You only live once? #YOLO

It was in mid-December 2016 when we landed in Fukuoka on our one-way tickets, armed with 2 suitcases each and nothing much else. We knew only 1 other person in Fukuoka:

We both thought, "Hey, how hard can this be? We have done this before in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai and then back in Singapore." We have worked with many startups to launch their businesses and raise funds in different countries. If they can do it, we can certainly do it too.

The journey turned out to have some strange twists and turns. It was not really a walk in the park. There were tonnes of paperwork. And all the paperwork was in Japanese. We must fill in most of them by ourselves in our own handwriting. There were very few locals who can or are willing to speak English.

There were plenty of unwritten rules like we need to convince a guarantor company we are trustworthy tenants so that they will guarantee our rentals to the potential landlord. And some of the requirements for us to get our entrepreneurs visas were just downright weird. For example, we must rent a dedicated office space before Japan Immigration will grant us our visas. Shared office, co-working space, hot-desks in an incubator all would not qualify. But what happen if they decide not to issue us visas? What are we going to do with an office we cannot visit and use? We got some blank stares and an insistence that, "That's the rule. Go rent an office and come back again."

My plucky wife, Devin, refused to give up and was my pillar of strength. With her by my side, we soldiered on and fought the red-tape battles like our lives depended on our victory! Thankfully, we had great friends who helped us along the way. We were also getting plenty of support from our lawyers, Fukuoka City Hall, Fukuoka StartUp Cafe and Japan External Trade Organization's Fukuoka Office. Finally, 3 months later, we got our Business Manager Visas, moved into our new apartment next to the beautiful Ohori Park and we are off to the races.

The fact that Fukuoka is very liveable has already received plenty of press around the world:

Thing is, we both felt that as we approach the big 5-O, we really don't want to have any regrets in our lives. We have talked about living in Japan for 3 years now. We love the food. We love the culture. We love the Japanese's insistence of getting things just right. We love the pride they have in making everything - be it as complicated as a Mazda MX 5 convertible or as simple as a US$5 tendon.

This whole idea of #YOLO - you only live once - really hit home when we went back to Singapore for a short break after getting our residence cards in Fukuoka. We caught up with friends and families, ate loads of laksa, chicken rice, kaya toast and generally indulged in whatever we missed most about Singapore.

But in those 10 days, we found out a couple of friends have developed very serious illnesses. We also found out a few other friends lost their jobs. Then, there was this other friend who is now separated from the life-partner. We did our best to lend our support to these friends but we were also deeply affected by their misfortunes.

In contrast, we are truly grateful for what we have. It's not the material stuffs for which I am grateful. In fact, every day I look at my shit-load of stuffs, I feel totally ashamed that I am such a hoarder. I am determined to give away and sell off as many of the stuffs as I can in the next 1 year. #Decluttermylife was my older mantra. My new one is #minimalism :-)

What we are truly grateful for is we are healthy and we are together. We have now managed to get ourselves a year's stay in a city that we have long admired from afar. We get to spend 24/7 together doing the things we like best, learning a new language, making new friends, enjoying good food and generally exploring a brand new world of investing and advising startups.

A couple of nights ago, while having a post-dinner drink with an old Fukuoka-hand who has lived here for 11 years, my new-found friend had this to say, "I am an atheist. I don't believe in God, Heaven, Hell and all those b.s. When I die, I die. That's it. There is nothing beyond that. So, I will just live this life as best as I can because there is nothing left when I die."

We are Buddhists. So we can't say we completely agree with his dim view of what's beyond this life. But living this life as best as we can is something that is aligned with our Buddhist belief. What we have in this life is the reward (or payback) for what we have done in our past lives. What we can do is to live a better life in this lifetime. Be a better person now so that in our next life, we will hopefully not return as a cockroach or something worse.

So, whether you only live once or not is really not that important. What's important is you are really living the life you want.