Advice for my children

by

To my boys: If you came to me asking for advice, here is what I would have told you. Below is a list of practical, timeless, and objective pieces of knowledge. None of them are rocket science, and if you don’t learn them from me, you will no doubt learn them from life. The problem with life is that it is a harsh teacher and that the lessons tend to arrive a little later than when you need them.

Financial

Understanding money is important. Many problems in life originate from the lack of money, so having a good handle on money means having fewer problems in life.

Respect money. Don’t chase after it necessarily, don’t be a slave to it, but respect it for what it can do for you. Because if you insult it, it takes offense, leaves you, and doesn’t return.

Spending

Know the difference between spending and investing. Investing money means putting it into something that will grow it over time, like property or stocks. Spending money means buying something and consuming it, e.g. a sandwich. Once you consume it, it is gone and will not give you anything back besides the initial enjoyment.

Both spending and investing are important. If you only invest and never spend, you are probably not enjoying life at all. But if you are spending too much, you will get yourself in trouble.

Spend within your means. Follow the waterfall below:

  • First, pay for what you have to pay for anyway: bills, mortgage, medical expenses etc.
  • Second, buy what you need: food, tuition, necessities.
  • If anything is left, spend on what you enjoy: restaurants, travel, etc. Never borrow money to fund your fun spending.
  • Invest the balance. Make sure you don’t spend everything, so that you have something left to invest. How much to invest depends on your income:
    • If you are very poor, sadly, you probably have nothing left to invest after paying for your necessities. Tough luck, but you do what you have to do.
    • If you are earning a lot, you are probably able to spend a fraction of your earnings and invest almost the entirety of your income.
    • For a “normal” salaried person, investing at least 20% of your monthly income is a reasonable target.

Investing

Start investing as soon as you have some income. The reason to start as early as possible is that investing relies on the power of compounding (look it up), and compounding is most powerful over long periods of time. Investing is not about striking big returns at once; it is about gradual compounding over time that rides the ups and downs.

Here is a heuristic on how and how much to invest:

  • First, set aside some emergency cash funds. Not too much, as the inflation will tax your entire savings at something like 10%~15% per year (read my write-up on the topic of Inflation to understand what that means). Try to keep the emergency fund to about 3-4 monthly salaries, in case you lose a job or an unexpected event hits your wallet.
  • Before you can buy property (say you need to marry first before buying an HDB), invest in stocks.
  • As soon as you can afford it, buy your first property. Plan ahead for a larger family and buy a bigger property than you presently need.
  • Once you have sorted your property, go back to investing your excess cash in stocks.

Which stocks to buy? Don’t think too hard, just put 80% of your investments into a low cost S&P 500 ETF and the remaining 20% into a gold ETF and that’s it. Use a reliable established broker, not those jokers with the fancy mobile apps. Any attempt to “think smart” beyond that will only cause you headache and earn you nothing.

Stay away from anything that bankers and financial advisors will push you, like: fixed deposits, managed funds, endowment plans, ILP, unit trusts, derivatives, universal life, etc. If you become a banker or a financial specialist, you will understand what I mean; if not, then just take it on faith from me.

Once you have a family and children, buy yourself life insurance (either term life or whole life insurance). It is not an investment, so don’t look at it as such. It is for the financial protection of your family. Be mindful, though, that the insurance agents will always try to sell you other crap which earns them the most fees and leaves you with the most risk. Learn to say “No!” to them. That doesn’t mean insurance is bad; it means the crap they try to push you (disguised as insurance) is not what you want.

What about “saving” money? The term saving (in contrast to investing) is commonly reserved for putting money in a bank so it grows. Please understand: money in the bank will never grow, and inflation will eat it away. Putting money in a fixed deposit (or similar endowment schemes etc.) is plain stupid. It is one thing to set aside some cash for emergencies and accept that it will not give you any return; and it is an altogether different matter to lock your money into a fixed deposit (or a similar scheme), which will neither serve as an emergency fund (as it is locked) nor as an investment; it will simply be decimated by inflation. Don’t believe agents and advisors when they push you to park your money in some fancy scheme.

Debt

Debt is a good servant but a bad master. Use it wisely and follow those rules on borrowing money:

  • Borrow from banks. Never borrow from friends, relatives, or money lenders.
  • Never lend to friends or relatives either. If you have to help them, just give them money and write it off, never assuming it will be repaid.
  • Never borrow to spend; only borrow if you are going to invest the money into something safe (e.g. property).
  • Never borrow too much. Once you slip into a debt spiral, you can never escape. Only ever borrow what you can comfortably afford to repay over time, and only to invest it. Trust banks when they limit your borrowing. While they are just protecting themselves, it is in your interest too to not overextend yourself.

