Sometimes when you are out in a foreign country, especially those countries which are not as developed, you will learn to appreciate Singapore much better.

Right now, as I am using the Internet, it is considered a “luxury item”. I am paying about USD$70 per month for an approx. 384kbps speed. My 3 partners and I shared the costs and we take turns to use the Internet.

When we cooped up in Singapore for too long, we tend to take things for granted. We think that our government is not doing enough, our wages are not high enough, things are too expensive, transport system not good enough etc.

Wait till you come to Cambodia. You thoughts will changed.

Singaporeans like to complain on the slightest issues. In my opinions, we are just too pampered. Our Gen Y generation never face hardships. We are fed with a silver spoon since we were born. We have good families, good education, good living environment… basically good life. The only thing we are worried is not getting a grade A for our examinations.

Please complain less and appreciate more. Singapore is really the BEST.

I am back in Singapore for now.

The cafe start-up is not progressing smoothly as we wanted.  Well, I expected that to happen anyway. It’s not so easy to start up a brick and mortar business. I don’t want to talk so much about it… wait till it’s finally done then I will shout it out again. LOL.

For now, let me de-bunk the myth of autopilot income from internet marketing. Yes, it is indeed POSSIBLE. I didn’t do anything on my websites for nearly the whole month of November and my income is still pretty consistent.

I didn’t touch my sites because I was mostly away in Cambodia. Internet access is limited and I can’t do any work. Even when I was back, either I am too tired to touch my internet marketing stuffs or I am busy with my new business start-up.

That’s the power of an Internet business. You do the hard work once, and you get to enjoy the fruits of labour.

Sometimes when I lay on my bed, I ask myself these question: Why am I not like the rest of people? Get a decent job with a decent pay? Why do I do different things and do things differently?

I guess it all boils down to my drive to succeed in life.

Let me tell you something – I want to be successful in life.  Well, being “successful” is very subjective. For some people, it may be earning their millions, or it may be getting an Olympics gold medal, or scoring As in their exams and achieve a 1st class honours, or even doing social work that bring warmth to people in need etc.

I am a shallow guy… I use wealth as a benchmark to determine how successful I am. LOL.

Cos’ I don’t like the feeling of being poor. When I mean poor, I don’t mean I don’t have a home or go hungry for 7 days without food. It’s in Singapore context and comparing with some of my peers.

I came from a very humble family. I live in a small 3-room flat (I am still living here). My parents don’t have high education. My father used to work as a construction worker and my mother works in a supermarket. Household income is not high.

Don’t talk about having a car. My parents can’t afford. When I was young, I was very envious of friends whose parents have cars. The parents can fetch them from school.

I don’t get the chance to travel overseas for a leisure trip. It’s a luxury for us. Do you know I first fly on a plane ONLY in June 2007? Again I was envy of my friends whose parents can take them for an overseas trip.

When the PC was getting common in 1996, I was hoping my dad can buy one for me. No… they can’t afford. It’s only when my dad strike a $3000 4D in 1998 that I finally got a PC. I still remembered that my PC was delivered to my house on 24th Dec 1998. It was so damn happy that time. LOL.

I don’t have the money to buy the things I want. I seriously don’t like that feeling.

Although I came from a relatively poor family, my parents provided me all the necessary basic needs. I am grateful for their upbringing.

Maybe this is the reason why I want to be rich and successful in life.

Besides that, my school life was not smooth as well. I was last in class out of 42 people during my upper secondary school days. Erm… I seriously don’t know why my results sucks. No matter how hard I study, I can’t get it. LOL.

The worst thing is – the teachers are not motivating. Some of them just like the smarter students. Even if they do encourage, I feel it’s not sincere. It’s like the sake for doing it only.

Onto JC days, my results still suck as ever. I remembered my Economics teacher said to a few of us: You guys have no time already. You are not going to make it. I paraphrase it, but it’s something along that line. How motivating is that!! F**K him.

I practically suck during my high school and junior college days. Low self-esteem. But deep inside me, I was very angry. I wanted to prove to people and those f**k teachers that I can succeed in life even though I am not good academically.

So, basically from my army days onwards, I tried to look for all sorts of opportunities that can make me money. I know my grades in school suck, and I can’t compete with people who are academically-talented.

It’s these kind of small failures in life that make me very determined to pave a way out.

I don’t come from a well-off family and my grades in school are disastrous. I have nothing to lose anymore.

I don’t want people to look down on me. I want to be as good as other people. I want to afford the things I want to buy. I want to provide a good life for my soon-to-be retiring parents. I want to give my future wife and children a comfortable life.

All these above give me the drive to succeed. And I know that by working as an employee, I can never reach my desired income.

Of course, I know for many of the things I tried, some of them may not be as successful as I want them to be. The important thing is I work towards my goals and dreams.

Ok. This blog post may not be coherent because I just write what I feel without much planning.

I am back from…Phnom Penh.

It’s a business trip. Well, I can consider it as a leisure trip to a certain extent because it’s my first trip to Cambodia and I got to see a lot of stuffs.

My life gonna be a lot more exciting for the next 2 months as I will be running a cafe there with another 2 partners of mine. I am keeping my fingers crossed. It’s just the beginning and there are a lot of things to be done and get the cafe up and and running.

For the past week, I am only connected to the Internet for a few times and all I can do is to check emails. However, I am glad my income is still pretty consistent. Seriously, I did NO work at all on my sites. Right now they are all running on “auto-pilot”.

I believed for the next few weeks I will be even busier and will have less time for my online business. I will see how it goes. I really want to manage both my online and offline business well though.