Thankfulness in every circumstance

After I finished my degree back in 2005, I got married and followed my husband again to Japan because my husband was still studying at that time. A year after that my husband's scholarship was stopped, so while he waited for another scholarship he had to do part time and I decided to go back to Malaysia to get a job. I didnt have any problem when searching for job, I was hired by a Japanese company after 2 months I went back to Malaysia.

My salary was not bad at all, normal salary for fresh graduates. But I wanted to try to get more side income, but didnt know how. A few months after working at the same place, a friend of mine entered to the same department as mine and she had been my desk mate. Coincidentally, she was doing a business, but she didnt tell me anything about it. Everyday she seemed to be so busy, after working hour she always wanted to go back early. So I got so curious and really wanted to know what business she was doing. She reluctantly wanted to tell me, until I insisted her many times to tell and share with me the business, then one day she said " Ok, if you really want to know you have to follow me to the office. You have to see by yourself because you wont understand if I explain it to you".

So, we went to the office and I was so overwhelmed with the elegant look of the office, products, smell and also the people inside the office. Did I tell you before that I am a kind of person that easily get affected or inspired by other people?

I dont want to write very long about this, so straight to the point..the silliest thing I have ever done is joining that biz and invested RM33K... YES.. your eyes are right, RM33,000, or USD 8500.00 (Ouch! I could have bought my dream lenses with that amount!!)  for that biz. I invested using cash, I didnt make loan and I am so grateful I didnt. By invested that money I received a lot of the products and I had to stock out that products by finding other people to join that biz.

I think you already can guess what type of business is that and maybe some of you(Malaysian) might know which company I am writing about. About 6 months I did that biz, I went to the seminars, tried to "do" the biz until I felt something was wrong. I contacted my friends just to introduce them to the biz, hoping they would join that biz too and not because of friendship. I didnt get any income from that biz. What I got was only tiredness and waste of money.

After 6 months I decided to quit and refund my money but I only got back 50% of the amount I invested. I was told at the beginning that I would lost 10% only if I quit, but nope, I lost 50%. And I also lost friendship with that friend. She said before that the biz wont break any bond of friendship, but it did. I tried to contact her and ask how she's doing but I did not get any reply or news from her since then. I have another friend who joined that biz too and she also quit but she is even unluckier than me. She invested by using loaned money and now she has to pay the loan (about RM800/month) until she is 45, but now she's only 28! That's why I said I am so grateful that I have used cash.

Why I said its silly? Because I joined that biz without thinking carefully whether I really could do that biz or not, I joined just because I got inspired by the successful people in that biz. But they kept telling me "Just think positive". So I thought positive until I felt sick of it..haha

Its my most bitter experience because I lost great amount of money and also friendship . But I shouldnt be too regretful about it. That experience taught me something about life. And I know many people have lost more than that when getting started to do a business. Its normal. For some other people, their most bitter experience might be losing someone they love in accident/war/fire or etc, and Im glad mine is not as bad as that. I always pray and really hope God will protect our family from any bad circumstances, amin.

I hope my story can be a lesson to all of you :)