Realizing Your Dream - Part 1

by IPP Feldman Kuah

Imagine yourself coming back from work to your family after a tired and stressful day. You open the door to your house to be greeted by your lovely spouse and your children. You settle down for nice home-cooked dinner and after that have a refreshing bath after that. Then you head towards the living room to spend the rest of your night reading papers, watching some movies or simply just playing with your kids. When its time, you head back to your cozy room for your well deserved sleep. I am sure everyone is looking forward to a time when you can put yourself in a scenario like that.

As of now, only CP Toh, Eng Tee & I are the only married couples in the club. I am sure most of you have been thinking of settling down sooner or later. Let me share with you one important thing in life that you will be facing sooner or later. No, not how to settle down and make a family, that aspect I leave it to you. I will go through with you realizing your dream to buy a house.

Factors
Diana and I have been house hunting for sometime, specifically linked houses and condominiums. Firstly, we have to decide which area we would want to buy. Mind you, different locations are of different pricing. A place in Klang would be cheaper than a place in PJ, not to mention KL. These factors may be influenced by the location of your workplace, your budget, convenience and many more. Since Diana is working in KL and I am working in PJ, we decided to find a place in PJ.

Our decision is influenced by the convenience of getting around, the type of environment and the $ factor. Since PJ is located in between Klang and KL, we figured out it would be easier to get around. The the decision is between if you should get a landed property or a condo. Bear in mind for landed properties in PJ, you can only find old houses aging more than 10 years if you’re looking for RM400K and below. Some cheaper new ones you can find are in Puchong. And it is up to your preference, but when Diana was renting an apartment, we loved the choice of indulging ourselves with the facilities downstairs where your children can play and run around without having to drive out. These, of course, are in the expense of the monthly maintenance fees. Lastly, the $ factor. We can only manage a place around RM300K. Anything more we'll have to starve ourselves before that.

Showhouses
Have you ever walked in to any showrooms and thought how nice it would be if my house is this nice? Bear in mind the showrooms are fitted with one of the best interior design they can think of and all the furniture which can win your heart. Take a look at these pictures, aren’t they dazzling?

to be continued...

The Formula for Failure

(Excepted from the book The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle by JimRohn)

Contributed By President Hui Hui

Some insight and analysis about failure. Read on.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight.

Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as torepeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.

On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds.

If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives.

And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on it goes.

Why? Because it doesn't seem to matter. And herein lies the great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!

Those who eat too many of the wrong foods are contributing to a future health problem, but the joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. Those who smoke too much or drink too much go on making these poor choices year after year after year... because it doesn't seem to matter. But the pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time.

Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives and the price must be paid for our poor choices - choices that didn't seem to matter.Failure's most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term those little errors don't seem to make any difference.

We do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in our lives. Since nothing terrible happens to us, since there are no instant consequences to capture our attention, we simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices and making the wrong choices.

The sky did not fall in on us yesterday; therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.

But we must become better educated than that!

If at the end of the day when we made our first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on us, we undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents' warnings, we would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying our error in judgment.

Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as our parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine our philosophy in order to be able to make better choices.

To be continued…

Best of luck CP Toh!

Dear CP Toh,

As much as we would like you to stay and be with us, we wish you all the best in your hunt for your future in the harsh world out there. Please take it as a challenge, and do bear in mind in a challenge it may go either ways. Nevertheless, either ways, we will still support you. We hope you can find a good job and support us back then :). Please let us know if you need any assistance ya? Take care!

From,

All of us....

Serve with Sincerity

THEME: Serve with Sincerity

To start up the new year (term), this will be my first write up for our club’s new blogmaster, IPP Feldman Kuah.

Dear fellow members of RAC Port Klang Centennial,

The club’s theme of the year is SERVE WITH SINCERITY. I had chosen this theme because I believe all of us gather and unite for one common purpose, which is to serve.

From day one, as newly inducted members of the Rotary family, whether as an Interactor, Rotaractor or Rotarian, that is what we are trained to do. The Rotary movement would not exist long enough beyond 100 years if it wasn’t the sincere acts of its members to make their communities a better place.

To serve is not defined by serving the community only (by acts of charity or painting community hall walls), it also covers the act of serving as leaders, club officers or even as members of the Rotaract movement.

But what differentiates us from rest of the other Rotaractors? It is the motive behind the word SERVE. The question, do we do it with sincerity? Or do we just serve just to show the world that we are serving for the sake of being Rotaractors?

To sum it up, it is the heart and effort that we put in, participating in activities to strengthen the bond among members and the Rotaract movement, organizing projects and doing things together in unity for a common good.

Let’s serve with sincerity and be the best that we can be.

Cheers!

Lee Hui Hui
President
2007/2008
Rotaract Club of Port Klang Centennial