Usually, to earn money.
Yes some people love their jobs. But more often than not, people work for money.
So why do we need money, for food, shelter, clothes, medical, basic necessities and "stuff" (entertainment and other things we would like to do).
So there's this balance.
If you work a lot for money, you don't have time to do what you want to do.
If you don't work, there's no money and you can't do what you want to do.
If you don't have health, you can't do anything regardless of money.
Everyone needs to clear the basic obstacle, money.
Without money. Things would be miserable. Struggling for food and lodging, also probably in poor health.
In Singapore, it's probably easy to clear this hurdle. To a fair enough extent.
To get food, clothing, medical, lodging, it isn't so hard.
But many people end up spending money on "stuff" which is inversely correlated to time.
Cos if you buy stuff, you have less money which means you probably work longer and thus, have less time and maybe less health.
Even after having money, but you have no time, then what's the point?
If you earn SGD30,000 per month but don't know how to stop and relax, and you work 12 hours a day til you're 75 yrs old. Seriously... what's the point? So you may have money, and you may still have health (doubtful but possible) but you've spent your whole youth working. Is it worth it? Time is the greatest limiting factor of all after money. Cos there is very little you can do to extend it. When your time is up, your time is up, by natural death or illness or accident. Even if you love your job. Working til 75 years old without really spending a large percentage of time on other things is quite sad. Cos it would mean that a large bulk of your life has been spent on work. And I kinda pity a person who cannot find pleasure in other aspects of life and the best thing in his/her life is his work... like seriously?
Then there's health. Another critical factor.
A 20 year old man may strike the Hong Bao draw buy a condo and a ferrari and invest in a few properties and he would be set for life. But if he doesn't take care of his health, speeds around in his Ferrari, meets with an accident and is wheelchair bound for life, or eats all the rich food and ends up having diabetes or stroke. Even with money and time. Without health, what's the point? Health has 2 parts.
Preventable and unpreventable.
Unpreventable, genetic issues, car accidents caused by others, etc. Basically, unlucky. Probably can't do very much about it.
Let's focus more on things that we can have some control in. Do not speed when driving, do not over eat anything. ANYTHING. Too much of anything can be a bad thing.
So once again, life is like a game or an RPG.
You have to balance your stats out if you want to live life well. Everyone has different directions they want to go in life. Some people can make more money faster, some people can live with less, others are naturally healthy, and some really struggle to keep their weight in check.
Nonetheless, everyone plays the game their own way to enjoy it the way they want. You need to allocate your stats well, to keep all the 3 factors in a good balance.
You can pump up your money early in life then have more time at the end, but this might mean you sacrifice the early life experiences which are different from late life experiences.
OR
You could be balanced and farm money and enjoy life throughout the period but this means less focus and maybe staying in a job you don't like for longer.
OR
You could find jobs which incorporate your interests at the same time but earn less, like a fitness instructor, or a tour guide, or a diving instructor, etc. Then you can work on both money and time (entertainment) at the same time.
OR
You could go crazy living it up when you're young, party, drink, late nights when you're younger, work when you're middle aged, etc.
ALL this while keeping your health points up.
Everyone plays the game differently and has to live with the consequences, good or bad.
If we look at it like a complete-able RPG. As in an RPG with a storyline and can be completed.
This is very similar to life. Cos your story WILL end someday.
How do most people play such RPGs?
You train and farm. But in games money isn't that much of a problem.
Same as health. You just drink some health potions.
But most people would play such RPGs slowly. They want to complete them, they want to "live it to the fullest", people complete side quests, explore the whole place, look for secret areas, etc.
And guess what, life is just like this. It's the other stuff that you want to do, after money and health, it's the other stuff in life that makes it fun.
Some people like to rush through the RPG once, then replay it again slowly. Too bad, life doesn't work like that. You only get one play.
And if you only get one play. How would you play it? Would you just train and farm and complete the storyline and see the end credits?
Or would you slowly play the game and explore the whole game, find the hidden areas and everything?
Once again, everything is about balance, how to allocate scare resources to live the best life that YOU can. Cos it's all about you.
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