeling of restlessness because I'm not optimizing the cost at its best. Thus, for the time being, the conclusion I have for myself is to carry currencies in cash or in BigPay debit. The reason being, cash in hands gives me more sense of solitude knowing that it is accepted without any stipulations being imposed on credit cards. I would say that it is only favorable for me to use credit cards is when the points per ringgit spend is several multiples so that the amount redeemable has a higher value.
2. The entertainment bubble. Yesterday evening, we went downtown to enjoy the ambiance of the Friday night. Observing variety of ways the locals carry themselves into the bubble of entertainment. Everything was very lively and I realized that this part of life, embracing the bubble of entertainment, may be one of the most important thing I need in life. Currently, I would say that I have several bubbles in my life that I denote as very important as pillars of the well-being of my life. I have my running bubble, aquponics/sustainable sytem bubble, blogging bubble and finance/investing bubble. All those bubble are crucial as the general traits that mold me into a better person. However, it lacks entertainment. A bubble that I truly reserve for my source of joy and indulge. I get that happiness is created and the source could be everything, but I seek the happiness that I know I can turn to whenever I feel like it. There's not many thing that I find great joy in doing but I guess the quest to identify that joy starts now. Shopping or arts? Maybe?
3. Compartmentalize my brain to focus on one thing at a time. I noticed that some people are able to channel their energy and focus into doing one thing. Regardless of the outcome, the process of focusing on doing one task makes the whole journey a more meaningful one. I've been thinking of reason why some are better at doing this while others, like me, are struggling a bit in doing so. The reason I conjured up so far is that they are able to block out other distractions, even though there are a lot to think about of the process, and just look at that one particular task at hand. There are always things to think about, to plan, to research before doing anything. So if I could just accept the fact that those things will come, why worry about its coming? It's better to stay composed and let it come and just be ready when the time has come. In other words, I'll put that future thing in the next compartment in my brain and focus only on the current compartment I'm looking.

That is all for today. More to come hopefully. Thanks for visiting, friends!

Value Of 1 Cent

Hi friends,

Back again with another observation I made during this holiday.

It's very interesting to see the set of skills that the locals acquired as a result of adapting to their surrounding. The skill that I'm most marveled at is talking in a noisy environment. Pretty much the places I've been around here are tourist attractions and naturally there are loads of noises going around. The chatter of the people, public performances, roadside sellers yelling to attract buyers and etc. It's pretty hard to to converse in that sort of environment but I see the locals here having no problems with it. Very interesting indeed.

Another interesting observation is the value of 1 cent in this country. The people here don't round up or round down their prices at store. So if a juice sells for 1.99, it is literally 1.99. In contrast, Malaysia will round up to the nearest 5 cents because they want to stop the circulation of 1 cent due to its low valuation. I certainly have no issue at all with this. It's just a mere observation that I think could evolve to another important worldly view of life.

In particular, the value that I attach to other currency is vastly different that the ringgit. Even for a number as low as 1 cent creates a huge difference in the value that it carries. When I take this to a bigger picture, a lot of questions that comes to mind. How do one place has a stronger currency than the other? How does the cost of living and minimum wage are related? And then some.

Today's post isn't my best one because my train of thoughts aren't as connected as I wanted to. But I'm just going to put my thoughts and observations here.

Thanks for visiting, friends!

Observations On Travel Planning

Hi friends,

It's the holiday season and I'm on vacation now. As an adult, I am more conscious of the flow of money and time committed on this vacation.

As such, I realized now that there is so many room for improvements that I should make. There were some errors that I made that costs me unnecessary expenditure that could easily be avoided if I were to plan properly. So far, here are the areas that I have to have a more thorough thought in the future.

