This is off topic, not really related to financial planning or wealth management per se. However the end result of what I am about to share is similar to the end result of a proper financial planning – we are transforming lives of the people we care about, without expecting anything in return.
As a mother, I would move mountains for my boys, and I wouldn’t want a single thing from them except you know – good grades, good traits, and perhaps someday a good wife who could help me wash the dishes (yes ladies this is how you win your mother in law’s heart, I’ve been doing this for the last seven years).
As a mother who happens to also be a financial planner, I have an excel spreadsheet containing close to ten Mandarin kindergarten which I built all the way back in 2017 and have been updating up til late 2019.
Because of instinct, backed by extensive research, I could see my boys thrive in the current kindergarten that they’re in right now. Yes, Aisya… after three kindergartens later, you ought to hit jackpot at least once right…
My boys have been in the current kindergarten since January 2020. In their school, there is a teacher who caught my attention.
Whenever I see her, she would smile. Somehow behind that smile, I could see sadness, and my instinct tells me she must be going through something.
It’s impossible to have a private chat with her because she would have students around her, and parents sometimes go up to her to have a chat, plus I don’t have her number either. So the Makcik Kepoh in me had no choice but to show herself.
Yesterday at 6.05am, I said a little prayer. I asked God to arrange for me to have a quiet moment with the teacher whenever He thinks is right.
At 4.45pm on the same day, I happen to bump into the said teacher at the walkway where there would usually be parents hanging around waiting for their kids, but at that particular timing that walkway was EMPTY. Talk about an answered prayer, and fate.
I pulled her to the side. I asked her question after question, and found out so many things that were happening in her personal space. My instinct was right. This wonderful woman needs help, she has nobody to turn to.
I figured there must be a reason why I am drawn to this teacher, and to hear her story for the first time – discovering that she’s a single mother with one son just broke my heart to pieces. I cannot lah.
With all the resources that I have, I sent a broadcast message to all of my clients, my family, my friends. I reposted the same on my personal Instagram and Facebook stories. I asked for anyone out there who was willing to contribute RM30 each x 100 donors = RM3,000.
Within 4 hours 15 minutes, not only was I able to raise the funds through the help of all of my generous and kind donors, but together, we were able to raise beyond the target. In fact as I’m typing this right now, I have a kind donor all the way from Dubai who is Western-Unioning funds.
And the beauty about this exercise is, the teacher isn’t aware at all that this is happening. It is something that I could only let her know when I see her for dinner in 17 hours’ time.
Sometimes God borrows us His strength, talent, wealth, not for our own use, but for us to be His instrument to help those around us.
As a Muslim, remember these three things. When we die, only three things will follow us: 1) prayer of our children, 2) the knowledge we have shared and 3) all the charity that we have done while we were alive.
We can be the wealthiest person on earth, flipping properties, earning crazy capital gains, driving super fast cars and traveling on first class whenever, wherever. If we are such person on earth, then plan for the same for our hereafter. Let’s not be the poorest man when we’re seven feet under.
I don’t know how far the mileage will be for this donation, but what’s certain is it could help this teacher to stand on her two feet again, slowly but surely.
…and I thank God, for this instinct, I wonder what I would do if I were in her shoes. Thank you to all of my donors, for believing in this drive. Despite coronavirus, new government, market being bearish, this world still has a lot of kindness to offer. It starts with us, it starts with me. Alone I can do so little, together we can do so much more. Thank you, God bless you.
