Wealth Indicators: 4 Middle-Age Milestones

As the year-end approaches, people always like to summarize the year. What have they accomplished this year, and what goals have they not yet achieved? At the beginning of the year, they are more enthusiastic about setting new goals. Regardless of whether they will take action, goals should still be set. What if they are achieved?

2024 just passed, some people lament that they haven't done anything yet, while others have reaped a lot. If you want to "restart your life" in the new year and make your future self grateful for your present self, then you need to start from this moment: refuse to slack off and plan ahead. 2025 has just begun, and how you spend it is entirely up to you.

1.Health is wealth.

A former colleague posted on social media: "In 2024, the place I visited most often was the hospital. Whether it was flu, cold, or any other virus, I caught them all. Each time, it cost me not only physical discomfort but also enough money to travel to hospital several times. So, taking care of your health is the top priority for 2025."

Many people reach middle age with little money and lots of health problems. Recently, I heard some heartbreaking news.

A cancer patient posted on online: "Hey guys, I finally found freedom." B majored in broadcasting in college but loved traveling and even obtained a tour guide license. In March 2018, she found a job at a travel agency in Shanghai. However, in July, she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She spent the next five years fighting cancer. The family spent a lot of money on her treatment, borrowing from all their relatives. Her father even donated his bone marrow twice. In order to provide better nutrition for his daughter, her father, who couldn't cook at all, became a great cook. Finally, B's condition worsened, and despite efforts to save her, she left her parents who loved her the most.

Tomorrow and accidents, we really don't know which will come first.

All we can do is take care of ourselves while we are still healthy.

2.Beyond physical health, another important aspect is to strive to earn money.

Regardless of one's financial situation last year, in the new year, one must strive to earn money. The primary source is to excel in your main job. Recently, I chatted with a friend named Q who had recently received a promotion and a raise. She shared her experience: "There is no other way but to excel in your profession." Q was originally just a copywriter. Because she enjoyed writing and creativity, she joined her current company. At first, her copywriting didn't grab attention and she was often scolded by her superiors. But Q was tenacious. She kept studying excellent cases and summarizing the logic of successful planning cases. As a result, the number of revisions to her proposals decreased, and the number of compliments from clients increased. Finally, her efforts paid off. At the end of the year, she received a 30% increase in salary.

For most ordinary people, increasing income through their main job is still the main source. It can serve as a safety net and maintain the baseline of income. At the very least, it can rely on one's "irreplaceability" to avoid being laid off when the environment is not good. In addition, doing well in side jobs is equally important. If promotion and salary increases are difficult in middle age, then engaging in side jobs can also be a way to increase income.

3.Dealing with relationships around you: Learn to release love and also learn to let go.

Harvard conducted a 75-year study tracking 724 men and concluded that true happiness is actually a mindset that comes from within. A portion of this mindset comes from achieving self-worth, while another part comes from healthy relationships with others.

A netizen, Moon, shared a story about her aunt who was unhappy for a period of time. In her aunt's own words, she was a "woman with a tough life." As a wife, her husband often worked overtime and didn't come home. When she wanted to talk to him, he was not available, and when they did meet, they often argued.

As a mother, her son also avoided her, locking himself in his room whenever he was home, with very little communication between them. However, according to her husband and son, the situation was completely different: her husband didn't like coming home because every time he did, his wife would either nitpick at him or complain, emitting negative energy. And her son didn't like to communicate with her because his mother was not gentle and often used a serious tone to criticize him.

Later, the aunt met a family therapist. After explaining the situation at home, the therapist offered her some advice: "The reason for the coldness between family members is because they don't feel loved. As a woman in the family, you should be the lubricant. From today onwards, learn to release love to those around you. Start with praising your husband and caring for your children."

After listening to the therapist's advice, the aunt went home and actively shared interesting things that happened during the day with her husband and gently called her son to dinner in the evening. After some time, she noticed a change in the atmosphere at home. Her husband started coming home more often, and her son enjoyed talking to her. Relationships between people are dynamic. If you act rigidly, you will receive indifference, but if you give warmth, you will receive love. And when we start to change, the relationships around us will change too.

There was a post about a friend who always poured cold water on her. She distanced herself from this friend. Much later, when asked why she no longer contacted her, she said, "I can't change her personality, so I had to change the relationship between us." There's a saying I agree with: "The secret to happiness is to place yourself in healthy relationships."

