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The Zen Life: Slow Down Sunday, May 11, 2008 | Work I've been reading some books and online articles on how to improve my quality of life by slowing down. So here's a short story of how some small things seem to have changed my life bit by bit...2007 was a crazy year. I joined a new company, worked overtime almost everyday, did midnight conference calls to the US about twice a week on average and even stayed over at the office once. Things started to take a toll on my life. I had less time with my girlfriend and family, I spent lots of money on cab or parking since I work late and wake up late, I eat unhealthy food every day or eat at odd hours, I never exercise and almost stopped my RC and music hobbies. To break out of the madness, I usually get out of home on weekends to hang out with friends - I spent money on movies, LAN games and fancy dining. Towards the end of the year, I had to take a compulsory 1 week off from work which was meant for a holiday break, but instead I spent the week covering for my mobile phone retail store partner who went on a holiday. At the end of the year I realized that a year has passed but I haven't really saved a single cent or taken a break, so I reflected a little and thought about the things that happened - is all this money chase worth it? People tend to talk about "financial freedom", but I found out what it really means is to have freedom of time. You can have all the money in the world, but time, my friend, waits for no man. Ironically true for my case also; without time, I didn't have money either. Kelvin returned to Singapore after spending several years in NZ. We met up and I was surprised how he looked much more radiant, healthier and certainly happier than when I remembered him back in my army days. I was happy for him, although I still believe he needs to get himself a girlfriend before he turns gay. So we chatted and I figured his lifestyle in NZ was much different than in Singapore. The pace in NZ was slower and the physical and personal space he had was larger. There, he lived alone and away from his family and had escaped all the distractions of modern city life. He had time to work on personal development. He took up dancing, cooking, and some other interesting sports. He ate healthy food and exercised regularly. Yet, he managed to chalk up considerable savings. In Singapore, people might think he's either a millionaire, or a millionaire's son, but he's not and had his humble beginnings as a workaholic like many of us. Many of us in Singapore tire ourselves every day with our hectic lifestyle. We constantly stress ourselves out and eventually turn into creatures of the modern society. It's barely 2 years after I got my driver's license and I was already driving like a maniac. It worsened day by day as I got frustrated with the idiotic drivers and terrible traffic. I became very temperamental. I even kept a chipped 50 size nitro helicopter blade in my vehicle as a "weapon". I turned into a road rage. On the MRT, I bashed through people who do not give way when the train doors opened, and even once pulled an auntie out of the way of the exiting crowd. At the same time, I was reading several books - mostly on business because I was covering almost every role in the company - software development, infrastructure and systems, training, hiring, project management, business development. However, I found out that the recommendations in them are consistent and advised telecommuting (e.g. working from home), working part-time, or generally spending less time at work. Although most of these books were written in US context, they apply to us locally. My company had our off-site at the end of the year, and our boss talked about increasing revenue-per-employee. As he talked I began studying the business model of the company and found out a hard truth - the business model revolved around hourly billing and to increase revenue per employee to triple what we had now (the "target") I would have to work myself to death. Then came the bonus package which was disappointing with the usual excuses of loss revenue, inflation, cost of purchases, etc. I became increasingly frustrated at work because I was dealing with a client who believed in "good communication" and I had to make calls twice a week past midnight local time to the US. The calls were mostly unplanned, and had very poor agendas. I spent most of the time on call without saying a single word. At the same time my boss began enforcing that employees have to arrive at work on time, with the reason that we depend on each other and a missing team member would mean delayed work. Not without reason, but for a guy who sleeps at 3am, the policy is nonsense. With the increased work load and insufficient staffing due to rising employment costs, other "senior" employees in the company began to also start their responsibility push - with quite a fair bit sent in my direction. Then came Chinese New Year 2008 and I took a couple of days' off around the period to make it a full week away from work. On the first day of my supposed "vacation" I got awoken by a rude SMS requesting that I reply an e-mail. I blew my top - I wrote an e-mail, CC'ed a bunch of people including the boss, and demanded an explanation why a simple task such as replying an e-mail had to be done by me during my vacation. I would gladly respond if it was something of a disaster or emergency, but certainly an e-mail reply could wait, or could be answered by someone else. I made a firm request to opt-out of a team and go full-time with infrastructure and systems instead. After all, it was my strength. When I returned, I was reassigned to a new seat in the back room, together with a very aspiring young man who runs a marketing company. My seat was then given up for a new guy who worked with the team I used to work in. Slowly, I began re-organizing the way I worked, and how I responded to people's request. I knew I had to get away from development-related work, which was the cause of the bulk of frustrations I had. Software development in Singapore (and probably various parts of Asia) is pathetic at best. It has been outsourced to various parts of the world, especially Asia - with India being the most prominent. It has become a commodity and thus evolved into a price war. Writing software for people has no value because most of the time, the intellectual property does not belong to you. You slave over last-minute change requests, bug fixes, and get entangled in the neverending "in-scope" or "out-of-scope" discussions. Don't get me wrong - I am not a bad software developer, neither would I dare call myself an elite, but I write decent code and I love to write code. I have a passion for software, but I told myself - I have to get out of the damned. I switched back to systems work, where the perceived dollar value per hour is generally higher than software. Systems work usually require some form of local presence, and is occasionally performed on an emergency basis, giving almost double the hourly rate than usual. I turned a cold shoulder towards most software development related tasks or requests and paid more attention to systems work. I cleared out pending tasks and took and active role in restructuring and improving existing systems. As I moved further away from software development work, I removed the dependency that other employees in the company had with me. Soon, I was taking control of the situation and thus also control of my time. Since I don't work late any more, I took public transport 3-4 times a week instead of driving or hiring a cab. This turned out to be very positive as oil prices and cab rates has begun to surge. For the unaware, it now costs about S$0.20 of fuel for every kilometer of travel (assuming your car's FC is ~10km/l). A trip from home-work-home would be approximately 50 km, or S$10 of fuel. A day's parking in the CBD area costs S$16.50 plus $1.50 of ERP. There was no season parking in the area I work. Add these up and it works out to over S$600 per month on just fuel and parking alone! My girlfriend was also complaining about my driving rage. I started to drive slower, signal early, give way to others and enjoy the music over the radio. My car's fuel economy improved from the lighter footing. I threw out the "weapon" in my car and if I see a retarded driver, I would just say a few words and laugh it off. There was even once I gave an angry cab driver who stared at me a stupid grin and a "thumbs up". He got so furious you could imagine seeing smoke from his ears. Imagine how funny the whole situation turned out to be. I bought some insurance policies for health and savings, invested my CPF money, and also started exercising. I jogged weekly with my polytechnic classmate Justin Loy, and began to pick food with less calories. Last month, I took a weekend off and went for a getaway on Bintan Island - an hours' boat ride from Singapore. While I was there, I spent my time enjoying the beach and reading books. I began to see how I would want to live my life and started to put a plan together. It has been barely two months since I started the change and am already beginning to feel happier. I spend more time with my friends, family and loved ones. As I continue to work towards my freedom, I will write them on my blog. I hope this article would help many of you out there facing the same dilemma as I did. Cheers, Justin posted by detach at 10:33:19 PM | permanent link
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