Its been 1 month plus since my last post on 29 May. Many things were keeping me busy in life and I've been keeping things to myself struggling to understand what I was thinking about life myself. The whole of June I was still busy with work while planning for a Japan trip the whole of the month. I was so looking forward to the trip in end of June that everyday I went home after work its about more research on the trip itself. I've always wanted to go Japan and finally made the dream come true with a short 5 days trip to Tokyo. It was an eye opening experience.
I came back from the trip around 2 weeks ago and was back to the usual busyness of work and life. I didn't have the energy to do anything after work and weekends is mostly spent with the same routine of spending time with my fiancee on Saturday and exercise on Sunday plus spend time with my family. There are lots of things to plan for our big day next year which is getting closer each day. I also had catch up with my friends as well.
Life is full of surprises in a sense that there are always ups and downs. For me, its no different and I struggle to keep myself happy on some days and sink into gloominess. It gets worse and worse when I see the struggles in my life and also in other people's life. I get worried on certain occasions about health, money and so on. Many things have happened in the past 2 years seeing some loved ones gone, some in poor health and this worries me a lot. I no longer focus so much on money anymore as I felt life is getting shorter and shorter. I do hope this feeling is normal and I'm not the only one who feels this way.
One of the reasons I stopped blogging for so long is because of all these negative emotions and I wanted to hide it and to be alone. In the 5 years of starting this blog, I don't think I have stopped for so long before. Now, I feel better and ready to take on life challenges again and wanted to share this episode in my life with all of you. If you're also facing life challenges and feel that life is hard, do not give up as you will definitely be stronger after this. Life is not always smooth sailing and there will always be problems to deal with. Yes we may get tired so we need some time to relax and recharge again. In this instance, spending money on good food and going overseas may be the best thing to do.
For work, its always busy even after 9 months on my new job. This is my 3rd job and its the most hectic among all my jobs so far but its also the job I find most meaningful to do. I've been tasked with big projects to really change things which I feel happy to take on. The working environment has been good and people are generally nicer here in the healthcare sector. This is also the 3rd industry I've changed to and its interesting to learn new things and see how different industries in Singapore operate.
For investments, its been a good year even with the trade war still ongoing. Stocks have went up crazily and with my portfolio made up of mostly blue chips and REITs, it benefited a lot. My portfolio is already up 11.3% for the year and I've started to sold some of the stocks such as Frasers L&I and Starhill global REIT. One of my favorite stock, Ascendas Hospitality trust is having a merger with Ascott residence trust and I think the offer is quite decent. In any case, I've held this stock for many years with almost 100% return on investments already including dividends received. This is the highest dividend yielding stock in my portfolio at 8.4% for many years. Its a pity I can't get that kind of dividend yield anymore if the deal goes through.
I do feel life is short and I want to enjoy fully what life has to offer. Someone younger than me and whom I'm close to passed on a few years back and till now its still hard to accept the loss. There are other things that happened but I shall not mention here. Life situations has changed my view towards it and I hope its a good change for now.