Until recently, I’ve always had the ambition to ‘make it big’ in business one day – I couldn’t wait till the day when I finally graduate and can start my forage into the business world to begin building my own business empire.

My idea of success in life was, I suppose, rather typical – several million dollars in assets by age 40, being able to afford all the luxuries in life, earning enough for me to not worry about health and survival issues (i.e. with plenty of money I can afford to eat well and spend on preventive health care, etc).

I even thought that I had business acumen (in fact I still think I have some traits of an entreprenuer left in me, but I think I’ve lost the appetite for risk since a couple of years back).

In the earlier half of the year that I spent in Vancouver, I had more time and space to think about things like what I want out of life, and what I should do with it, now that I’ve only got just about 1 more year of college to go.

It was quite funny, actually. I was going back and forth in my thinking… for a while deciding that I would like to start a business right after graduation, then changing my mind and thinking instead, that I should go out and work for a couple of years to gain relevant industry experience first… then changing my mind again and again until I got sick and tired of my indecisiveness myself. Afterall, there are just so many uncertainties.

I think so much because I don’t want to be like the majority of the population, who leave their careers to chance rather than plan meticulously – those people who start thinking about their careers only after graduation and would jump at the first job opportunity that pays a good starting salary. This mindset can be seen in today’s Straits Times’ Youthlink, where several undergraduates interviewed said that they think they deserve a high starting salary based on their qualifications.

My idea is that as a polytechnic graduate, as well as a male Singaporean who wasted 2.5 years of my life serving a nation that cares about embracing foreign talent more than its own people, I’ve already wasted enough time. I do not want to waste any more time going in and out of jobs when I can plan sufficiently enough to avoid choosing a job that pays a good starting salary, but would not be a sustainable career for reasons such as lack of interest on my part, or having a job that is simply incompatible with me.

I realized that the thinking that earning plenty of money to sustain a luxurious lifestyle equates to happiness is actually just a very convenient ‘default’ sort of thinking, conditioned into a significant proportion of the population due to our exposure to all the ’success stories’ about famous, rich people and their glamorous, high-class lifestyles.

I’m not saying that having this particular mindset is wrong, but it may not be compatible for every individual. I think happiness is really a function of how compatible one’s circumstances (i.e. career, relationships, environment, etc) are with his personal values.  Having the thinking that “once I earn enough money I’ll start thinking about retirement and doing the things I like” just shows that a person haven’t thought enough about what he wants out of life.

Through a process of research, critical thinking and weighing pros and cons of each possible career trajectory that I identified against my values and principles, I finally shortlisted a couple, and eventually zoomed in on a single choice.

The two finalists were consulting and academic life. Both offered relatively high remuneration, challenges, ability to work independently, and opportunities to travel. I eventually decided to work towards an academic career after much struggle between the prospects of potentially earning more in consulting but having a more stressful life, or the inverse of that for an academic career.

I find that after putting that much time and effort into seriously thinking about what I want out of life, I’m able to make a decision about what direction to move towards, and stick to it. At least, I’ve been sticking strongly to this decision for at least the past two months or so already (I seldom stick to a career idea for so long), and I do feel quite determined to work towards it too… and most importantly, I feel comfortable with the decision – comfortable enough to stay focused on it.

Now, the challenge will be for me to do it – get into a good graduate school. There’s always the possibility that I might not succeed, but I always subscribe to the belief that if I really want to do something, I would strive to do it well.

I tend to be skeptical most of the time and underestimate what I can achieve, but that always helps in propelling myself to work harder and I mostly get surprises whenever I look at the results I get, whether in studies or other endeavours. I find that being mildly skeptical is better than being overconfident. At least if and when I fail, I don’t get too much of a shock.

Too much musing for today. Time to sleep!

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