In 2025, try to assess the relationships around you. Cherish those who care about you, and bravely distance yourself from those who make you unhappy.

4.Never stop reading, traveling, and exercising.

"A person not only has this life but also should have a poetic world." Beyond material life, we also need to enrich our spirits. In doing so, boredom becomes interesting.

Reading and traveling are the best choices for enriching the spirit. Reading is a journey of the mind, and traveling is reading for the body. A friend named C always seems full of energy, and someone asked her for the secret to her zest for life. She said, "There's no other reason than having an escape route." While at work, she feels drained and frustrated like everyone else, but when the weekend comes, she either stays at home and reads all morning or flies to another city for the weekend. Just the thought of going to see the snowy mountains sweeps away her worries.

Every time she returns from a trip, the energy she brings back is enough to sustain her for a long time.

And if you really can't find a hobby, why not try exercising?

V is a running enthusiast who once shared his experience in a book. In 2005, he was diagnosed with diabetes. The doctor told him, "Diabetes is incurable. You need to take medication for the rest of your life or rely on insulin." After hearing this news, he became depressed and even developed depression.

At the lowest point, a friend advised him to go out, take a walk, run, and breathe fresh air. With a try-it-out attitude, V insisted on going to the nearby park for a few steps every day. After six months, not only did his weight decrease, but he also no longer needed to take medication. He himself exclaimed: Running completely changed my life.

If you feel that your life is a mess right now, consider sticking to exercise for a while. Even if it doesn't solve all your problems, at least it can change your mental state.

"There are three things in life that cannot be saved. The first is reading, the second is traveling, and the third is exercising." I strongly agree with this. Besides work, one should always have something to rely on spiritually, even if it's just something small like running.

In 2025, in addition to working hard, make sure to enrich your spirit. It could be learning a new skill or cultivating a hobby. Both the body and the soul should be on the move. Life can indeed be designed. No matter what hand you were dealt initially, without planning, life is like a pile of sand. But with clear plans and specific actions, life can be aggregated into a tower, allowing you to go further.

In the new year, if you want to restart your life and change yourself, you must adhere to self-discipline and never be lazy or give up. Keep healthy. Physical health is paramount. Even if other goals are not achieved, being healthy and free from illness, with all health indicators in order, is already commendable.

Work hard and earn money. Whenever possible, maintain your ability to work and earn money. This is the capital for adults to settle down.

Handle relationships with those around you. Learn to love others and let yourself be loved, placing yourself in healthy relationships and staying away from relationships that drain you.

Enrich yourself. If you have no money, read more; if you have money, travel more. Not only can this broaden your horizons, but it can also enrich your soul.

"A day's labor is a day's wage; persistence brings success."

The process of transformation may be difficult, but the fruits will be sweet.

What are your goals or plans for 2025? Feel free to share them in the comments, and next year on this day, we'll check back together.

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Do you own all six types of wealth?

 

When it comes to wealth, you probably immediately think of money. Money is indeed a type of wealth, but it is not the only form of wealth. Money is only a low-level form of wealth. If you put all your energy on pursuing this low-level form of wealth, you will lose the opportunity to win other forms of wealth.

When it comes to wealth, what do you think of? The top ten richest people in the world? Your relative in Australia has a bigger house, a nicer car, and a cottage on the hill? Or the billionaire CEO of your company? Professional athlete, musician or movie star?

Of course, all of these people are "rich" from a financial standpoint.

But money does not monopolize wealth. The definition of wealth is "a substantial amount of valuable material property or resource", but looking at this definition, money is not listed as the only valuable property or resource.

Which resources you consider valuable is as important as the abundance of the resources themselves. The key is to optimize for the right form of wealth.

Money

Money is the simplest and most obvious form of wealth because it can be quantified.

How much is your annual salary? $100,000.

How much is your house? $500,000.

How much will your child's college tuition cost? $50,000.

How much is your portfolio worth? $250,000.

Forbes magazine keeps track of the world's richest people in real time, so everyone can see how much money the super rich have.

Because monetary wealth is so easy to recognize, it becomes a point of comparison. Money is the only form of wealth that makes you look at your neighbour and say "I'm richer/poorer than him".

Money can become a knee-jerk competition. Just like any other competition, we want to beat our peers. Earn more money. Get more property. Indulge in more fun. Do whatever it takes to win the game.