Puppy loyalty

The longer you adhere to a false belief, the more you will suffer. Among all investors in a failing business whose CEO maintains “all is well”, the most loyal ones will stick around the longest and lose the most. Blind loyalty is punished, not rewarded.

If you fall for a phishing scam or fall prey to one of those “get rich fast” investing schemes, get out as soon as possible. Clinging to the belief that you will get your money back will only lead to more losses. It is painful but necessary to realize that and cut your losses the soonest.

If an investment loses value, accept that. Don’t cling to the belief that it will necessarily bounce back. Accept that the loss is already realized and decide what to do next based on that understanding. In most situations, that would mean getting out of it, unless you have some other very strong reason to stay invested.

Personal

Friendships 

Friendships are important. Recognize them for what they are and for what they are not.

Friends are not there to love you and care for you – this is the role of your parents. Friends are not there to borrow from (or lend to) or to do business with. Friends are there to have a good time, to have someone listen to you, to make memories with.

Never help a “drowning person”, as they will drag you down along with themselves while trying to catch a breath. That goes for many aspects of life. Emotionally unstable people will latch on and hurt the very person who tries to help them. Let that not be you.

Marriage 

Marrying right is probably the most important decision you will have to make. If you marry the wrong one you will regret it deeply; if you marry the right one, you will have a good life. Don’t marry the first girl you meet: give yourself time to explore different personalities and characters. Don’t wait forever either. Many men miss the right time to marry and don’t seem to find a reason to do it afterwards. It will likely lead to regrets later in life.

Remember: as a guy you may think that you are hunting women, but actually you are the one getting hunted! And once they hunt you down, that’s it, you are done. Women know much better than you what they want, and they will use very subversive techniques against you: like your feeling of guilt or desire to be a protector. Be alert and don’t fall for it! Recognize when you are being cocooned and run. There will always be another girl down the road.

Relatives

Relatives are a tricky business. Unlike your friends and your spouse, you don’t choose your relatives, so you are under no obligation to like them. But family is still important, if only because they love you. Your parents, your grandparents, your brother: they will love you unconditionally. Bulgarians have a saying: “A brother is not there to feed you, but woe to the man who doesn’t have a brother.” With time, you will understand its meaning. So pay your debts to your blood family, and trust that they will always have your back and best interest in mind, even if they can be annoying at times.

Internet

This is a dangerous area. Not everyone on the internet is who they say they are. Some may pretend to be children like you, but they are old uncle predators who want to hurt you. Some may pretend to be young girls to trick you to send them nude photos of yourself so they can control you through your shame. Be careful and don’t fall for it.

If you do fall for it, then just cut contact with them and ignore them. Don’t believe them when they try to blackmail you, e.g. by saying they will send compromising photos to your friends: they can’t really do any damage to you unless you fall for their lies and do the damage yourself.

Health

Watch your health. It is an asset that you are given, which can be wasted very quickly. When you are young, you don’t feel the damages you inflict on your body, and so you tend to “consume” this asset voraciously, but the time comes when you have to pay back for everything (and pay with interest!) Don’t smoke. Control your drinking. Don’t take drugs – they are a path to a very miserable existence.

Also, be mindful of accidents. Men are often quick to move and slow to think, so they die in stupid accidents. Don’t do “dare” things to impress others or to prove “how tough you are” (like climbing a building or something). It is plain stupid – you risk a lot and you gain practically nothing. So don’t do it. Don’t be stupid.

I also ask you not to ride motorcycles. I know I may sound hypocritical, because I also did it, but just because I did something stupid does not mean you have to do it too. So the advice stands.

Daily habits like brushing your teeth help reduce health problems down the line,and also makes you more attractive to girls. Nobody likes a smelly boy or a boy with bad breath.

Schooling 

School is a great place to make friends, meet children of various backgrounds (Malay, Chinese) and social class (poor, rich), learn about life and play. School can also be tedious when you have to study subjects you don’t enjoy: say, you don’t like Chinese, and I didn’t like history. But school is necessary because later in life you will be judged on your schooling: companies require a university degree for the cool jobs; universities will want to know where you went for junior college. Junior college will ask about your grades in secondary school, and so on. It is not always fair, but that is how it is. 

