Wet cheque book: Message from the universe?

16 Aug 2009

Is there some higher intelligence that is witnessing all that is happening in our lives and sending us messages to guide us? An unusual happening this afternoon led to the popping up of this question in my head.

My wife and I were sitting around a round table in a place called Seng Kang this afternoon. We're with a property agent who had taken us there to show a flat, for these days we're searching for a new flat as the place we're currently renting has been sold off by the owner, and we're supposed to move out soon.

All three of us were engaged in a deep discussion about the houses we had seen and what kind of prices we should be offering. It appreared we had hit a dead end in our house search: The houses we liked were beyond our reach and the ones which only our pockets liked were far from "love at first sight." Suddenly, my wife took out the cheque book from her purse and started waving it. At first I thought she wanted to show to the agent that we were serious and prepared to pay if he could get us a good flat, but soon I realised she had other urgent reasons to be doing so.

The cheque book was wet! It turned out she had kept a water bottle in her purse (along with the cheque book) and the bottle had leaked some water to soak up the cheque book.

My immediate reaction was that if there was any message from this bizarre incident, it was that we shouldn't buy a flat. (As such, I've been avoiding walking down the path of buying a house and have lived comfortably in a rented apartment for the last 15 years...a sort of record in Singapore.) And there was a logical background to my "no go" conclusion: Till date, we have seen at least 25 flats, but have not been able to come close to buying any. And the time is running out. We have to vacate the rented house. So we're tired of viewing houses every weekend while perched on the the edge in terms of time.

Our property agent, however, had a different opinion about the wet cheque book. He said water was considered to be auspicious according to Chinese tradition and wetting of the cheque book was a good omen. (Indeed, many people in Singapore have small fountains in their homes.)

Good omen or bad omen? We will know it soon as it's a matter of 2 or 3 days before we would have to conclude, one way or the other, this adventure of buying a house: Either we will take a plunge or we will get out of this sizzling market and start searching for a rental flat like the one we have now. What happens next?

18 Aug 2009

Today was our D-day. We had no choice but either to finalise a flat or drop the idea of buying one all together. I was not so hopeful when we went out with our agent, but I did take with me the cheque book-not 100% dry and crisp as it should be but not wet either.

We were to view two flats. I didn't like the first flat but my wife, a pretty desperate home-buyer by now, felt it was "okay" and we should be considering buying it. I didn't say anything, and we quietly proceeded to see the second flat.

We reached at the right time (8:30 pm), but when our agent called owner's agent, she didn't reply. In Singapore, you can't just directly go and see a flat. You must call the owner's agent and get clearance to proceed for the viewing.

After 20 minutes of anxious waiting, she called and informed she was sorry for not answering our call as she had kept her phone by mistake in "silent mode"-again not a good omen.

At last, we entered the flat, but came to know that the owner himself was not available and only his wife was around (along with the agent). I felt it was bit odd as this was the second time we were coming to see this particular house (when you go to see the same flat second time, it means you're ready to make a final decision).

We moved around appreaing to see it again, but our minds were already made up: We were going to buy it. All we needed was owner to say yes to our offer ($), which our agent had conveyed to the owner's agent couple of days back.

The owner's agent tried to stretch us a bit from what we had offered but we stuck to our position (which was already pretty stretched. After a brief discussion among all of us and a teleconversion between owner's wife and himself (who was in office), we got the final nod. They too were ready to sell!

In Singapore, when you finalise a flat, you've to pay $1000 to the owner immediately, It's a kind of booking the flat for a period of 14 days till you sort out loan, etc. So I took out my cheque book and cut a $1000 cheque for the owner. I did mention that the cheque book was wet couple of days back, so if the cheque bounces, they would know the most probable reason.

Looks like, in this case at least, the message from universe was not what I thought: Don't buy. Instead, it was: Buy, because that's what eventually happened. I now feel that when you're badly stuck with a big decision, maybe, the universe does send messages to guide us. It's a different matter whether we can discern those messages.

Pursuit of Happiness: Just Two Questions

I read something in the New York Times yesterday, which struck me for its profound importance in our daily lives. It's a blog entry by Maira Kalman: And The Pursuit of Happiness.

Maira talks about Benjamin Franklin, his numerous inventions and how he went about living his life. It seems Franklin had an interesting habit of asking two questions every day, one in the morning and the other in the evening:

Morning question: What good shall I do today?

Evening question: What good have I done today?

The immediate impact of reading this stuff was that I woke up my daughter at 7 am, which she, as expected, resisted, but couldn't help against my steely resolve to "do some good," and then took her to the basketball court. The play was fun, of course.

Well, not surprisingly, Maira's entry has already climbed to the top spot in NYT's current list of the most e-mailed articles. It deserves. Have a look: And The Pursuit of Happiness