But there is a point that is often overlooked. At a certain point, money can become an attractive scoreboard, but a poor measure of wealth. Money has diminishing returns.

This makes sense if you stop and think about it. When income is low, extra money can make a huge difference in the way you live. Paying rent will be easier. You will have security. You can also afford to take a vacation or two.

However, as your income continues to increase, you can buy a bigger house, better car, better meals and better clothes, but that's it, you can't do anything new. You're just paying more for a more luxurious rendition of your current lifestyle. If you can pay your bills, spend your money on experiences, and save/invest the rest, then you're doing pretty well. Everything else is icing on the cake.

There's actually a nasty paradox associated with having a lot of wealth:

Some luxuries won't make your life better, but losing them after experiencing them will definitely make your life worse.

Some people put money and wealth first, and are desperate to pursue money and wealth. The biggest problem with this approach is the opportunity cost associated with it. How many hours did it take to increase revenue from $250,000 to $500,000? What about $1 million? What about $10 million? How much do you need to earn? What other forms of wealth would you have to sacrifice to achieve that goal?

Is this really the game you want to win?

Knowledge

Knowledge, like money, is a cumulative form of wealth. However, unlike money, the "knowledge" possessed by people is difficult to compare. A polyglot, a chef, a world-class investor are all knowledgeable, but not in the same form.

Different people have different ways of acquiring knowledge. Someone learned Spanish by not being afraid to speak it, no matter how bad it was. Someone became a master chef by trying a lot of disgusting recipes. Someone became a great athlete by being a rookie for a long time, trying to make a big business, playing a thousand games of chess, exchanging stories with others... all these can help you accumulate more knowledge.

You gain knowledge for working to develop your skills and expertise, and you earn money for using those skills and expertise to help others.

But knowledge is not just a tool used to create wealth, it is wealth itself.

Gaining knowledge should not be viewed solely as a means to help you achieve other goals. Knowledge is a worthy goal in itself.

Travel to broaden horizon

Time

If money is the most obvious form of wealth, time is its opposite. Time is an asset you can't see. Time has no such things as expensive possessions and a good salary to show off. Time is so indifferent that you hardly notice it.

If monetary wealth is best shown through luxuries, the abundance of time is best shown through nothingness.

Money and wealth are shown to the world on scoreboards, but time is measured in an hourglass that no one can see, not even you. As we earn more and more money, monetary wealth increases but time becomes scarcer. When you are the poorest financially, you are the one with the most time, but when we have the time, we rarely notice.

We realize the value of time only when it is almost running out.

In theory, the currency has unlimited upside. The world's richest man, Elon Musk, is now worth more than $200 billion. But one day, someone (maybe Musk!) could be worth $500 billion, or even $1 trillion. There is nothing you can do about this possibility.

Time is just the opposite. Our time is strictly limited, our money generally increases with age, but our time decreases with age. You can't buy more time, and you never know how much time you have left.

If wealth is measured in increments of time, young people are richer than anyone. Of course it would be great to have $100 billion. But if you're young, how many years are you willing to sacrifice for Bezos' fortune?

Or how about we turn the question around? How much do you think Bezos is willing to give to trade places with someone like me who is 25 years old and will never become a billionaire? Maybe all of them. He has pledged to invest billions of dollars in life extension technology.

We tend to be unaware of the presence of oxygen when it’s plentiful, but when it’s scarce we desperately want more, and our sense of time does the same. Once the money is spent, you can earn it again. When your time runs out, it's game over.

Opportunity cost is everything, how much is your hourglass worth?

Health

Health is the cousin of time. Like time, health is seldom thought of when one is healthy. When we are young, we tend to have a lot of health. So we eat and drink, never exercise, it's okay, you're young. We will rejuvenate quickly no matter what.

For example, in college, no matter how hard you mess with your body, you'll probably be fine.

But decisions have compound effects.

In finance, compound interest is a powerful force. Someone who invests an extra $200 a month may not see a difference in the early years, but after 30 years they could be hundreds of thousands of dollars more than someone else.

The clock keeps ticking.

But the power of compound interest is not limited to finance. In fact, its most valuable application is in health.

Inattentiveness to your health when you are young may not notice any effects early on, but as you get older, taking a laissez-faire approach to your well-being can be disastrous. What you eat starts to matter more and more. Whether or not you exercise starts to matter more and more.