• Public transportation cost - Period pass or pay-as-you-go? At first, the approach for this was easy. If I plan to use public transportation more frequently, period pass is the way to go. But things aren't exactly what it seems. To truly know the worth of a period pass, it is not enough to skim through the general fare price of going on the public transport. The destination matters a lot. So what may initially seem as I have to use a public transport more than 4 times to get a breakeven on the daily pass, it actually depends on destination and which transport I'm using. It's the little things like this that threw me off because I figured that daily pass is always the smarter choice but after doing some calculations, I actually overpaid for it.
• Meals - My initial plan with meal is to bring instant ingredients enough for my days of travel. However, I quickly realize that I didn't take into consideration many other factors such as small snacks during the journey and the challenges when buying groceries. Since I'm pretty much relying on public transport for groceries, especially the wet ones, I am limited to the amount of bags I can carry. This means, I have to take frequent trips to the supermarket which incurs more cost. The plan to combat this issue in the future is to probably buy a ready made food before reaching the vacation destination. That way, it is as easy as heating it up in the microwave and dig in. Initial glance at the cost analysis for this, it makes more sense to buy the ready made food because of the convenience.
• Powerbank - I have 12,000 mAh battery pack that I carry around to charge my phone. At that capacity, I roughly have 4 cycles of charge. However, colder place tends to reduce the charge of my phone  quicker than usual. Thus, if I could, I'll get a higher capacity powerbank next time.

So for now, those are a few things that I want to take note of. There's still much I can do to improve the situation I am in. 

On the bright side, I'm starting to wear a fanny pack during travel. As weird as it seems, it is actually very convenient. I have all the important stuff I need in one place and since it is wrapped around my front body, it will always be visible to me.

Anyway, the ultimate goal is to be a good planner to the point that there will be no ad-hoc expenses.

Thanks for reading, friends. Take care!

Running Progress - November 2019

Hi friends,

Here's a quick update on my running progress in the month of November 2019.

I forgot to save my stats from my Adidas Runtastic app so I just have to write them down manually.

Distance: 90 km
Activities: 13

Duration: 11 hours 48 minutes

Calories: 8320

Average km/activity: 6.92 km

Average min/km: 7.87 min

In essence, I'm quite upset with myself for not hitting the 100 km mark. Early this month my momentum was really good. Too good even that I think I got carried away with the abrupt increase in intensity on my runs. At the end, I got a little burnout and I got lazy. I could definitely do better but I guess this is a setback that I have to own and learn from it.

But on the bright side, my average pace, which is the minutes per kilometer stats, has broken the 8 minutes barrier. I haven't seen that pace since June so I'm glad that I managed to maintain a sub 8 minute pace this month. Will try to maintain this pace for the next month onward.

It's already December and it's the holiday month! That means vacation will definitely mess up with my running routines. As such, I'm planning to dial down on my goal for this month. Instead of hitting 100 km, I want to hit 50 km for the month of December. That's half of what I usually do and I think that that's very attainable. I'm just setting this low bar so that I'm not always in a rush to chase after such a high mileage. 

Also, another reason why I'm targeting 50 km is that I only need 50 km more to hit a total of 1000 km for the year 2019. That is way far than my initial goal of 1200 km for 2019 but I'm still content with this. Looking back at my life, this is the highest mileage I have ever run in a year ever in my life. That itself is a huge achievement for me so that's good news. Well, I'm not going to stop doing this because I want to make this part of my healthy lifestyle. In 2020, I hope to hit 1100 km in total.

Have you reached your 2019's resolutions? What's your plan on improving them in 2020? 

Cheers my friends!

Think About Others, Your Mind Widens

Hi friends,

I've been thinking a lot about Dalai Lama's quote that says, "The moment you think about others, your mind widens."

The more I think of it, the more it rings true to me. Just about this week, I noticed that by thinking about others, I am allocating myself some buffer time to prepare for other instances that might pass by. For example, finishing up my own tasks just a tad bit earlier than everyone else to use up that buffer time monitoring others for purpose of reminding them of certain things or be reminded myself based on what I see. By doing so, I do feel like my mind gets widen due to the inputs I get observing things during that buffer time.

Another thing that I noticed, the more I allocate myself of this buffer time, the more I tend to use them up for preparing myself for future scenarios. This also has helped me expand my mind as I think about possible events that could happen and how I could braze through them without any hiccups; Becoming my own planner for my life with these mini plans. The feeling of being well prepared gives me this soothing feeling and assures my mind that things will be alright because I already have this mental image of how it could/should go.

All this happen because I start to think of others. How they might feel preceding a certain event. How I could optimize the situation to the best of my abilities to make everything a little bit better.

How does thinking about others expands your mind? Hope things get more meaningful for you and others around you.

Thanks for reading my friends.