A Story of a Cat and Boy J

A crowd of 3 to 4 people gathered around a drain. Out of curiosity, Boy J ran ahead of his friends to see what was happening. "Meow, meow". A cat was trapped inside the drainhole. Using a smartphone's flashlight, they were able to see a brown patched cat meowing at the corner of the brick. Boy J's friend came up and asked what happened. Everybody's intention was straight forward. They wanted to rescue the cat out from the drainhole, or else it would die of hunger inside the drainhole. 

Illustration purpose only

When they tried to lift up the metal cover of the drainhole, a passer by, middle aged lady looked, shook her head and said,"Don't worry, the cat knows how to get in, it will know how to get out from the drainhole. If you guys lift the metal cover, if a car drive through and the wheel got stuck in the hole, then you guys have to pay for the damage." After saying those discouraging words, she left them behind. 

Boy J took her advice and planned to leave the cat behind. But when he was about to walk away. The crowd and his friends were still trying to rescue the cat. So he decided to ignore what the lady had said and continue to rescue the cat. They lifted the metal cover of the drainhole. They started to discuss the ways to rescue the cat.

"Lets climb down and bring the cat out",boy A said. But the hole was deep, but no idea how deep was it. Nobody acted only boy J tried to climb down, but it was around 2 meters deep. "Cannot. It is too deep. And it will be dangerous as the slope is quite stiff without anything to step on" Boy J said. "What about we bring a rope, tie to the tree and one of the person climb down?", boy B said. "Why don't we call the securities of condo to help out?", girl A suggested.

As many ideas and discussions were going on, Boy J, without wasting any time, ran back to his condominium. Looking around his condo and thinking what could be useful. "Ahhh, an umbrella, whereby we can lower the umbrella and the cat can land on the umbrella and we lift it up. But, can the umbrella fit in the drain? Ooh, I will take two umbrellas, one big and one small. And, ohh, I will bring a dustpan with me in case the umbrella is not long enough." He talked to himself while he was preparing all the materials.

As fast as lightning, he rushed down to the incident place. When he reached, other people already brought s long mafia rope. They tried with the big umbrella but it could not fit in. Luckily the small umbrella could fit into the drainhole. But it was not long enough. So they tied the rope to the umbrella and lowered it down. But the hole was getting narrower, they could lower it further but it would stuck when they want to pull it out, and the cat might get hurt or fell into the drain. And the weight of the cat might be too heavy for the small umbrella to handle...

The dustpan was also too short also. Then boy C suddenly had an idea. He rushed to his car and he opened his car bonnet. There was a big plastic basket there. Fantastic!!! They tied the rope to the plastic basket, and lowered the basket down. Some people were flashing lights, some were holding the basket, everybody was in a good mood.

Once they lowered the basket, the cat did not want to jump into the basket. Then a lot of people meowing to lure the cat into the basket. But, there was for sure a gap between a real cat meowing and a human meowing. Boy D went to another drainhole and started to make some noise, to scare the cat so that it would jump to the basket. 

Boy J thought of his primary school text book, whereby there was a cat climbed up the tree and did not want to get down from the tree. The cat owner kept meowing and still the cat did not want to get down. Then, he ran to the kitchen and brought a fish with him, then the cat came down. By using the same idea, Boy J ran to the nearest shop to buy a RM2.50 Whiskers Cat Food, sardine flavor.

He rushed back to the scene, asked them to lift up the basked, he put the sardine in the basket. The smell was so smelly but very tempting, wondering why not human would eat such food, it's smells delicious, though. They lowered down the basket, the hungry cat smelt the food and straight away, it jumped into the basket. The food had lured the cat into the basket. Slowly they lifted up the basket. In the lifting process, the cat just jumped out from the basket and disappeared among the bushes. 

Everyone was happy. It was a small mission and yet very satisfying. 

From the short real life experience story, I can relate this to our life. The cat in the drainhole is our mission and our goal, we wanna reach out the cat. The dark and deep drainhole is the one of the obstacles and is also an uncertainty. We do not know what is the structure and what will we encounter down there, maybe a stiff slope, maybe there are cockroaches inside or a snake inside, nobody knows.

In our life, it is the same. I am a Gen-Y who just started working 2 years ago. I understand how hard it is now to work and live a good life. Everybody mentions about investing, MLM, property, forex, part time jobs. Yeah, everybody mentions but how many actually takes ACTION? The passer by middle aged woman is the discouraging persons who always appearing in our life. There are always such people who appear and discourage us in our daily life. "Aiya, it's okay one. No problem. You still can sure survive one. Look at your parents, life is difficult but still they can survive till now." I believe these are all the familiar voices that we have heard. But, come on... Do not ever compare history and now. History's happened so that people will not repeat it. A plate of noodle used to be RM2, now it is around RM6, and the portion is getting smaller and smaller.

The standard of living had increased, the inflation had increased, the petrol price was not the same anymore. Things are not the same anymore, if we want to continue to live a same comfortable life as our parents did, then, no problem. We still can survive, yupe, they had proved they can, for sure we can also if we follow their footsteps. 

A light can light up the dark hole, guiding us and showing us the way. A lot of methods and websites now available all over the Internet. A lot of free information is available now, just are we free enough to browse or read them? Or we like to Facebook whenever we are onlining, or youtubing?

My intention of this post is not to criticise anyone. Everybody has their own CHOICE and their own ACTION towards SUCCESS. Being financially free, how will it be? How can we do it? What can we do? It all depends on the choice we make TODAY, at this moment, which will impact the REST OF OUR LIFE.

Lastly, there are three types of people.

1. One is always complaining, complaining makes him feel good.

2. One is just neutral, accepting the fact, if it comes and it comes, he just have to face it.

3. Another one is the opportunist, always finding ways how to benefit from it and try to ride the wind.

Which type are you NOW? Which type do you want to be for the REST OF YOUR LIFE?

P/S: Sorry for the long story.. haha, but it is written based on a real life story...

Gainvestor 10sai

7 October 2015

10.20am