As you age, your complexion darkens, your metabolism slows, and underlying health problems become more serious. At this point, the decisions you've made about your health start to snowball.

Like time, we rarely think about it when we have it. But what about when you lose it? Health will become the only thing you can think about. There is a saying that goes, "A healthy person has a thousand wishes, but a sick person has only one wish."

And that patient rarely gets his wish.

When you're broke but healthy, you have countless options. What's the point if you're rich but bedridden? What's the use of having a billion dollars if you have nothing to enjoy?

Relationship

If you lack relationships, all other forms of wealth become irrelevant. What's the use of asking for the money if there's no one to share it with you? Of course, you can go all the way to darkness on the road of single material enjoyment, but this will not bring you a sense of satisfaction.

The value of time and health depends on your ability to spend time with the people you care about. Otherwise, you're wasting your unscheduled schedule and capable body on frivolous distractions.

It's good to have a lot of knowledge, but it's best to share that knowledge with others. The only difference between a master and a hermit is whether there are students or not.

Humans are social animals, and relationships are vital to our psyche. We need people who can laugh and cry together. People were able to share their dreams, stories and fears. You can fall in love and suffer the baptism of falling out of love. Can create new memories. You can drive 1000 kilometers on a road trip together, across the east coast of the United States.

Every little thing we do comes back to relationships.

The greatest value of health is that it gives you choice.

A life rich in all other respects but devoid of relationships can be at best empty and at worst depressing. What's the point of having the world if there's no one to share it with? If it means living in one's castle, do you really want to be king of that castle?

Experience

"The purpose of life is to experience something that you will be nostalgic for later."

I generally agree with this view. Life is about a 90-year period of experience defined by various other smaller experiences. We are fortunate to live in a time when experiences are readily available, more accessible than ever.

You can travel anywhere in the world in 24 hours for less than $1,000. From learning a foreign language to learning exotic recipes, you can learn anything on the internet. For the first time ever, we can literally do anything.

If wealth is for consumption, what better way to spend your wealth of money, wealth of time, wealth of knowledge, wealth of health, wealth of relationships than doing cool things with people you care about?

At the end of the day, our experiences are all we have.

Experiences are our chances to cash in other forms of wealth for something memorable.

Some experiences cost money, but the most valuable experiences are not defined by price tags. I don't remember how much it cost to visit Tromsø, Norway. But what about seeing the Northern Lights? Priceless.

An evening spent with cold beer, loud music, a roaring fire and surrounded by friends is priceless.

Going on road trips across the American West with my best friend was priceless.

Of all the trade-offs a person can make, you will never regret exchanging financial wealth for experiential wealth. But what about missing out on experiences because you're "too busy at work"? It's hardly worth it.

As a resource, money is unlimited, but experiences, like time, are finite.

How often do you have dinner with your grandparents? What about going on a ski trip with your best friend? How many times have you had the chance to visit a new country on a whim? What about learning a new skill you've always been interested in?

Communicating with Argentines in their native language is invaluable.

Money is best used to fund the experiences you want. Go try something fun. The kind that lights a fire in your heart.

Imagine if you spent 40 years maximizing your lower forms of wealth (money) at the expense of minimizing some higher form of wealth (experiences), and waited until your twilight years to recapture the experiences you had missed, it is only in vain.

Our goal should be to have a lot of money and a rich life experience.

When you come to the end of your life, would you rather be able to fondly recall the good times you spent with the people you cared about, or would you be satisfied that you didn't "waste time and money" on these "trivial" pursuits ?

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What are the things to fill up to go Malaysia?

 

What are the things to fill up to go Malaysia?

Departure

You must download the MySejaheta application on your phone and complete the following information:

1.    Fill up the digital pre-departure form (DPDF) at least one day before departure in My Sejaheta apps.

2.    Upload vaccination certificate or status in My Sejaheta app

a.    Go to https://www.notarise.gov.sg/

b.    Download Vaccine Cert

c.    Crop the QR codes

d.    Upload to MySejaheta app

Arrival

You must submit the SG arrival card (SGAC) up to 3 days before arrival in Singapore.

Upon the completion of the SGAC, you will receive an email acknowledgement which you can present for smoother pre-boarding and immigration checks.

ICA | SG Arrival Card (SGAC) with Electronic Health Declaration

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