(Balancing coins for good luck. AFP photo.)
Phone conversation with The Hubby:
The Hubby: Don’t forget to set aside P15,000 this month okay?
Salve: For what?
The Hubby: So, I can upgrade from my PC to a MacBook Pro by December.
Salve: Hmm. We are saving ***** monthly for our insurance policies, education funds and investments, and setting aside P15,000 for your MacBook. What will we live on? How will we eat? (doing my best to sound dismayed)
The Hubby: That’s okay. By the end of the year, I will have a MacBook Pro AND a slimmer wife. Nyahaha!
***
A few years ago, we would have bought the darned thing with our credit cards, what with the installment promos out there. But getting older and MoneySmarts blogging has tamed us. Save first, and then buy.
***
I don’t know if I will ever become a billionaire, but I love reading billionaire stories. Read this account of the Philippine’s shy billionaire Andrew Tan. I particularly liked this part:
My father worked in a transistor radio factory; my mother was a plain housewife. I have one brother. One influential person in my life was my mother. As a young businessman, I would consult her before I made any important decisions. We discussed not just business matters, but also anything under the sun. She and her guidance meant a lot to me.
When I married, my wife Katherine became the most influential person in my life. Today, we talk about business almost every day, especially when I have to make important decisions.
Guys, guys, listen well :-p
I found this part to be very interesting and possibly controversial:
Some people may disagree, but I believe that for a person to become very wealthy, 40 percent is due to luck and 60 percent to a combination of intelligence and hard work. You just have to be at the right place at the right time. If you are lucky, timing will always be in your favor; otherwise, timing will always be off. There’s a Chinese saying that big success depends on the heavens. For me, good luck accounts for 40 percent of all my success.
All in all, an account for those I’m-so-down-I-can-hardly-keep-on-living moments. But honestly speaking, I don’t believe in luck. I believe successful people make their own luck. Hard work and faith, which will keep the way lighted even when everything seems ready to crash, are the things that I bank on to keep me going.
Do you believe in luck?
April 17th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Salve,
I’m not sure if I’m lucky or not hehe. This are points to ponder in our rocking chair days I guess
Right now keep living thru trial and error.
Pinoy investor said it best. Sometimes we don’t know when luck is right there in our face. Sometimes we recognize it but fail to fully take advantage of it.
All I know is it exist. Law of attraction and all that.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Melvin, very well said. I barely blinked! I will check out that book you mentioned. Your comment reminded me of an event i covered where five disabled persons showed how they succeeded in business. I think this world is meant to be imperfect (i.e. some people are “luckier”, “less lucky” than others.) Railing against the “steep curve” is useless. Even counterproductive. People succeed more when they just accept the result of that randomness at the moment of conception and do their best, lengthening their stride despite everything.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:16 am
@ACN, (in lotus position, yoga-like) invoking the energy of the universe pare!
April 16th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
You can expand the notion of “luck” as randomness, or the degree of unpredictability of events. “Good” randomness could be “good luck” and vice versa.
Luck/randomness is already operative at the moment of conception, when one set of genes emerges out of a billion, or even trillion possible combinations. This genetic make-up will determine one’s future physical characteristics. Clearly, this stage is already fraught with dangers, ie risks of mutations from factors within the mother’s womb or outside, in the mother’s external physical environment.
Life is probably harsher or more difficult if one is born with a physical deformity or an ailment, say, type 1 diabetes. One would feel just …”less” lucky. Of course these can be overcome, but the curve is simply steeper.
The situation at birth is random. Some people would feel luckier if they were born in the US rather than the Philippines. Luckier if you were born here rather than in Rwanda or Sudan. These initial conditions will definitely influence one’s subsequent experience of luck. The notion of luck differs accordingly.
Some academics refer to this concept as sensitivity to initial conditions. An enlightening discussion can be found in the book “The Origin of Wealth”.
We can not escape from randomness/luck, whether good or bad. But that doesn’t mean we can not mitigate its influence.
April 16th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
qwerty, only when i allow him to win. nyahahaha. i REALLY hope he is not reading any of my entries today