[Discussions, time and money]
I live in a 4-room HDB flat in the Serangoon area (under Jalan Kayu constituency). But I serve in the Bedok Reservoir-Punggol area.

Today (or yesterday, as it is already after midnight) is a long day for me. I had a class in the afternoon and then a short break. By 7pm, I was at the NTUC building attending a event. After the event, I had two discussions - one at Lau Pa Sat and another near Chinatown.

There were many stares as a group of us (all dressed in white) went to the Lau Pa Sat. When I reached Chinatown, some men in the nearby coffeeshop gazed at us again. The two discussions were about workplans. And it was just nice as all of us had to attend the event at NTUC together.

Because I wanted to know whether the P65 MPs (they were guests at the event at NTUC) blogged about the event, I visited the P65 blog for the third time since it was launched. There was no posting. But something else caught my attention.

One comment caught my by surprise. The person had commented that he wanted to serve in other areas instead of his own constituency as he preferred the MP there. Although it is not common for that to happen, it does happen. I am one such example.

In another comment, there was a mention of using money to buy time. That reminded me about a particular artwork at the Singapore Biennale. Instead of having cash values on dollar notes, this artist put time on various denominations of money. Time is money. Some notes represented minutes, others represent hours and on and on.

My prof used to talk about getting rich. He told the class about an outstanding graduate that earned more than $5000 a month. However, that graduate works long hours. His point is that if you want to have lots of money, you have to put in your own time to earn it.

The eventual point that is being driven across is whether one is willing to sacrifice having a life or devoting your life to earning money. My conclusion is to have the right balance.

I won't want to end up having a nice house, a nice pool and have no time to use it. Neither do I want to be poor and spend my time wasting my life away.