You may never in your adult life get to use a quadratic equation or the cosine function, but you will need them to pass your exam and get a good grade. If you ask a janitor and a banker to solve a quadratic equation, neither will know how to do it, but the latter did know how to do it during his exam time in school. So you must pass that hurdle, lest you be discriminated for the rest of your life.

For the subjects you like, well, enjoy, and for those you don’t like, you just have to bite the bullet. It actually gets easier afterwards. So listen to your mom when she nags you to study Chinese. You don’t have to like it; you have to do it. Otherwise, there will be a lot more pain down the line. Don’t trade immediate comfort for long-term pain because it is a bad trade.

Learning

Now learning is very different from schooling. You can learn on your own. Pursue lifelong learning. There’s no excuse not to learn new things, because everything is on the internet. You are what you read, just like you are what you eat. Sometimes it’s trash, and a little bit is ok. But if the majority is trash, you’ll become fat and stupid. You may not remember everything you read, and that’s ok. Reading is like fertilizer for the tree of your brain, so keep feeding it with high quality compost.

Relations with others

The most important lessons in life I learned quite late. Learn them early from me.

Judging

Some folks just live to dish out judgment on others: they impose on others their personal views, they try to indoctrinate, they constantly insist on “sharing” their unrequested opinion, and all the while they are completely intolerant of other people’s views. Relatives are sometimes the most judgmental of people you would meet, because they feel entitled to give you a piece of their mind. Don’t confuse their love for you with their right to judge you.

You will be judged all the time, and you will discover how unpleasant it is. Every time someone uses the words “you should”, get ready to receive unwanted judgment disguised as “just my personal friendly opinion”. It is not friendly, it is rarely helpful, and it usually conceals nefarious intentions.

If you wish to lead a happier life, learn not to judge others. Learn to accept them for who they are and allow them to have different opinions and views on life, even if those conflict with yours. This is about you, not about them. You won’t succeed in changing people anyway, so it is futile and painful to even try. The only thing you will receive by passing judgment is alienation and, ultimately, loneliness. Learn that lesson early on and apply it. It will do wonders for you. That is a promise.

Likewise, learn to ignore other people’s judgment on you. They rarely have the right to judge you, and when they do, they often do so with the intent of hurting you, not helping you.

Arguing

One of the stupidest things you could engage in is arguing with people. Arguing achieves nothing positive and leaves you exasperated, frustrated. It impairs both your mental and physical health as well as your relationships with people. 

Now, there is a not so fine line between arguing and debating. It is one thing to shoot the breeze with friends and talk about the different styles of music you like. It is an altogether different matter to attack others over their different views, to try to convert them, indoctrinate them, insult them, or denigrate them for thinking differently. One is fun, and the other is acrimonious.

If your objective in an argument is to change their thinking, you will fail miserably and pay a price for your failure. Guaranteed! If your objective is to hurt them, take a pause and decide if that is really what you want. Probably not. Are you trying to prove your rightness (or righteousness) for the sake of it? If that is the case, ask yourself if that really benefits you. I doubt it does. Anyhow you slice it, arguing is pointless – no upside and a great downside.

One important distinction to make is between taste and fact. “Two plus two equals four” is a fact. “Pink Floyd is the greatest band ever” is a matter of taste.

Arguing about taste is pointless by definition. There cannot possibly be “correct” and “wrong” taste, and so arguing about whose taste is “right” is senseless. If you think of it, most arguments happen to be about taste. You would often hear something like “back in the old days, we used to have real music, but today’s music is crap”. This is an opinion by a person who is clearly seeking to argue, and you should not engage with them on that. There is no winning such argument over taste, only spoiled relationships.

Now, arguing about fact (in contrast to taste) may seem valid, but it is not. Say you argue with a friend whether Jupiter or Saturn is heavier. Clearly one of you is wrong. So even if you “win” this argument, you will gain nothing, yet you will alienate the other person. Will that make you happy? And if it does make you happy to see someone humiliated, then you probably have some issues of your own. Either way, quit arguing, and agree with others. They will love you for it and you will influence them much more than if you were to argue with them.

Advising

People live to give unsolicited advise. They simply can’t hold themselves, and even if you beg them to stop, they will keep coming at you. They will even feel offended if you refuse to take their advice. That is just how humans are wired, and you will discover there is little more annoying than receiving advice when you didn’t ask for it. That isn’t to say the advice is necessarily bad or ill-intended — generally it is useless and well-intended and, occasionally, it is good. Regardless, when it is unsolicited, the advice is unpleasant to the receiver. Learn to keep your opinions to yourself, unless explicitly asked, if you want people to like and respect you.

