Every new year presents an opportunity to reset back to the starting line and start afresh. This year, 2020, is especially meaningful – the turn on a new decade for one, as well as a major milestone in my life. It is thus worth a few minutes of my time to pen down some goals which would serve as a reminder for myself to persevere and a visible target to reach.
Review of 2019
It seemed not too long ago that I returned home from my exchange in Europe. I had finally completed the nightmare of a paper which I wasn’t sure I could pass. Somehow, miraculously, I managed to. The very next day, I was on the plane heading back home. Fun fact: that was the first time I had wifi on a flight. I could thus send word to my family that the flight was going to touch down early.
The very next monday, I started on my professional internship which was quite fulfilling and opened my eyes to what life would be like working in the aviation industry after my graduation. Not quite what I had in mind in fact.
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Fast forward a little, I am on my first semester of senior year. I envisioned a comeback where I could obtain stellar grades and increase my cGPA (read: here) but unfortunately we can’t get everything we want in life. We can plan all we want, right down to the smallest detail and the universe has a way to throw a wrench and mess up all the assumptions. Things like changing of the syllabus, changing the professor and even the mode of assessment was changed. This is a stark reminder that I have to improve numerous things in life in order for such mistakes to never occur again. None of the targets I set for myself was achieved, with 4 under-performing and 1 module outperforming. The last one was really a unexpected sweet consolation in the face of such utter devastating defeat. Never again shall this happen.
2019 was also the year which I finally obtained gold for ippt. Bought my first ever PC too, forgoing my ten year dream of building my very own budget pc. Perhaps one day I will have the cash to finally build one.
I almost upgraded my trusty but aging Nikon and acquired a Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 VC telephoto lens. Every single time I was about to click on the buy button, a wave of hesitation hits me and reminds me to wait longer. And wait I shall. Got myself a Kindle Paperwhite too.
Financials
My investments went through a roller coaster ride, recovering from the correction of December 2018 before crashing again in May and making yet another spectacular comeback later on. I managed to stay in the green throughout this process, although I could work on reducing the volatility by reviewing and streamlining my portfolio.
I believe my basket of companies will do well in the future and I put my money and my trust into fulfilling my dream of hitting a net worth of 200K by 30. People used to say 100K by 30 a long time ago so with inflation and real wage growth I set the bar at 200K. If everything goes according to plan, I should be able to hit the target with abit of wriggle room. Then again, the lesson learnt in 2019 was that things don’t really go according to plan, so let’s hope for the best.
2020
Plain and simple, all guns blazing on the final semester of my school life. Top priority is to wrap up my final year project, which is coming along nicely after the little problems were sorted out one by one. The tedious task now is to arrange all the data into comprehensible and easy to understand charts, as well as putting the entire journey into prose. Next up, would be my remaining modules. Two of them may prove to be a hassle, though I am confident that with the right amount of time and hard work, getting A- should not be an issue.
Employment is another major milestone to achieve. The economy is slowing and in the absence of particularly strong fiscal stimulus, employers could be tightening their headcounts to cut costs. A recession is highly probable in the second half of the year, especially so if the current US president does not win a second term and a democrat president imposes a wealth tax on the rich.
As much as I support measures that improve income equality, the short term effect will be reduced investments and perhaps wage suppression for Americans which will eventually affect everyone else.
Whether or not I am able to achieve 200K by 30 would rest on finding the right job with visible career progression, decent salary and comes with healthy work life balance. These 3 don’t come together often, sometimes you get to choose one or two if you’re lucky.
Reading List
Ever since getting my Kindle last month, I have completed one book and currently rotating between a few more. As of this week, I am at chapter 2 of “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” by Dr Jordan Peterson.
One thing I would like to pick up from Dr Peterson is his ability to think coherently with clarity and respond appropriately without being trapped by the other party.
My reading target for 2020 is 15 books or more. The number of books read is a poor and superficial measure of how much I learn. This number can easily be fudged by choosing short books over more insightful books which are of interest to me and contribute positively towards becoming a well informed individual. Nonetheless, setting a target helps to divert my attention from watching cat videos to spending more time on the Kindle.
Progress on “The Big Short” has stalled ever since the Kindle replaced my old tablet as the main reading device. Would it be considered cheating if I count this as one completed book for 2020? I think so. My integrity is definitely worth much more than the number of books read in a year.
Health and Fitness
There is definitely a positive correlation between fitness level and quality of life, personally speaking. Back in the heydays of NS, with regular exercise and a healthy competition to be the top few runners, I was at the peak of my physical fitness. With that, I noticed that the quality of sleep was much better, I could do with less sleep and still be fully functional and alert during the day. Cognitive capabilities were improved as well, not to mention better memory and more motivation to spend my spare time on productive tasks rather than lie in bed and sleep away.
After the transition back to civilian life and the time allocated to physical exercise drastically dropped, my running speed inched up week by week and I lost all of the muscle mass accumulated in the two years of training. What I got back, however, was my fats and mental fatigue.
As such, it makes sense to invest more time into exercising and reap the intangible benefits which comes along with better health. I would like to retain my IPPT gold status, perhaps with a more comfortable margin this time round. The low hanging fruit would be my situps, the weakest of all 3 stations. Unfortunately, or not, I am still under the same age category and thus required to perform as well if not better, to attain the gold.
| Pushup | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Situp | 59 | 55 | 51 |
| 2.4km Run | 11:50 | 11:30 | 11:10 |
The above 3 combinations of results give the lowest possible points to get a gold. The rightmost one is my current choice, which is evidently lacking in situps. Assuming I can push the situps to 55, I can get away with 11:30 for the run, which is a walk in the park provided I do not out-sprint everyone at the start and get stitches halfway, just like last year. Maxing out both pushups and situps to 60 will increase that margin of safety to 11:50, way overkill in my opinion.
| Pushup | Maintain at 60 |
| Situp | Improve to 55 |
| 2.4km Run | Maintain or Improve to 10:50 |
Often times we are limited by our own minds, trapped by a psychological barrier just like the story of the 4 minute mile. It was widely thought to be an impossible feat, to complete a mile in under 4 minutes, until someone did it and proved the world wrong. When the world realised that this was psychically possible, more and more atheletes achieved the same “miracle”, breaking the old records over and over. When your brain is convinced to give up, the battle is already lost. The key is to stay open-minded and accept the possibility that there reality is not entirely identical to whatever picture your brain is painting for you.
Similarly, I used to think that getting gold for ippt was impossible, especially when I couldn’t break the 80 point barrier whilst still in ns and my fitness levels after that have dropped so much I could only get a pass with incentives. Now that the barrier has been broken, the path is now laid for a better set of results year after year.