This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 25, 2017 - December 31, 2017

And so, yet another year draws to a close. For some, 2017 couldn’t have ended sooner. For others, less so.

But like most of us who live in the harried, hurried city, time doth fly by too fast.

For what it’s worth (and not as if we need to add any more resolutions to our already long to-do lists), here are six things to consider doing in the coming Year of The Dog.

Learn new skills

You heard of SkyNet? Terminator? The Rise of the Machines? They are here. And they are real. If there’s anything Hanson Robotics’ Sophia should teach folks, it is that artificial intelligence is arriving sooner rather than later and humans need to prepare for it.

Machines are smarter, stronger, more resilient and increasingly cheaper to produce than human workers. They don’t need sleep, food, shelter, gym memberships, holidays or baby crèches.

When Saudi Arabia granted Sophia citizenship, it wasn’t just an affront to human rights activists in the country, it was also a warning. Crown Prince Mohammed Salman is building a US$500 billion city from scratch called Neom.

It’s going to be a city of the future, with more robots than people staffing industries like advanced manufacturing, biotech, media and airlines. Yes. You read that right. Media too.

Learn new skills, for we might soon be disrupted by the machines.

And if you are either (a) too old or (b) unable to study any longer, then revert to Plan B, which involves putting some money into the companies building these darned things.

That way, you can profit even while they take away your livelihoods.

Understand cryptocurrencies

No question, bitcoin is a bubble. But while many experts diss it as a flash in the pan and another tulip craze, maybe there is more to it than meets the eye.

Here are three reasons why.

1.    Cryptocurrencies are the monetary equivalent of a set of technologies that might one day disrupt not just the original disruptor — the internet — but just about every industry as well. Insiders and tech watchers think that entire parallel universes might soon pop up, built entirely by blockchains. If that’s not a good enough reason to buy into the frenzy, I don’t know what is.

2.    Folks are buying cryptos because they are as yet unregulated and therefore untaxed. Being disintermediary in nature, that means both counter-parties can transact directly without Big Brother getting his grubby hands on it.

3.    Initial coin offerings, or “crowdfunding on steroids”, is faster to get off the ground, less onerous and hugely more lucrative than equity offerings. And guess how big your market is and how it’s funded? Correct: globally, and with bitcoin.

So yeah, it’s here to stay. Learn it or get left behind.

Invest (as soon as you can)

Anyone read that HSBC report about how Malaysians are the fourth-ranked country in the world in parents supporting grown children? It’s not far from the truth. Incomes in Malaysia may be growing faster than many parts of the world, the US included, but costs are rising even faster.

So the sooner you forsake that iPhone or BMW and invest that spare cash, the sooner you can move out of your parents’ house.

One plus point: it’s a buyer’s market in real estate.

So consider buying a property at a good price in a choice location. In time, you will have a nice nest egg to fall back on. You can’t do the same with an iPhone.

Vote

2018 is the year Malaysia goes to the polls. Bellyaching on Facebook and Instagram has about as much effect on your country’s future as pissing into the wind.

So exercise your rights and play a part in your country’s future.

Vote.

Live in the moment

Manage to read Nomura’s 10 grey swan events in 2018? All quite likely to happen.

Familiar with the name Bradley Lowery? No? He was a six-year-old English kid who became famous because of his friendship with the footballer Jermaine Defoe. He died this year from neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer.

The end sometimes comes quite unexpectedly and usually, from somewhere past left field.

In this respect, Gen Y and Gen Z have something to teach us Gen X, and it is this: live in the moment.

Enjoy life to the fullest, even if the bills are piled high and the prospects seem weak, because there is so much more to life than work and money.

As Albert Einstein once said, “I never think of the future — it comes soon enough.”

Question everything

That tag line in the ad? That corporate motto? That statement from a government minister? Chances are, you are the least-important stakeholder in that person’s or corporation’s list.

And most likely, it is instead that person’s or corporation’s interests that are most important. Worse, the more senior the CEO or politician, the bigger the deceit.

If there’s one thing this modern era of information overload, fraud, government corruption and fake news has taught us, is it is the importance of questioning everything. Never take anything at face value.

If there’s even the slightest possibility of a hidden agenda behind said statement, then chances are there is.

So question everything. All of us were given some grey matter when we were born, free of charge. Do let’s use it.

On that happy note, Merry X’Mas, Happy New Year, Auld Lang Syne and all that sort of thing. Bow-wow.

Khoo Hsu Chuang is contributing editor at The Edge

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