One important consequence of that is that when people complain to you about their problems, you should listen and agree with them but not try to offer advice or to fix their problems. They will hate you for it, especially if you succeed in fixing them. You may think that is irrational, but it is not: the reason they complain is that they need your agreement on how unfair the world is to them. They want to believe that, because it makes them less of a failure in their own eyes. But if you solve their problems, you deny them the right to be a victim. You prove to them that they are indeed the problem for their failures. For that, they will hate you and will use any opportunity to blame you for anything that goes wrong in the future.

Conclusion: learn to be a listener, learn to nod and agree, and above all, resist the temptation to offer advice and solutions. It is way harder than it sounds!

Critical thinking

Many a time we form opinions based on the opinion of someone we respect, like a friend or a parent, without thinking if it is correct and if it applies to us. But those people may be wrong, and even if they love us (like every parent does), their advice and opinions may be wrong. So use your own judgment to discern what is true and what is not. A lot of advice I got from my own parents was, in retrospect, bad advice, possibly suited for the place and time they lived in but unsuited for my time. But I held onto their advice for too long, unable to separate good intentions from good advice. The thinking goes: they love me, so why would they give me bad advice; and they are older, so they must necessarily know better. The first part is true (they love you), but the second part is wrong (they don’t know any better than any other person their age), so don’t put extra weight on their opinion simply because they love you. Think for yourself, inform yourself.

You may notice, for example, that I didn’t offer you any advice on what job to pursue. The reason is: I don’t know. I have attempted to only give advice that is timeless and universally true, but I don’t know what the future holds for the job market. Hell, by the time you grow up, maybe the coolest profession will be dog psychologist! And if I were to give you advice still, you should discount it because it would be rooted in a different era, and also because it would be very subjective. For example, I might advise you to become investment bankers, if you were me, but you are not me, you are you; and furthermore, you may live in a time when investment bankers are not held in high regard.

So think for yourself. You will be bombarded with other people’s opinions and judgment. Maybe 1% of it will be useful to you, so try to sieve that 1% and use it to build your understanding of what is right for you.

Assumptions

At the root of most misunderstandings and arguments lies a wrong assumption. You thought they knew something, but they didn’t. You expected them to do A but they did B. You would have done X in the same situation, but they defaulted to Y. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions…

You can’t live without them. You can’t even cross the street without assuming that the cars would stop when the green man flashes. Life would be impossible without them, and you would have to question everything all the time. But at the same time, you must understand that others make different assumptions. Just knowing that, allowing for that, will remind you others may see the same issue differently to you.

Consider the following conversation:

  • Husband: Why didn’t you pick up the kids from school today?
  • Wife: I thought you would do it as per normal. Why do you even expect me to do it?
  • Husband: How am I supposed to do pick them up when I have a late meeting at work? I told you about it last week.
  • Wife: Maybe you told me about your meeting, but anyhow it is your responsibility to pick up the kids or arrange for someone else to pick them up. Why didn’t you just ask me to do it?
  • Husband: That is precisely why I told you that I have a late meeting, obviously. Why else would I do it?
  • Wife: I thought you told me about it so I know not to cook dinner, which is my task. If you wanted me to pick up the kids (your task), you should have explicitly asked me.

This is a very typical situation leading to a bitter argument. Whose fault was it? It doesn’t really matter. It all comes down to a series of wrong assumptions on both sides. What each side took for granted was not at all “obvious” to the other. Each acted fully in accordance with their own beliefs, but in the end the result was that nobody picked up the kids. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions…

Learn to know when you are making assumptions and to forgive others when they don’t live by your expectations, because the problem wasn’t really them; the problem was your assumption.

Stress

I remember many times when I stressed over matters that seemed all-important at the time. Looking back, they all look completely meaningless. Countless hours over sleepless nights were wasted running happenings and scenarios through my head: who said what, how I reacted, what I should have done, what I should do in the future. The matters ultimately resolved themselves and were forgotten. What was left was a little more gray hair on my head and acid reflux.

I wish my now-self could talk to my then-self and tell him: “dude, stop stressing about it, trust me — in the long run none of this matters”.

As we go through life, our focus is always on the immediate and most recent happenings in our life. We forget the big picture. When we meet a friend we haven’t seen in a long time, we realize (to our surprise) that we have little to talk about. Why? Because our attention is consumed by the recent events in our lives. My car transmission is busted, the shop will probably rip me off to repair it. My project proposal got rejected by my boss despite my working on it for weeks.

