Retire Young, Retire Rich

I read “Retire Young, Retire Rich” written by Robert T. Kiyosaki when it was first published in 2001. Before that, I have read all his three books. His books really gave me new perspective about living and working.

I used to have the colonial mentality where we have been conditioned to avoid risk, and have learned to accept living in the rat race as something that is unavoidable. Since I was a little kampong girl, I only know that, I must study hard, get good grade, go to good school, go to university and get good job. Alhamdulillah, I passed through the life process without much hassle. During my school years, I was always at the top of my class, very active in extracurricular activities and was a head girl in standard six in Sekolah Kebangsaan Titi Serong and also a head girl when I was in Form Five Sekolah Menengah Sains Pulau Pinang. With outstanding result in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, I was offered scholarship by Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) to do Bachelor Science in Computer Science at University of Miami, Florida, and then proceed to Master Science in Computer Information Systems at the same university.

Life process was smooth, where right after my masters study, I got married and was offered to be a lecturer at two universities, UUM and USM, and I have chosen to serve USM because it is located in Penang near my hometown. So, there goes my life, in USM as employee for more than twenty five years, with several memorable achievements, juggling family life and career. Of course, without doubt family is my priority. As a lecturer, you are value less if you don’t have a Ph.D., therefore in order to elevate my self-value; I did my Ph.D. in Information Technology Project Management at USM as part time student and graduated in March 2003. Well, that was exactly ten years from the date that I have chosen to “Retire Young, Retire Rich”. Is it a coincident, or do I really plan my life or is it just a destiny determined by Allah? Alhamdulillah, whatever is the reason, Allah knows best.

While Malaysian government has revised retirement age to be sixty, many of my friends consider forty nine years old is still too young to retire. “Why do you want retire?”, “What do you want to do?”, “You’ll be bored staying at home”, “You’ll get sick when you retire” and many more questions were asked and many other statements were made. I simply said, “Retire Young, Retire Rich” has been my vision ever since I read Kiyosaki book. InsyaAllah, soon, by 31313 I will achieve my vision and definitely, before my retirement date, I will come up with a new life vision. By the way, I have already written my retirement plan in the previous post.