If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me

I chanced upon the news today and heard the usual stuff:

people complaining about the rise in prices of goods and services, and that a certain organization will boycott our Labour Day this 1st of May if the Malaysian Government does not do anything about the rising cost of living.

Heck. People keep on asking other people to ease their pain.

Why don't we take that responsibility, of making our own lives better? If it is to be, it is up to me. Instead of complaining of about the price of petrol has gone up, and therefore everything else goes up, and some wonder if others are taking advantage of the rise and hike their own products and services...

Come on man... cost of living is gonna rise anyway, whether you like it or not. The government can't stop it, the UN can't stop it, YOU can't stop it.

But what can YOU DO ABOUT IT?

You can break your routine, and improve your income. And you can help other people improve their incomes too. And when a lot more people have buying power, our economy will stabilize.

How do you improve your income?

There's Eilham Technopreneurs Development Programme, EMBrand, eDermawan, DiWaris and many other programmes which have been put up by many visionaries to help people survive life. I have been in touch with all the above programme owners, and they are all the zero-to-hero type, same as you may be now, but they have put a little extra effort to break their routine, build additional streams of income, and now are living a better life because of it.

Including me.

For those who have known me before, I was never a rich kid. I was also not the brightest of students, coz my CGPA was only about 2.7 when I graduated from UM. And it was seemingly impossible for me to marry the girl of my dreams because her mom imposed a dowry of RM7,000. My salary at the time was RM2,700, and like others, I too have bills to pay. Then there are family problems as well, with my dad, mom and brother who were in need of my support as well. And oh... problems at the office... political and all sorts of other things. There were so many things that simply won't allow me to make any extra income to pay for the RM7,000 dowry.

Yup, the girl of my dreams had seemed impossible then.

However, it took me 7 years to finally marry her, and now we're happily married with 2 kids, and she stays at home while I give her abut RM3K monthly as nafkah. It doesn't matter how much time I took, but what matters is that she is my wife now.

On top of that, my sister-in-law works for me and I pay her RM2,800 a month, and I have another lovely senior executive who I pay RM3,920 monthly. And quite recently, bought a house by putting in RM50,000 as downpayment - cash. Also, recently, when I couldn't decide whether I should by an iMac or a Macbook Pro, I went out to buy both. Putting in original software for the 2 macs (Adobe CS3, Mac Office 2008, etc.), that was a RM30,000++ shopping spree!

Do you think it mattered to me now if the petrol price went up from RM1.70 a litre to RM1.92 a litre now? Do you think it matters to me now that to eat outside I have to pay a 5% service charge?

I do not write all these to brag, but...

To imagine that RM7,000 downry was a mountain of money for me 7 years ago... huh...

How did I do it?

I simply decided that whatever the world wants to throw at me, I'd get my dreams anyway.

So, I strongly urge you to decide to take control of your own destiny. I did it with all my impossible circumstances. Many others have made it too.

You can do it too, y'know... if you decide.