A Real Life

Whenever people ask me how's life in Jakarta, the first word that pops into my mind is: Peaceful.

Compared to what I used to do in Singapore, I spend a lot less time on work these days. This is not only because the pace of business activities is slower here but also due to the nature of my current job.

I used to cover Asia Pacific. At times I felt like I was working twenty-four hours: My boss would be calling me from Australia early in the morning, activities in China and SEA countries would start picking up at around late morning and noon; and then late in the evening, colleauges from India and France would be starting work and often there are conference calls with the US people after midnight.

Those were the good and bad old days of the dot-com boom. Nowadays things are a bit more quiet. And I only work for one country. I try keeping a strict nine to six routine. Things are better this way--I get to lead a more balanced life. These days I value peace of mind more than anything else.

I enjoy living a simple life--even when I was in Singapore. I lodged for four years in a simple HDB room with a nice Indian family. And believe it or not--I did not even own a television set!

But what I did enjoy there was a good ADSL broadband connection from Singtel Magix. I was one of their early subscribers and for four years I blazed happily through cyberspace with a 3Mbit/s downstream connection. And that was the reason why I did not own a television set--I used to watch BBC and Channel News Asia through the Internet.

These days, not only my pace of life but my Internet connection is a lot slower. Then again, I am not as addicted to the Net as I used to be. I don't have the habit of checking my e-mail before going to sleep anymore. I don't even bring my notebook computer home with me most of the time.

This doesn't mean I have a lot of time to idle way. I still keep myself busy: I've started pursuing things I've always wanted to pursue. Sometimes I feel my real life has only just begun.