So we have a small and poorly furnished home now. Yay! Remember I said that it’s good to daydream? So I dreamt： “What shall I buy next?” for this home of mine! I never thought of my daydreaming being part of good Feng Shui, until I met people who, to say the least, are the non-doers who don’t like to think! Such people are content to just leave things be, and worse, they ‘think’ that making things better is, of course, a natural course in life – it will come naturally, and in any case, it is ‘not my job’ (e.g. I am already working in a full-time job outside, why is my home improvement also my job?, e.g. I don’t know anything about interior design, I will leave it to my spouse to handle it, e.g. my husband is the sole breadwinner, let him save and plan for our retirement money too.)! They think their parents will do it, or their spouse will do it. So they just leave things be, and things will come naturally! 😱 Will life get better if nobody does anything? Of course there is a possibility. Remember I said before that anything is possible! If someone in your family is wild about making things happen (e.g. improving the home living environment, e.g. proactive about planning for retirement, e.g. enjoys organising family outings for the whole troop to attend etc), then congrats, you are lucky to have such a do-er in your family!

A worse scenerio is when a family is full of non-doers. The husband and wife both hold full-time jobs outside, so both are too tired to think about how to make their home/family/savings better. The parents think that they are old, and it is up to the young to serve them. And the young think they are still studying or they are still looking for a job, so why should they get involved in making life better? And anyway, this flat unit is registered under my Parent’s name, not mine, why should I put my money into renovating it?

I used to work in an advertising agency, and the General Manager was an Indian expat. He told me this story that I took for a joke then, but now I think best describes the point I’m trying to make here. He said that in his hometown, the public buses are so damn packed, and every passenger is squashed up inside. Some passengers dangle dangerously out of the buses, and hold on for their dear life to get to their destination. Not boarding this bus merely means you will need to dangle off the next bus. All buses are fully packed. When he lived there, he would also follow the crowd and squeeze in/dangle out of the bus. After he came to live in Singapore, and he had grown used to our good and spacious public buses, he groans whenever he thinks of going back to his hometown for the holidays. “But because we are human beings, we are the Earth’s most adaptable creatures. I just need to stay there for a month, and pretty soon, squeezing in/dangling out of buses is my way of life again.” he laughs.

My point is that everyone needs to participate in making his/her own life and his family’s/her family’s life better. If I accept things as they are, and I am not pro-active about improving things, then my current lifestyle will become a norm to me, and it will be my way of life. For example, back in my MIL’s place, there was only 1 water heater in the common toilet. Everyone showers there… unless you fancy freezing your butt early in the morning, whilst showering and getting dressed for work. Every morning while we were ‘fighting’ to use the shower room, I’m sure everyone thought about installing another water heater in the other bathroom, but still nobody did it!  Get my point? It has become the norm (our way of life) to take our shower in only that toilet.

‘Going back to my drawing board’ 😆 , fortunately for the rest of us, we will say that we should buy more furniture for #04-94. See the empty spare room and kitchen in my drawing? Yup! My husband and I are missing a study table and a dining table. So I became a supporter of Home and Decor magazine. When I could afford to buy an issue, I would definitely buy and flip through the magazine again and again, looking at the pictures, until the pages were dog-eared and crumbled. Of course I had no money to buy any furniture, but I began to identify patterns and styles that I liked. Sometimes just flipping through and looking at the familiar pictures makes me so happy… like it was my own home that I am looking at! 😍

I have a friend who also has just bought a new place, and it was missing furniture. She and her husband would spend every weekend going to furniture showrooms and furniture exhibitions looking at anything and everything, but mainly to compare prices. They too, saw the same furniture they wanted displayed in several shops. By seeing the same furniture item several times, it becomes clear to them which styles they like.

So don’t just dream about missing furniture. Be specific in your dream! It doesn’t matter whether the furniture you like is expensive. It is a dream, there is no budget! You can dream whatever the price tag! 🤑 “I am missing a study table. Oh wow! I will definitely go for this style kind of study table from Star Living (shop name), and I would put it in the spare room, in front of the left side window. I will buy the Ergoworks (shop name) chair to accompany the Star Living table. It will be an all-white, matte kind of white (I hate gloss white) color set. The Ergoworks chair seat must be made of high quality mesh, because my husband hates heat. My husband likes blue, so I will incorporate some blue here, here and there. On the table, I will buy this style lamp from Million Lighting (shop name), and I will put the patterned pencil holder that I saw in Ikea (shop name) here. ”

The idea is to be very specific in your dreaming! Don’t just dream: “I need a study table. Any kind will do.” You can do better than that! Inject more power 🚀🚀🚀 in your daydreaming!

Does Feng Shui work? Yes, it does! Ordinary people can make it work too! Make Feng Shui Work!