Five Months after Early Retirement

Time flies. I have early retired for five months.

For the past one month, I was busy on taking care of my parents. Old age has been deteriorating their health. My father admitted hospital and managed to be discharged two days later. These incident has enhanced my belief on maintaining good health. I have been maintaining a good lifestyle by:

1. Having a good rest for at least 7 hours a day
2. Having regular morning exercise (5km jogging plus muscle stretching after exercise) for at least an hour a day
3. Trying hard to maintain good mood and relaxing mind. I am an easy panicking person. I have to keep reminding myself to do so. It has been getting easier since I quit my full-time job
4. Doing what I like to do - gardening, reading, watching favorite movies & dramas, chit-chating with family members, learning new languages and skills ....
5. Traveling around while I am still able to before it is too late

By doing all of the above does not means that I'll be able to keep illnesses away but I am doing my best to avoiding them and minimize the chance of meeting them. Preventing illnesses is more effective than curing them. Further, maintaining good health will create less hassle to my family members.

Last night, before I went to bed, I received a message from my friend that one of my good friends had just passed away. He was only 39. To me, he was very young, looked healthy and worked hard on his own business. May be busy lifestyle has affected his health while he had no idea about it. Yesterday, he fainted when having lunch and passed away at night. Reason of death is under investigation. I was shocked and sad. This further tell me that life is short and unpredictable. Everyone of us has to prepare for this before we regret. Most importantly, we have to get our WILL and after life arrangement ready to ensure our love ones are well taken care of.

On financial side, my passive income are promising while my expenses are well controlled against the plan. There is no financial burden or worry to me. 

Few days ago, I cleared one of my REIT holdings. The reason of disposing is that I observe that one of its major corporate share holders keeps disposing its holding to the public. The occupancy ratio of this REIT has been decreasing year on year but it pays handsome dividend. I had hold this REIT for more than 8 years but disposing action by a major share holder catches my attention. Since I unable to obtain relevant information, I decided to clear my position. The reason is simple: if it is a good potential REIT, why its substantial shareholder want to dispose their holding? For this holding, I have collected back my investment cost years ago and received dividend without any concern on market movement should its fundamental is still intact. But substantial shareholder's selling has make me doubt about this. I have decided to clear my position and stay at the sideline to observe.

So far, I am yet to have any intention to enter the workforce again. I really enjoy for being a free man. But it is true that I have difficulties on getting friends for a cup of coffee as most of them are still working for life. Well, I have to get use to this at least for the next 12 years or so.