Six and a half decades. 23,741 days, 3,391 weeks, and 780 months. OMG.

That’s a mighty long time to be around. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d get to this ripe old age. Why? I don’t actually know. Maybe, because my dad passed at 62. My maternal and paternal grandmothers also passed at 62.

My mum lived to 90 and a half years, almost. She bucked the trend. In fact, her dad passed at a very young 45. She had said several times to me about how she couldn’t understand her longevity. I’m just gratefully happy she lived as long as she did. While I’m cognizant of the downsides of her advanced age and ailments, I still wish my mum was here with me. 

Anyways, as I celebrated my birthday month, which involves desserts of all varieties, I wondered how I’d rate my existence, thus far. A sort of life audit of how I got here and how contented I am with whatever I’ve experienced, learnt, bungled, achieved or not. Invariably in pertinent areas like career/business, people/relationships, and general well-being. A personal contentment/satisfaction index. Hmm.

Here goes.

Career and business. A must-include as it was important and represented more than half of my current life. How much I earned was significant as it helped/helps maintain and sustain me. Then, now and in the future. Equally significant was my progression in terms of the roles and responsibilities I took on at the different stages of my working life. And, how the different phases of growth defined me, and my self-worth.     

My first ever paying job was selling Electrolux sewing machines in Alor Setar. It was in 1985 after I had just graduated. My dad passed that year. Jobs were scarce. I was clueless about handling a sewing machine, much less selling them.

Next, I moved to Kuala Lumpur to market advertising space for the New Straits Times. I wasn’t any good at selling or marketing. I didn’t like the process especially the small talk and hyperboles. Plus, I didn’t/don’t like speaking to people that much, either. I bought my first car, a many-hand Ford Escort Ghia 1.8, to get me around the unfamiliar city streets, way before the days of Waze. That was a hoot. Not really. Getting lost, not knowing east from west, and trying to engage the reverse gear of my manual car was less fun.

Then, it was writing business stories for the editorial department of the New Straits Times. Before my transfer, I wrote for the supplements desk while I was still selling/marketing advertising space for the publisher. I conducted interviews at the weekends with advertisers, who had bought advertisements for various supplement titles, and wrote their stories at night. I bought my first desktop computer that came with a floppy disk, yes, floppy disk, which was a big-ticket item, and necessary to facilitate my career change.

It wasn’t particularly easy juggling two jobs but I wanted to write, be a journalist, since my school days. As an aside, at university, a quota restriction prevented me from enrolling for courses in Mass Communications. Instead, I did Anthropology and Sociology. Ah well.

Daily news reporting and deadlines had its stresses but it was also exciting to be amongst the first to know about budgets, policy changes or mergers and takeovers announced at press conferences. It was back in the day, when news was disseminated and read in hardcopy newspapers, the next day😊.

That was followed by a stint as the editor of a business magazine, ‘The Executive Today.’ I was the writing team. Challenging, to say the least, it was also the lowest point in my life. I kid you not. Just remembering that uncertain and sad times, regurgitated not so-happy emotions.

After that, I ran my own writing business, ‘Page One Communications.’ Forayed into public relations, by chance. And, worked for a total of five public relations agencies. It was at the first agency that I met my colleague-turned-business partner. Together, we set-up a smallish PR company, in a serviced office. If truth be told, we were the two most unlikely people who ventured into business. Somehow, we survived. She then left to get married.  

I moved back into my home office, and continued to work as an external consultant for nearly two decades. I secured or tried to secure media coverage for Initial Public Offerings, corporate and product launches, and managed retainer clients. The transition from an income to non-income earning position was less jarring and worrisome than I had expected.

All in all, I’m grateful for the experiences gained from the different jobs that I held, like them or not. But, I’m most grateful for the time and learnings when I was a journalist, as that’s the job I wanted. Also, it helped open doors for me.

My personal satisfaction score is probably 4 out of 5. To be continued…😊.