EP 9: My Dreams

LIVE TO SPARK WITH ERICA TEO EE TIEN

Hello and welcome to this episode. Life for modern-day women can be very tiring, and even more so as a career woman. We can be so caught up with what is happening around us, making sure everyone else is well looked after and cared for and then we lose ourselves in the process. When I was given this topic to talk about my dreams, I froze. I have been working for the past fifteen years in two very different industries and a mother for the past eleven years. I hardly have much breaks even in-between jobs because I would find my next career opportunity before I say goodbye to the previous job. Life has a way of getting to a woman, the work, the family, the children and then suddenly, like alot of women, I realised I forgot what my dreams were. Or did I have any dreams to begin with? It took a few days to recall what my dreams were. It hit me that I have probably kept my dreams in frozen storage all these while as life whizzes by.

My first dream is to travel around the world. I remember I did not have my own passport until I was in university. My parents were making very low income that was hardly enough to cope with daily necessities and keeping three children in school. Although school fees were heavily subsidised by our Singapore Government, other school necessities such as stationary, school textbooks and assessment books were not. So traveling for leisure was never an option to us. I remember when I first told my mum I need to make a passport. It was for a school trip to look at a fishing village with my tutors and classmates to Kukup in Malaysia, fundamentally different from the city life I grew up in. My mum was shocked when she heard I need to make my passport and she jumped with her immediate response: are you going to elope with your boyfriend? In my heart I rolled my eyes from the front to back. It was really absurd. Now I was a rebellious kid back then, the more you don’t want me to do, the more I want to do it. I was determined to travel. So I made my own applications and got my passport. I dreamed of filling my passport pages with stamps from different customs around the world. And the traveling will not be only by flight. I dream of travelling by first class train on the Qinghai Tibel railway to a far-flung corner of the world or take all the scenic railway rides around Switzerland. I dream of traveling during the festive season, like going to the Christmas night market in Germany, experiencing the jostle, having food and drinks in the middle of winter. I dream of seeing sunrise over Ang Ko Wat on Easter morning to remind myself of rebirth and life is full of hope.

You might ask me: but air travel is very common pre-Covid, flights are plentiful and why haven’t I done so? Because there was always something else that was prioritised over my traveling dreams that was always seen as frivolous. I remember during my internship year, most of my classmates traveled to Europe on a shoestring budget with whatever they made during internship. My three closest friends went to not one, not two but five European countries at one go to look at buildings, cities and worship architecture. I did not join them because five thousand dollars budget for five countries was out of my reach. It was easily five solid months of my income for my year out on internship. I wanted to save the money to fund my post-graduate study needs, like penknife, cardboard, glue, books, even my own food and drink. They say you only live once. But I was so afraid of having no money while back in school, I chose to live properly with food and drink and an occasional McDonald’s treat fo myself when back in school.

But I do find comfort in visiting nearby destinations. I finally saw snow in YongPyong ski slope with my friends before I met my husband, my friends and I even went on a short trip to the de-militarised zone between North and South Korea. It was an eye-opening trip and I believe I still have much much more to see around the world.

If you ask me now, do I ever regret not going to Europe during my internship year? Part of me says yes since that time other than that one study loan that was put on pause while I continue with my post graduate studies, I did not have other commitments like children, car and house mortgages. Till today I still haven’t made it to Europe to travel yet. The three years as the world battered with COVID-19, I looked back and I asked myself why haven’t I traveled more and further away. While the other part of me pulls me back to reality and reminds me of the need to afford daily expenses, savings for retirement, paying my loans, where to find the extra money to afford air tickets for three persons, accommodation for three persons, and many many other practical questions.

Which is why today I am starting on my business journey with baby steps, to have a shot at making a passive income that can go towards helping to fuel the wanderlust dream in me since young. Which then brings me to another dream I had when I was young and that is to be my own boss.

Back in architecture school, we were mostly doing individual school projects. On submission day it was really interesting to look at different project models and gigantic glossy printouts of presentations that were the brainchild of each and every one of us. It was evident how each of us had a different way of imagining how we would want to shape the world around us. And all of us have our own egos, I would hear classmates judging in low murmurs on the quality and the thoughts that were presented in each project. It was a highly stressful environment and there was no right or wrong how each of us interpreted the project assigned to us. Everyone had something to say and everyone thought they are right. Many of us, including myself, dreamed of having our own practice setup, of where we could have the biggest say in how we want things done and in our way. We all held on to our own beliefs and being young and fearless, we always thought we were right.

Starting to work changed my mind about this dream of being my own boss. Architecture offices were commonly located in Central Business District of Singapore, commanding higher office rentals. There were the overheads to pay on top of the utilities and ever growing taxi claims for employees to go on site on a regular basis to check for construction progress and quality of work. On top of that all, the liability of being a licensed architect, which demands a duty of professional care to the clients but who always bargain for lower professional fees that include ALL services. Ironically, architects are expected to maintain a professional neutral stand to administer a contract. This fine balancing act just doesn’t make sense ultimately. And then I let that dream go.

Until recently after a series of turmoil that happened in the workplace sobered me up. When you are working as an employee and being a sole breadwinner of the family, in reality you are one income away from poverty. As COVID-19 has shown, today you are in, tomorrow you may be out. Companies were forced to pivot rapidly, and many roles were designed out due to restructuring, merging, whatever fanciful terms they name the change. The workplace where we thought we know very well previously have evolved throughout the world and there is no certainty your job will remain. I think it is now timely for everyone to learn how to manage their money. It is also a time coming out from the pandemic and with a possibility of recession looming ahead as warned by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, I need to put into action what baby steps do I want to do to achieve my dream of FIRE, spelt as F.I.R.E. And FIRE which means Financial Independence and Retire Early. My dream has also evolved. It is no longer ...