When we zoom in on the here-and-now, our world shrinks, and in this small world, the small problems appear big. If we could just lift our heads and see the bigger picture and take the long view, our world would grow bigger again, and the daily problems would diminish in size. Then it would become apparent why they are not worth stressing about.

My advice: whatever is stressing you at the moment probably won’t matter in the near future. The problem only appears big because you have let your world become too small. Lift your head. The problem is not that big. Don’t stress about it.

Kindness

Kindness is key for your success in life, because it is the key to winning over people. That goes for your personal as well as for your professional life. Kindness is far more important than intelligence, because while intelligence may win the mind, kindness wins the heart. Admit it: nobody really likes a smart-ass, either as a colleague or as a spouse or as a friend. Just as humility trumps over arrogance, kindness trumps brute force. Don’t try to impress the world by how important you are: the world will not be impressed, and nobody is really that important anyway. But be kind, and doors will open for you.

Various

  • Things are rarely as bad as they seem at first: don’t despair.
  • Things are rarely as good as they seem at first: pare your expectations.
  • Don’t justify yourself. Every time you try to explain yourself, you come across as weak and defensive. It suggests you have something you are ashamed of and trying to hide, and those who mean you ill will try to use that against you. The moment you try to explain your reasons, you have already fallen in their trap. Just don’t do it.
  • When wondering whether to say something out loud or keep quiet: keep quiet.
  • If you are going to commit to doing something, either give it your 100% or don’t commit in the first place.
  • Don’t give your word easily, but if you do, follow through, regardless if you like it or not. A man’s word is his honor. Don’t squander it. It is not about them – it is about you. When you suffer once, you will learn not to overpromise.
  • Don’t explain yourself to others. Trying to do so makes you look weak and stupid and validates their accusations, even if they may be wrong. It places you in the spot of a defendant and them in the position of a judge. Don’t fight back, don’t beg for their approval, just ignore them and move on. This is hard to do, because we are conditioned to always explain ourselves, but you must fight the urge.
  • Pick your battles, both literally and metaphorically. Some battles are worth fighting (if you are bullied, fight back!), and others are not — most of them, indeed. It boils down to what you lose or gain by fighting — respect, opportunity etc. Most battles are just pointless arguments with nothing to gain from, and even just engaging in them makes you appear stupid.
  • Learn to be self-confident. Yes, this is something you can in fact learn. Learn to be comfortable in your own shoes, to not need other people’s validation, to respect yourself. It doesn’t matter what others think of you, only what you think of yourself. This attitude of yours is what compels others to admire and follow you, so master it.
  • Reject the influence of naysayers and energy-draining people in your life. They will try to convince you to not attempt anything under the guise of “friendly advice so you don’t fail”. What they are really worried about is not your failing but rather your succeeding and getting ahead of them. So surround yourself with positive people who will encourage you to go ahead, not negative ones who will pull you back.

Being needed

This topic is not advice per se, because it is not something actionable, but having an understanding of it may save you in an hour of darkness, hence I include it here.

If you list the human needs in order of their immediacy, they would be something like: oxygen, water, food, shelter, warmth, being healthy, being loved, and being needed. Assuming one has covered the first N-1 needs, one seeks to satisfy the Nth. The last and the highest is the need to be needed, and that would also be my best attempt to answer the deepest of questions: what is the meaning of life?

When you are needed — be it by your children, by your dog, by an ailing sibling, by your employees, by your friends, by your church, or by some other cause — you find a meaning in life. Your body knows it and it knows to stay healthy. And vice versa, when you feel unneeded, your health degrades, first mentally and then physically. Your body tells you: “since you are not needed, it is time to get flushed out”.

I suspect that the primary reason we are observing an increase in stress and mental health issues in this day and age has to do with that same need not being satisfied. For centuries, people lived the same way, as farmers in the villages, but the past 100 or so years have seen an exodus from the villages and a concentration of people in the cities. Population density in the urban centers has skyrocketed, making each of us feel small, insignificant, and ultimately – unneeded. You look around and see thousands of people just like you, so you wonder what difference it makes whether you exist or not. If you have someone who needs you, that question is already answered and you are not bothered by it. Your need is satisfied. But if you are not needed, that makes you feel like the world is the same with or without you, which is a very depressing thought leading to degradation.

I know you can’t choose to feel needed. But you can choose to lead a life where you are of service. Being of service is the greatest meaning you can give to your own life. You may not understand what that means now, but someday you will.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

– Mark 10:45