Technically speaking, its not wrong to say that its a good thing to “disbelieve” the government. That however, is only half the answer. It is incomplete and unsatisfactory, because it assumes that the government is trying to lie to you (they are not), and it provides no actual guidance to answering the question.
When the government makes faulty predictions for the future, it does not mean that they are lying to you. It simply illustrates the truism that the minutiae of a capitalist economy is beyond the control of any individual or group of individuals, no matter how intelligent. Command and control policies to churn out graduates in specific fields according to quotas will fail, simply because there is no good way to accurately predict the “needs” of the market.
Simple disbelief does not provide any guidance to answering the all-important question confronting us constantly throughout our lives. That question is: how do we determine our own destinies? I will try, in my own small imperfect way, to help others to find their own answers, in the same way that I did. I believe this would be particularly important for those young people who have recently finished their studies and are unsure as to which path to pursue.
I found my path by asking myself 3 questions in succession, and by finding the answer(s) that fall within all three.
The first question is, what are one’s strengths. This first question is quite possibly the most difficult. To be able to answer this question requires a level of self-awareness that most teenagers, when confronted with the choice of what to specialise in at university/polytechnic, do not possess. Some people do not gain this level of self-awareness for the entirety of their lives. I should know: I only knew to ask myself this question when I was 19, and only started having an appreciation of how difficult this is to do when I was 21.
There is no easy way to gain the self-awareness to answer this question. The only way I can think of is to ask yourself this question everyday, and to confront oneself with one’s own strengths and weaknesses. Be as frank and honest as possible, possibly to the point of underestimating one’s own abilities. Seek the opinions of those close to you, like your family and/or friends, but never let any one of those opinions be decisive. Ultimately YOU are the one who has to decide what your strengths are.
When I confronted myself with these questions, I found to my comfort that at the very least, I knew I was proficient in the English language and logical reasoning. That set the stage for the next question.
This question is comparatively easier to answer than the first, but the difficulty lies in its scope. Most people have many things that they would like to do, but not all of those things are doable as a career path. In addition, some people prefer to do certain things that they like for fun and enjoyment, rather than as work.
For these reasons, when you consider what is it that you like to do in the context of a career path, you should keep in mind the following: (a) is this something that, at the very minimum, can be done? (b) would doing this as “work” destroy your love of doing it?
Once you have identified the things that fall within this category that also uses your strengths, go on to the last step.
“Reward” to me has a very broad meaning. It could mean financial, emotional or spiritual rewards, or any combination of the three. I think for most people they would like to have all three. Such an occurrence is entirely possible, in varying degrees, but largely depends on the subjective likes and dislikes of the individual.
Some people may prefer more of one or the other. I think it is safe to say that most people would prefer to have at least a certain level of financial reward from their jobs. Some would go for the big money, but others may find that beyond a certain level, more money doesn’t do as much for them as other things, such as more time to spend with friends and family, and enjoying the time spent with these loved ones.
Whatever your preference, this step is one that you must consider carefully.
Hopefully by the time you have worked your way through these questions, you would have narrowed your options to those that answers all 3 of the questions.
One last important point to remember. We as human beings are changing all the time, and this includes our strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. There is no shame in changing your mind when after travelling a path for some time, you decide that the current path is no longer the right one for you.
The one most crucial thing that people do not commonly talk about, is that not only do we have to be adaptable to changing environments, we also have to be adaptable to the changing self. There are times when we have to change our environments and choices in order to accommodate the self that has changed.
30 Comments
Well done, this is what I’ve been trying to tell my daughters.
Hmm, if you could just put it into “simpler” english, I may forward this blog to them to save my own breath
By the way, in case you want to know, same problem again ..
I cannot submit this comment when in Firefox, did it in Konqueror.
lol. Legal Janitor,
u should be a self-help guru!!
Steven Covey has competition!!!
