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Saturday, October 29, 2016

Dear Wifey - Dreamer and Doer

Our life is made up of time. Our days are measured in hours, our pay measured by those hours, our knowledge is measured by years. And yet time eventually runs out and you wonder in your heart of hearts if those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades were being spent the best way they possibly could. - Cecelia Ahern
Dear Wifey,

It has been two years since my last letter. You often ask me where is another dear wifey. In 2012 there were almost 200 of them, In 2013 there were only slightly above 50, in 2014 it was less than 10, in 2015 there was no letter at all, and here is the first letter of 2016 and hopefully not the only one.

I found the quote above when searching an inspiring quote about time. Coincidentally the quote was from Cecelia Ahern, the author of P.S. I Love You, the story where the idea of this dear wifey correspondence came from. And I couldn't agree more with my mind state relating to the quote and I asked myself where are those years have gone?

What I realised as I am getting older, I still haven't achieved most of my dreams and contributed something useful to people around me and our parents are also getting older while we might still couldn't pay their kindness. What I also realised, I have been too long stay as a dreamer instead of doer.

As an avid dreamer, I have very long todos, life goals and bucket list, that I grouped into different life aspect categories. I often spent sometime to groom the list, have a bunch of reading list that linked to the todos. I read a lot of articles and books in helping me to have clearer understanding and strategy of how to reach and approach the todos. And after I have done all of them I have never started. Few weeks a go I posted one very nice quote that also accurately describe me.
Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
And there was I, standing still.

At the other side of equation, you are never blabbering too much about to do list, life goals, bucket list. You are an executor. Different with me, when you suddenly think want to reach something, you didn't spend too much time in over-preparation. You just start the first step and keep moving. One example is about your willingness to study again. From the first day you consider to go to school again, you immediately make action list. You immediately contacted all of your friends to get school and professor recommendation, read all papers related to your research plan, book an IELTS test, and continuously doing all actionable item every day.

While I have spent in countless time in books, Quora threads, hackernews articles trying to find answer how is to reach a goal effectively, you have taught me by example. The first step to reach any goal is to start your first step toward it. Even if it is slow it much better than standing still. So that in future that will come we will have a good question whether all of those time were being spent the best way they possibly could.

PS: I love you