Careyourpresent: Action and not just talk only!

This is the first post for my Careyourpresent series.

Many people read financial blogs to get ideas on how and what to invest.

However, most they forgot what is life. My Careyourpresent series aim to help to fill up this missing piece as well as serving as a reminder to myself.

Look at this spectacle, it is just a normal spectacle but it has great meaning to me and my family. I hope this will give reader some insight/reminders too. In fact I just wrote this post with this spectacle after not wearing any glasses for 20 years.

Let me share a story and the insights that I have gained today.

Since my primary one, 30+ years ago, I was diagnosed with shortsightedness. I have to wear specs and my glasses degree was increasing every year by almost 100 degree into my adulthoods. I was indulged in computer games as no one accompany me to play since young and I cannot go out. Everyday just play games in order to kill time and feel fulfilled. By the time I was in national service, my degree was 975 and 925. What does these two numbers mean? Basically every morning when I woke up, I can’t see the time on the clock face on the wall. I can’t see the face of the person who is less than 1 m away from me. That’s how sad it was. It was also 20 years ago I took the leap of faith, I went for Lasik and went without spectacles for 20 years.

Recently my eyesight start to deteriorate. My wife asked me to get a pair of spectacle but I refused because:

I still can see most things except only some near reading on computer screen. I am don’t want to wear a spectacle after 20 years of spectacle free. In fact, I can see most things, why waste money and suffer the fate of wearing spectacles? As long as I don’t strain my eyes (force my eyes to see things that I can’t see by squeezing my eyes), my eyesight should not deteriorate and hopefully one day my body will repair the lost sight.

However Today 17 July 2022 – I went to make a spectacle. Why so sudden?

The above is my prescription. As you can see, its only 1.25 and 0.5 shortsightedness. I can survive without spectacle even for computer work but this spectacle has much more meaning than that.

As you may have guess it, since I have suffered the fate of very bad shortsightedness, I don’t want my two kids to suffer the same fate. I believe many parents would feel the same way – they want kids to be better and not to suffer the same fate that they have suffered before.

Given the technology age today, it is very difficult to prevent screen time for young kids, especially there are so many ICT classes in school, even starting from preschool where the teachers start to use ipad to show them videos/songs etc during class. However, I decided to be a “bad strict” dad in term of limiting their exciting screen time. I only allow them to watch 15 min maximum of tv (no phone at all using eye, but they can use phone to listen to songs/music) at interval of 5 minutes since their age of 4, i.e., watch tv for 5 minute, take a break look far for 5 min, watch tv for another 5 minutes and then another 5 minutes break before watching the last 5 minutes. In fact, tv is not everyday, maybe 2-3 time max per week. To put into perspective, a movie such minion is about an hour plus, they took weeks/months to complete the whole movie.

Additionally, I would also try my bring them outdoors, spend every single alive waking moment with them no matter how tired I am. This is my almost daily routine: wake up at 6am, bring them to schools, then go work, after work spent all my time to play with them or bring them outdoor to playgrounds/parks etc. After they sleep at 10pm/11pm etc, I would wake up to complete my unfinish work or do my favorite research in cryptos, stocks, macro, blogging etc and then sleep around 1-2am (which is what I am doing now at 12.54am, blogging, sharing my experiences).

Ok, back to the main story. Despite all these efforts, the fateful day still came this year as my elder son is in Primary One. After the school eye check up, they asked my child to go HPB for a checkup on 11 May 2022 and below is the result.

We are devastated (my son and I). Since young I have been nagging him to take care of his eyes so that he won’t be so high degree as his father and he did his best to follow. With the above prescription, he still can see most things but some of the words on the whiteboards he still can’t see it. We were advised by the doctor in HPB to make him a spectacle so to prevent the eyesight to worsen. We asked him if he want to make a spectacle. He said no for many times regardless of how many time we asked him to or the school teacher asked him to because he said

I still can see most things except only some near reading on school white board. I don’t want to wear a spectacle. In fact, I can see most things, why waste money and suffer the fate of wearing spectacles? As long as I don’t strain my eyes (force my eyes to see things that I can’t see by squeezing my eyes), my eyesight should not deteriorate and hopefully one day my body will repair the lost sight.

Sound familiar for the above line?

My son learnt from me.

Guess what happened surprising today, my son agreed to make his spectacle today less than 20 minutes after paid and left the shop today. We asked him again after we left the shop, he told us yes.

I didn’t realized how impactful I am to his life until today, few hours ago. I didn’t realized I meant so much to him until my wife told me just now after my son say yes.

As parents, we want the best for our kids and always nag/talk/teach them many many life education knowledge/stories/ideas which we think that would be the best for your kids. For example, you should learn to spend within your means. Save money, invest the rest etc.

All these are good advices but NO ADVICE CAN BEAT LIVE EXAMPLE FROM PARENTS. Many of us including me forget how impactful we are to our kids when THEY ARE YOUNG. You are their role model and they will learnt from you. Please remember that the older they grow, they less they need you. You are very impactful to their lives NOW when they are still young.

THEY ARE ONLY YOUNG ONCE. ONCE THEIR YOUNG PERIOD IS GONE, IT WILL NEVER COME BACK. I hope this post will serve to remind myself and readers to Careyourpresent. In fact, currently I am planning/contemplating/boosting up my courage to take the next step of transiting my family from dual income to single income + investment income soon.

Lastly I want to end with the picture below which I saw it few years ago on facebook. Basically this post say,

Your time with kid is really very short. Only after a short while, your kids will not watch cartoons, will stick with friends, lovers, then suddenly started working. If you missed this period, you will never get it back.

Side story:
I don’t know if we are correct to ask him to make his spectacles as after reading some science research reports, I still believe as young kids are growing up, their eyes are also growing, if without getting used to wearing spectacles, their short sightedness may goes away one day as they grow up as long as they don’t strain their eyes during normal days. However, most of the time, young kids will strain their eyes by trying hard to see things that are blur which will usually worsen the eyesight.