Many people would probably think, "Woah so shiok, ERSG always travels around, really retired liao sia!"
But that's only partially true. I don't really go with the mentality that it's a holiday.
It's a trip to accompany my wife with a couple of free days as holidays. It's not free, we have to pay for my flight and food, so I always try to eat some simple stuff. Like breads and cheap foods from the supermarket. Only when I'm out with my wife do I eat something nicer.
And when I'm traveling once every 2 weeks. It's really not as fun as it sounds.
Travel was fun when it happened once every quarter. I wrote about that before.
But that was when I was working. So I was stressed, I always wanted/needed a break and a break once every 3 months is really fun. I'm sure you all also enjoy all your breaks. Shiok right?
Then I also hope to have more travel cos it's fun.
I know. I was there once.
But now, during the times I'm in Singapore. I have a simple life. Nothing much to do everyday. Chores, cooking, I go out and collect free stuff, pick up my wife, type a post.
It's pretty fun and quite stress free. So I don't really need a break to travel. My daily life is pretty operational, and I pretty much enjoy everyday, and our costs are low.
Traveling every 2 weeks, usually to KL, some times to Paris, Perth, is somewhat disruptive. Cos I have super high expenses during these trips. KL isn't that bad. I also have to manage my food supplies cos I can't keep too much stock when I'm traveling, then I have to start collecting quickly when I get back, else there's no food available when I come back.
Except for KL (in KL I usually just stay in the hotel room), usually when/if I travel, I try to understand the life of the country I visit. So I don't always just go there and enjoy myself. I find that that is a better way to learn things. To understand other countries and the way of life. So during my free days without my wife, I don't go to many sightseeing places. I walk around the neighbourhoods. Touristy places are for tourists to spend money. They show you all the nice things...
Think about it... IF you were a tourist coming to Singapore, what would you do?
Universal Studios, Orchard road, Sentosa, Gardens by the bay, Vivo... Something like that.
How reflective is this of Singaporean life?
Now, if I was a tourist to Singapore, I'd probably like to go to Tampines, and walk around the shopping center, the neighbourhood, the circle wet market, stuff like that. It's more real.
But hey, anyone should enjoy their trips anyway they like right... for me I like the education aspects of a trip. For others, they may just like the entertainment and seeing the sights and stuff in whatever country.
The thing is... I never would have thought I would get sian of traveling. It's an interesting perspective which I recently obtained. Cos... it's hard to believe, if I was still working and someone told me... "Dude, you wouldn't like to travel if it's so often..."
I would probably show him the middle finger and tell him to stop sprouting rubbish.
Now, of course, I know the situation changes are circumstances change.
When I was working my mentality was different. I wanted to escape.
Now, I don't need any escape. I just want my nice simple fun life.
Which actually brings me to another revelation. Many times, at different times of our lives, our mentality is warped by the situation that we are in. We made decisions good or bad, due to the situation and state of mind we are in at that point in time.
Do we know what we really want? Does such an answer really exist?
Since what we want is really based on our current life situation and changes as our life situation changes...
If I'm suddenly rich, would my lifestyle change?
Now, I say NO, DEFINITELY NO!
But... is that true? Until I am rich I will never find out. IF I ever get rich that is... If I had $10mil, would I get a BMW? Would I buy a NEW Mercedes?
Now I say no... it's not worth it... but if I had the money, maybe I would say... Just spend. Else save so much for what? Remember my previous post on being frugal for the sake of being frugal?
Or I heard of people who never wanted kids, but after they had their first one, they decided to have more.
Cos... the situation changed. After they had kids, they cannot imagine their lives without kids anymore and they find new happiness with kids.
Similarly... do people really want to retire?
I hear that often... woah so shiok ERSG can you teach me how to retire so young?
But... as I said before retirement isn't really as cushy as it sounds.
And I wrote about something like that here about people don't really want to retire. They really just want to find something that they would like to do. But since they can't they just choose to retire.
Then there's always the FEAR in retirement. Cos there's always a sense of insecurity, cos most people are so used to a stable income from work, that switching to investment income feels insecure.
And that's only the financial side of things.
There's also the sudden influx of time that many people don't know what to do with.
And since people don't know what to do with the time, they "spend" the time by doing things which they used to do when they were working. Which is entertainment, spending money. Cos that's usually the only way they know how to spend their time.
So it's really very interesting... cos I'd think we are rationale people. We probably don't have any form of mental illness. Most of us aren't critically depressed.
And yet, now, I believe there's really no such thing as knowing what you want.
It's like... a depressed person doesn't know he's depressed.
Cos based on the situation he's thinking certain things.
And similarly, most of us don't know what we want.
Cos, it's only when we are in a particular situation that we realize that we have certain preferences.
And now that I think about it, I think it's pretty amazing.
Cos we never know what happy is until we feel it. And we don't know we can feel happier, until the time that we experience a greater level of happiness.
If you think that you're already happy where you are, there's probably another situation where you'd feel even happier, it's just that you don't know it or haven't found it yet.
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