What does fortune means for me

The word "fortune" was prominent in my recent conversations. The people I met in this new stage of life do not ponder over the many assignment deadlines and exams. Instead, these people stress the limited hours of life and speak ideas of how to maximize living. Naturally, the biggest motivation in life will be to attain as much fortune as we can.

I have always find it comforting to see fortune as encompassing more than monetary elements. Surely, if fortune was to be quantified with money alone, many fresh (or not so fresh) graduates like me would have clocked negatives from the tuition fees incurred from reading our degrees. Viewing ourselves as having negative fortunes would be demoralizing, let alone motivational. To maintain a high morale, I had decided to view fortune as being in at least three forms:

1. Knowledge

Knowledge had probably been one of my greatest assets, and one that I constantly try to earn. This is because knowledge is one asset that I feel won't depreciate over time. Furthermore, as long as a person is willing to seek for it, knowledge is something that can be easily earned.

2. People

No man is an island, and if knowledge is an asset, then the people that I acquaint with are assets as well. Without people to show me the ropes and people to reiterate ideas that I had came across, some of my knowledge may have remained as hearsays. To me, acquaintances with people also come in the form of written media. By reading books and articles written by people who are more knowledgeable than me, I get to earn great amounts of knowledge in a much shorter time.

3. Money

As the universal standard for acquiring food and other basic needs, money is one form of fortune that most people would try to accumulate. However, because of its tangible nature, it is often hard to achieve high growth. Unless I am extremely lucky with lotteries or I am financially independent, money is not going to come to me on its own. Hence for now, the only way for me to earn money is to use the knowledge that I had acquired over the years.

About Clivant

Clivant a.k.a Chai Heng enjoys composing software and building systems to serve people. He owns techcoil.com and hopes that whatever he had written and built so far had benefited people. All views expressed belongs to him and are not representative of the company that he works/worked for.