Dr. George S. Chua l December 27, 2023 l Business Mirror
ON the road, milestones mark a specific distance or location from some starting point to a particular landmark or population center. Certainly a helpful guide telling you where you are, how far you have gone and how much more you need to go. You can think of your life like a road that has milestones and once it a while, it would be good to know how you are doing. Typically, a good time to make this evaluation is on your birthday, anniversary and of course the start of the new year!
Different people have different ambitions in life, different goals, different priorities and different destinies. How do these differences come about? It would only be logical to think that this is due to differences in education, family background, economic opportunities, physical attributes, friends, profession and many others. Even among siblings, classmates and colleagues, the milestones achieved can be quite varied.
We should set our own destinations and keep track of the milestones we have achieved. Hopefully, this destination is not towards the dark side. However, the sad truth is that people sometimes delude themselves into thinking that they are heading towards something good and positive until they reach the gates of hell. By then it is too late, but that is another story for another column.
There are different types of milestones covering the progress you have made in family life, professional career, financial success, awards, recognition, position, physical condition, sports and even hobbies. The most important milestones are the ones that make you feel good about your accomplishments and about yourself. No one can tell you what that is except yourself. In life, the same milestone have different meanings for everyone.
As an example, in a professional career, being promoted to manager by the time you are 25 years old may seem like an excellent milestone achievement. For someone who never even made manager by the time they retired, this may certainly be the case. On the other hand, to someone aspiring to be president by the time they reach 40, this means they are just on schedule. Of course, to someone else who has a different goal in life, like being a successful entrepreneur, titles are not as important as making money from your business. Even among entrepreneurs, the same milestone may have different significance. Reaching a million-peso net income milestone is a champagne event to an entrepreneur who never made a million pesos in his life. To another seasoned successful entrepreneur, this may not even be considered a milestone, nothing but a pebble on the road.
Life is like golf, where we are all given our own handicap index, for someone at my skill level, breaking 80 would indeed be a joyous milestone event. To a much better golfer, breaking 70 would be his milestone event. Now, to a golf professional, breaking 60 would be the milestone event. I guess this tells us that we all march to the beat of a different drummer. Hopefully, we all march in the same direction towards the light, but there will always be people marching straight into the jaws of hell!
May you all reach the good milestones you work and aspire for. Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
*** The views and comments of Dr. George S. Chua are his own and not of the newspaper or FINEX. The author was 2016 FINEX President, 2010 to 2020 FPI President and currently an active Entrepreneur with investments in fintech, broadcast, media, telecommunications, properties and is a regular member of the National Press Club. Dr. Chua is also a Professorial Lecturer at the University of the Philippines Diliman and BGC Campus. Comments may be sent to georgechuaph@yahoo.com