It is wise to assume the stance of scepticism in the face of any government. Not because they are liars, but because their human nature endows them with the potential to lie. This is especially so within a system that promotes self-interest - the motivating force for deceit.
A government’s ability to ‘make faulty predictions’ does not exonerate them from the ability to ‘lie’. A bit of a logical error in your assumption.
ed:
Personally I believe politicians lie all the time. In Singapore’s particular context however, I believe that the government is more likely to be misguided, albeit with good intentions, rather than intentionally deceptive.
1) why do u think your method is any better than throwing a dice?
2) i suppose u have done fairly well to come to this conclusion.
3) i also believe there are others who have tried similar approaches but have failed miserably.
4) not because they have applied the method incorrectly but simply because life is unpredictable.
5) i rather accept that the formula for success remains elusive.
hunguptodry:
The unpredictability of life is not a reason to not do anything for yourself.
Secondly, failure is not the end of the road. I have failed myself, many times before. Apart from death, there is no such thing in life as an unrecoverable failure.
People are faced with 3 choices: (1) do nothing, and let oneself be at the mercy of changes in the world (2) let someone plan your life for you e.g. the gahmen (3) plan your life for yourself, with contingencies for unexpected occurrences, as far as possible.
The first two choices naturally mean that you would have no choice in how your life turns out, the third choice means you would at least have SOME control and choice regarding your path in life.
Comparatively speaking, is it not still better that you take charge of your own life for yourself?
hunguptodry:
I also have to add that this is not a formula of any sort for success. This is only a guide to how to choose your own path for yourself, as the title of the post clearly states.
Some people are so afraid of failure that they would rather someone else choose the path for them, so when they do fail, they can blame someone else. The sad thing is these people will never recover from their own failures, because they have abdicated their own personal responsibility to think and choose for themselves.
Personally I think it a far greater learning experience to choose my own path, and fail, and then learn from those failures to try again, so that I would not make the same mistakes as before.
I would say this way of doing things has at least a marginally better chance of success than simply letting other people run your life, no?
i prefer to …
1) throw the dice in my heart.
2) expect nothing.
3) be pleasantly surprised.
hunguptodry:
that’s not a bad way to think! its easier to be happy when one has low expectations.
Mic:
Sorry that its complicated, I was trying my best to use as simple language as I can. Perhaps you can just show them the venn diagrams?
Choosing our own destiny is good, provided that we are able to. Again, we are guided to the fact that most families send their children to schools, so that when they completed their studies, they can support the families or earn their own livelihood. The government “predicts” certain trends in certain industries and promote those industries to the students. They are likely to provide some incentives for students to study in these areas. Some will have to the luxury to choose their destiny, but most will have to work within their means in the real world.
Being practical and financially limited, most will follow the trends and hope that it is not a wrong choice. At the end of the day, do we want to do something that create hardship for our parents who work hard to send their children to school.
Non-believer:
you do realise that those who follow the trends are the ones who find it hard to find a job because of oversupply of labour, no? does that not create the kind of hardship for parents that you are talking about?
Sounds like you’re making an incomplete and unsatisfactory assumption too — that the government is NOT lying.
By the way, could you open up the comments feature for your angry post on Edmond Eh please? I want to write a comment there. Alternatively, if you prefer, we could discuss via email.
Hmm. I think you missed a point. The whole thing only works if you’ve sufficient data with which to make an informed decision. Sometimes you make decisions not because you like it, but because you don’t know of any alternatives that fit the criteria you’ve described.
I guess an education goes a long way towards filling that void of ignorance. That, and lots and lots of reading, socializing, and general mucking-about and romping through life.
What I’m trying to say is, the method you’ve outlined still begs the question: how do you know what you’ve thought of is right?
(In any case I take a much more happy-go-lucky view towards the whole thing in general ^_^)
Ray:
…how do you know what you’ve thought of is right?
1) There is no such thing as the ‘best move’ without precedent.
