From the day we are born, many of us are quietly introduced to a system of life that has been passed down from one generation to another:

Study hard. Get a good job. Work hard. Get married. Have children. Buy a home. Build your wealth. Retire.

And, hopefully, when the time comes, our children will take care of us.

Somewhere along the way, we are also taught that success has a price tag.

A bigger house. A private property. A car. Multiple credit cards. Expensive holidays. A lifestyle that looks better than the one next door.

We grow up believing that this is simply how life works.

Until something happens that takes us off that path.

For those who follow the system faithfully but suddenly find themselves retrenched, unable to work, facing financial difficulties or dealing with circumstances beyond their control, the reality can be a painful awakening.

I know because I was once part of that system too.

In 2020, when COVID-19 was at its peak, I was retrenched after years of putting my energy, time and life into work.

Overnight, the certainty I had built around my career was no longer so certain.

What followed was probably one of the most difficult periods of my life.

For the next few years, I struggled to maintain the standard of living I had become accustomed to even though, looking back, I realised that I didn't actually need most of it.

My savings gradually declined to almost nothing. Liabilities began catching up with me. The calls from banks asking about loan repayments became a regular reminder of the commitments I had accumulated.

At one point, my personal financial position had even fallen into negative territory.

That was when I began questioning everything.

Why have we made life so complicated?

Why does almost everything we do seem to involve money?

Why do we measure ourselves against what other people have?

And why have we allowed material possessions to become such a significant measure of success?

When Life Was Simpler

I remember growing up in a very different environment.

When friends invited us to their homes, hospitality was simply hospitality. Nobody was calculating how much it cost to have guests over.

We visited one another, shared what we had, talked, laughed and enjoyed each other's company.

There was a simplicity to life that seems to have gradually disappeared.

Today, even something as simple as inviting friends over can sometimes come with a mental calculation:

How much is this going to cost me?

Perhaps this is simply the reality of modern life.

Unless, of course, you were fortunate enough to grow up with a silver or golden spoon, or perhaps an entire cutlery set.

But my experience taught me something important:

The lifestyle we are told to pursue is not necessarily the lifestyle we actually need.

There is nothing wrong with having a good career, owning a beautiful home, driving a nice car or enjoying the fruits of your hard work.

The problem begins when these things become the definition of who we are, or when we spend our lives trying to maintain an image that we no longer need or even want.

Sometimes, losing what we thought we needed can give us the opportunity to discover what actually matters.

When You Start Questioning the System

Those difficult years changed more than my financial situation.

They changed the way I looked at life.

When you have spent years believing that security comes from a stable job, a good income and the ability to afford the lifestyle you have built, losing that security forces you to look at everything differently.

I started asking myself what I really wanted from the next chapter of my life.

Did I want to spend the rest of my working years simply trying to rebuild what I had lost?

Did I want to return to the same cycle, work harder, earn more, spend more and accumulate more, just to maintain a lifestyle that I had already realised I didn't really need?

Or could I use what I had experienced to build something different?

That question stayed with me.

And somewhere along the way, it led me to ONEORVE.

Then Came ONEORVE

ONEORVE started with an idea, an idea of doing things differently and exploring how technology could be used not simply to generate profit, but to create something that could benefit people, communities and perhaps even the environment.

It wasn't born from a perfect business plan.

It was born from a question:

Can we build something meaningful without simply following the same system that everyone else follows?

About seven months after ONEORVE was first conceived, I met a young chap named Conrad through one of the courses we had both signed up for.

At the time, it was simply another introduction between two people who happened to be attending the same course.

But sometimes, the most unexpected encounters become turning points.

Our conversations gradually moved beyond the usual topics of work, business and making money. We started talking about ideas, technology, people and what could potentially be built differently.

And that was when ONEORVE began to take on a different meaning for me.

It was no longer just about building another platform or another business.

It became an opportunity to explore whether we could create something useful without being completely driven by the same commercial system that I had spent so many years questioning.

Something built around people rather than possessions.

Something that could encourage genuine connections rather than endless comparison.

Something where technology could serve a purpose beyond simply collecting data, selling advertisements or encouraging people to consume more.

Conrad's arrival didn't suddenly provide all the answers.

But it brought another perspective.

An idea can exist in your head for a long time, but it starts to change when you have someone else to question it, challenge it and imagine what it could become.

In that sense, Conrad became part of the journey at a time when ONEORVE was beginning to move from an idea into something that could actually be explored, shaped and built.

And then, as these things sometimes happen, one connection led to another.

With Conrad coming into the picture, so did Tint.

Another person.

Another perspective.

Another piece of the story that I could not have planned from the beginning.

And perhaps that is one of the things I have come to appreciate about life.

We often think we are the ones designing the journey.

But sometimes, the journey has a way of introducing the people, circumstances and opportunities we need along the way.

I will share more about how Conrad and Tint came into the picture, what brought us together, and how ONEORVE continued to evolve in my next blog.

A Different Definition of Success

I don't know where this journey will ultimately take us.

Perhaps ONEORVE will become something much bigger than we imagine today.

Perhaps it will remain a small project built by a few people who simply wanted to try something different.

But after what I have been through, I have learned that not everything needs to be measured by its financial value.

Sometimes, the value of an idea is in the people it brings together.

Sometimes, it is in the conversations it starts.

Sometimes, it is in the knowledge that gets shared.

And sometimes, it is simply in knowing that you tried to build something that you genuinely believed could make a difference.

Perhaps that is what this next chapter of my life is really about.

Not chasing everything I once thought I needed.

Not measuring success purely by money, possessions or status.

But building something that has purpose.

Creating meaningful connections.

Sharing knowledge.

And hopefully, leaving something useful behind.

Maybe success isn't always about how much we accumulate before we leave this world.

Maybe it is also about how much value we create while we are here.

And perhaps, after spending so much of our lives learning how to fit into the system, there comes a time when we should start asking:

What if we designed a better one?

ONEORVE Founder