Not really a big fan of Sumiko Tan's (the Straits Times journalist) writings, but I found her article today (31 Jan 16) regarding salary letters, or the more commonly known bonuses to be a real nice gem.
She had some really good thoughts on perspective, which I think could act as a salve in these trying times for folks within the finance industry. And her breakdown on why folks work, i.e. either as a job that allows them to feed their passion and desire in other aspects, or to accumulate power, prestige, intellectual stimulation, the works, or that they treat it as their life's work, resonates strongly with me.
My experience thus far is that I've encountered a good mix between those three categories, but lately I am heavily weighted to the first category, where it's just to fulfill the financial accumulation threshold before leaving to do something else, of which I am still finding out for myself, what is it that I would like and be passionate about pursuing... Somewhat a continuous journey which is proving to be quite fun and challenging :)
On a separate note, I'm trying out something new this year, which is to start a weekly goal list every Sunday before I kick start the week proper. Here was my goal list last Sunday and the subsequent progress:
* Meditate daily (no minimum time) - Fulfilled
* Attend 1 [martial arts training] session - Fulfilled
* Workout an additional 4 times - 75% Fulfilled (Weds, Sat, Sun)
* Slowcarb diet the entire week with 1 24 hours cheat day - Fulfilled
* Complete reading one book - Fulfilled (The Art of Living by William Hart)
* No drinking until cheat day - Fail, try harder next time bro (Drank on Tues / Thurs)
* One blog post - Fulfilled (This short one suffices, I think)
Now let me go ponder on what I would want to achieve this week, during dinner :) I suspect it would be largely the same.
On a totally unrelated note, or maybe there's some association with Sumiko Tan's article, bonus was totally messed up this year. What fun and games. Maybe I'll pen a post on my perspective on banking bonuses, if there's some form of demand from readers.
