define success

a recent sense of aimless awakened me to find goals for my time in the company.

i walked through a shopping mall on the way to my part time work; i was surrounded by youths. it reminded me of my younger years which don't seem too far off. my mummy has never given me excessive pressure on how i should perform in school, but just reminded me to always do my best.

i listened to the standford's commencement speeches steve jobs and oprah made.

he talked about connecting the dots, that we cannot see into the future how things work together. we only start to connect the dots when we look back.

a good education opens doors. i sat on a table with bankers over dinner, one of the analyst (presumably the lowest tier in investment banking) was an imperial college graduate.

while i try to tell myself, how successful you are is not determined by that college certificate (looking at the richest people in the world, not many even graduated from college), but the truth is good education will give you some form of leverage in life.

i haven't had a fabulous education which i can flaunt of but i hope i can still do some catch up now. i am not sure if my non-confrontational personality will be good as i move on..yet i know i don't want to become someone i am not.

ok, back to goals. my short term goal while i serve my "term" is to read tenaciously. i want to devour as much publications as i can. i'm almost done with my outdated bloomberg markets mags, though old editions, still contain relevant information. my company has a library with a reasonable collection of books, open for staff to borrow. i think i should make use of that resource. as dearie works in a tertiary institution now, that literally means i have greater access to even more publications. after i finish my current to-read-list, i am getting dearie to help me borrow bloomberg markets mags regularly for reading.

i've started my garang guni work in office again. i've been getting colleagues to pass me old newspapers which are due for disposal from the racks. those are usually straits times and business time which are 3-5days old. i collect them in a neat pile underneath my table and i read them over lunch. apart from the news websites, these are the sources of current affairs updates. ahh..so much to read but so little time. did i say i want to start reading chinese papers too? never quite got around them too! (haven't seen chinese papers in the office too)

i've been penning my learning into emails and sending them to dearie and bro. i hope i don't bore them off..but i think sharing it helps me learn better..

i listen to definitions of success. everyone define success differently to much extent. i think i should be working harder to earn more. i think i should be saving more. i think i should be more aggressive at work.. but looking back at it, at the end of the day, does it give me the success..or "success" in inverted commas? somehow, i think being happy is important. i am happy when i get to tinkle the ivories..i am happy when i can go for a good run.. i am happy when i can cook for dearie and he finishes all the food. i am happy when i can spend time with family.. do all these fall into the definition of success?

don't want to think too much. i'll just keep up with my learning and reading.. let's see where the road leads to. =)