I got invited by a friend of mine, Vivienne Quek to comment on a topic:

“Sure, farmers do not sow in winter for all seeds will not bloom and grow in the cold. In fact, all farmers know the necessity of keeping enough food stock to survive the winter without working. The rich farmers can keep enough for reserve and sell the rest for profits, what about the poor farmers?

Businesses are like the farms. What happens to businesses that do not have existing activities that will tide them until spring comes? These businesses will not be able to act like rich farmers.”

I believe the key to rise above the economic winter should go beyond just looking at this in wealth, monetary or work terms. I hold on to the belief that life is too short to just look at things from what I learnt as a ‘tunnel’ vision because if so, we lose sight of the bigger world full of opportunities when we see things instead from a ‘total’ vision. 

Its easy to lose sight of what’s important to us in life, especially with the stresses and distractions. To me, it’s not essential to keep questioning whether the chicken or the egg came about first. Instead, my focus needs to be homing in on what’s keeping me alive at the end of the day – my breathing, my family whom I fight for everyday, my relationships which keep me loving more and more and so on. 

Each of us has different things to keep us going from day-to-day. Mine may likely be different from yours. But the common thread in the discussion is the action we are going to take when the crunch comes about. When push comes to shove to ensure our means of living, whether it’s financially, emotionally, physically or spiritually, it’s a choice we make. By saying this, I take it a step further … it’s a very conscious choice we make. 

I ask many people then: how do you go about deciding what to do in a time like this when everyone else is down and negative? Do you consciously follow their sentiments and behave like the farmer in winter or do you become a hunter instead? Or do you choose another position? Whatever the choice, the process you go through is the same – you still have to be aware of what you want and how to live your life now and not yesterday or tomorrow.  Someone once said ‘ The Time is Now’ and no doubt about it because I’d rather leave tomorrow to worry about itself or yesterday to continue to be in the past. 

I’d rather spend my time to DREAM with the choices I make … and before you think I’m popping off into dreamland, check this out: 

Decide

Research

Evaluate

Action

Manifest / Maintain

Wondering if this may be useful to some of you who may be struggling with the choices you make in an economic climate as this?  What do you say to DREAMing now? 

To Conscious Choices

I tagged Lionel Koh to share his view on this.