It has been six months since we make our “2015 resolution” earlier this year, we all have been busy with our routine, whether it’s work, school, or entrepreneur-ing. For the last three years I’ve made resolutions at the end of the year, as a reminder to myself of what I should achieve and want to do in the next year. I think it’s an effective way to direct my life in the way I want it to be, according to my own standard.

Having a resolution noted on a piece of paper and read it everyday is like having a notes for groceries, when we bring our notes we could see what we want to buy instead of wandering from aisle to aisle afraid of missing something. I observed my mother when we did shopping (although we do fewer groceries shopping these days), she missed one to two items when she didn’t have her notes with her and remember it on the way home. Not only at shopping but it also applies for things we want to buy overseas but forget to because we are too absorbed in our daily trip.

Family and friends around me are not usual with making a yearly resolution. Unlike people living in the West, for me it’s rather hard to talk about accomplishing yearly resolution with anyone around so I blogged it instead. My resolutions are about my finance, self development, travel, meditation, blogging, writing, and career. That might sounds like a lot of things to do, but it actually isn’t when we apply it daily. To give you an idea of my resolution, here it is:

– Finance : Have more than $25000 in stocks

– Self Development : Read 24 non-fiction books (I’ve read 22 so far, so I’m sure it’s going to be easy. For the record, I read over 130 books in 2013 and over 120 books in 2014. I lower it this year to focus more on applying the knowledge I had rather than only piling it in my brain)

– Travel and Meditation : Go to India (I did on March), 40 hours meditation (I’ve only done slight over one hour so far)

– Blogging : 70.000 views in total ( so far I had only reach half the number since two years ago, and quite pessimist on this one)

–  Writing : Finish a book about self development ( from the amount of books I read, I think I should write one targeted to young people)

– Career : acquired CFA certification (I want to be an investment manager, whether mutual funds or hedge funds)

Many of the goals or resolution above are far from accomplished in the half of the year, which mean I haven’t been productive with the time I got in the last six months. Perhaps I was being lazy, you might thought, but to tell the truth I have been straightening my life’s priority in the first half of this year and it has been a rough one.

You might have read my post two months ago about quitting medical school (which I did, by the way) and realise that the goals above were written when I thought I have to accomplish them along with doing clerkship in hospital, which tend to be exhausting and time consuming. Alas, few things actually get done after my daily shift in hospital. But as you might have read in that post that I found myself being lost in an activity I have no passion in and decided to pursue a career I actually love to do for my life. Life really struck me after I spent hours thinking whether doctor’s routine and career is the future I want myself to be. The answer is no, then I found this quote by Steve Jobs:

“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

So I did, starting with quitting medical school. Maybe it’s too fast to judge whether it’s a correct decision or a disastrous one, but looking back the past two months I have to say it was the second best decision I’ve ever made in my life (the first one is learning about investing and trading). When I close a door, another one opens. I stumbled to forex (currency) trading from my father and fascinated by the prospect of earning a living from it. It’s not impossible to earn hundreds of dollar a day, but it’s also possible to lose hundreds a day. I’m still working on my trading skill, and looking at the potential it has I’ll do whatever it takes to master it, the same way I learn about stock investing. Rise and rise again until lamb become a lion.

At the end of the day, few things work as planned and lots of unexpected things happen daily. I’ve got my Bachelor of Medicine degree last February, and by not continuing my clerkship I am free to study anything I want. I enlisted for a Master degree (MBA on finance) and got accepted, starting this September I’ll be studying finance (positively correlated with my passion on investing). Although my initial goal was to graduate and work as an investment manager, another thoughts came to me, I want to retire young and travel the world.

Resolution helps me to construct my life like a map telling me where I should walk to arrive at the destination I want to go. Although not every resolution I have is going to be finished this year, it give me great insight to what I should do to get where I want, regardless of the time it takes.

From almost zero thought of quitting medical school earlier this year, today I live in an entirely different and better way than I would ever imagine last year. Sometimes life works in a very strange way, guiding us through spiral, dark cloud and thunder, only to suddenly lead us into a bright and calm sky. Finally I’m able to say yes, if this is the last day of my life, I would do exactly as I do today (or perhaps close enough).

dp