2) Just go ahead and do the darn thing.
3) After you’ve done it, spend some time alone and reflect on (”review”) your experience.
You’ll then usually find out something more about yourself than not attempting the thing at all. Because where you were uncomfortable in the new situation, you will feel that niggling doubt brought on by anxiety.
4) Try pinpointing to yourself just what was it that caused that anxiety.
5) Consider if you could learn something new in order to improve on that part of yourself or even, make the anxiety go away all together.
6) Do the self-improvement thing, then repeat points 1-6.
At the end of it all, what matters is that you act on whatever information that is available.
And then assume hunguptodry’s position: Leave everything else to chance.
Perhaps it would help to consider that even those who advocate taking charge of your own life only appear to be fearless in adversity.
No one ever said that life was easy.
At the same time however, the least you could do for yourself is to fight back.
I for one, seriously, don’t dare to take up handball. I am awfully clumsy and all too easily embarrassed.
(Which is why I prefer to not tell anyone what my plans are and then secretly do the thing.)
Ah, the oversupply of labour - guess who said that there are a lot of jobs after the students completed their studies. So, your question already answered itself.
“天行建，君子以自强不息。” 《易经》
KH:
As I’ve said I’m happy-go-lucky myself.
I wasn’t advocating *complete* knowledge. I was advocating an education (or some other method of obtaining background), so you can make an informed decision. As Han has pointed out, people change, over time you’ll find yourself re-evaluating anyway. I just thought he’d missed mentioning the base assumption.
At the end of it all, what matters is that you act on whatever information that is available.
Precisely my point; the better the available information, the better the decision =).
Ray:
Ah, don’t worry about it. I tend to be very tangential.
JK Tan:
When one encounters pronouncements from the government, you can choose from 2 stances to take if you decide not to believe:
(1) take the default position that the government is always lying, unless evidence proves otherwise
(2) take the default position that the government is acting in good faith, even though misguided
Option (2) is skepticism, option (1) is paranoia. Personally I think option (2) is more realistic and prudent.
Ray:
I think the interesting thing about my steps is that the questions are not directed at external events that are out of our control. All these questions are directed at the self, and go towards understanding the self.
Central to my arguments here is that there is only one thing in the world that is within our ability to control and understand, and that is ourselves. The information problem is commonly cited as a flaw of the free market, but I think this definitely does not apply in the case of understanding your own self.
Non-believer:
I have no idea what you’re going on about. My questions here have nothing to do with who said there will be lots of jobs. In fact, my entire post and argument is exactly about being sceptical with regards to statements like those you mentioned.
Anyway I still abide by what I sent to LHL in email:
The attitude of Australians to life is actually not that different from the attitude of Singaporeans at the dawn of independence.
The Australians have in their national myths the notion of the larrikin.
The Australian larrikin rebels against the very harsh interior of the bush, while the Singaporean at the dawn of independence rebels against the very harsh exterior.
For I summarise Singapore’s history thus:
Must an island state be a political joke?
If there’s no precedent, then there’s no ‘best move’.
So, just try.
Hi, Han.
When one encounters pronouncements from the government, one can choose from THREE stances to take if you decide not to believe:
(1) take the default position that the government is ALWAYS lying, unless evidence proves otherwise
(2) take the default position that the government is ALWAYS acting in good faith, even though misguided
(3) take the default position that the government is SOMETIMES lying and OTHER TIMES acting in good faith, even though misguided.
J.K. Tan:
lol. actually you are right. perhaps I’m just not used to thinking in uncertain terms. =)
Well, it’s pretty obvious when they’re lying lah…
Han,
Sorry to pollute your post but I cant seem to enter your portfolio kh. Have you changed the password?
Well actually, I just needed to be careful about security… like a change of password fast.
Just pop by here.
Or: open a gmail acct with ‘0apjiyukk9′?
Prease/can/possible?
kh,
no problem
I will get back to you soon
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