here's one to 2006

2006 now ... 2005 past. wow !! what a year to have been thru.

2005 has been kind to me, without really making life a bed of roses, i have had some measures of success, and have been generally a really happy person. i think i don't mind another year like 2005, with some adjustments and improvements, if i can be greedy :-)

i spent most of the year up in bangkok, doing a project, which turned out pretty well. there were difficult moments, which made the success at the end all that sweeter. i had to battle thru internal wars to get things done, i had executive consultants from the deepest recesses of hell to contend with, i had customers who were unsure of us to start with, and i've had to live in a place i wasn't all that familiar with.

what turned out in the end is total customer satisfaction - they were so happy with us - i had made a tonne or so of friends, so i'll never be short of company if i ever find myself in thailand again ... and i'm also a much more confident person now than i ever was. it's funny how far confidence can carry you !! now i understand what peter crouch must be going thru.

i've visited places i never thought i'd go - mostly totally unplanned. i love koh samet, i love chiangmai, i love the pattaya region (but not pattaya itself), and above all, i love ayutthaya. love these places. there's just so much variety in thailand that i didn't know before, but then again, we all are guilty sometimes of being ignorant tourists who only see the places where the lights shine brightly.

some of the lower points in 2005 came late in the game, when i had some brush ins with my superiors who think that they can do better .... well, they can't. i'm glad i held on and my superior actually got FIRED !!! hehehe ... if you're patient, you'll see the body of your enemy floating down the river .... or something like that ... sun tzu from "art of war".

for 2006, i have no resolutions - i never had any for a long time now ... i have long subscribed to having goals, both short and long term, and having focus on them thru the year/month/week or whatever time frame i needed to see them thru. in that sense, new year resolutions are moot. why only resolve to do something when there is a new year. why not a resolve for every day of the year ? why not one for the week, etc. etc. ?

i'm sticking to my goals ... i want to pay off my house as quickly as possible. my current loan calls for me to pay off my home loan in 13 years. i'd like to challenge 8 years, without incurring financial ruins. i have to now keep my new car in mind when i do this, but i'm quite confident.

i wanna be able to live a happy life that has balance. work hard, play hard, enjoy the labor too. i don't believe you have to labor all your working life and only enjoy after retirement. the reality nowadays is that most people have terrible time post-retirement anyways because they don't plan for it, which brings up my longest term goal ...

retirement. i happen to believe that i should be able to retire when i'm 45 ... that's about 15 years from now. considering i have home loans to pay, cars to finance and i don't yet have the financial knock of my own family, it sounds pretty darn ambitious. so, here's a tough goal to have.

career wise, i want to keep pushing the envelope and try and develop a more rounded personality, and open more doors for myself. i think that's something that should be a career / life - long goal.

other than that, i wanna be able to make a hole-in-one again, and play more golf. hopefully, be able to travel too. i stupidly agreed to going to phnom pehn in september when rain rules, so i'm hoping there's some unseasonal drought there (i know that's very selfish, but it's my own fantasy) ... so there goes.

happy new year 2005 to everyone ... the harder you work, the luckier you get. and the more you believe in yourself, the more likely it is you will make it !!