Many times I´ve asked myself – what is it that I want out of life? What can I do to truly satisfy myself, so that at my deathbed I will not regret that I´d lived my life in vain?
For a very long time I´ve been searching for answers. What I´d always wanted to do, is to get out of Singapore one day and move to a place where I can just start a small business (like a B&B or something) and live a laid back life for my remaining years. However, as time passes, the possibility of that happening is getting smaller, and reality hits
I really feel that I am not suited for the pace of life in Singapore, although this is the country I´d grown up in. Everything is just so fast, so competitive and everyone´s rushing around. I hate it. My friends tell me that I´m always trying to compete and compare myself with others. I actually hate doing it.
But unfortunately, in Singapore if one wants to earn a good living and enjoy a better quality of life, that´s the way to go. Unless your parents are rich, you got to work hard for everything. And working hard to succeed in Singapore means you got to stick out above the rest. And that´s what we call unhealthy competition.
I feel very tired. I am 24 this year already, not getting any younger. I´ve succeeded in business a few years ago, but since I moved on from there I haven´t been able to score any breakthrough with my subsequent endeavors.
Having multiple experiences of being an employee before starting out on my own, I really don´t like the idea of working for others anymore. At least, maybe not in Singapore. The working culture here is terrible. Everywhere I go, bosses are mostly unreasonable, people are not smiling genuinely at work and the office politics can be worse than country politics.
Alas, having run out of good business ideas to try my hands at, and partly because of the fear of failure… I´ve sort of run out of options now. To the extent that I have been thinking that, maybe I should work harder in school to get even better grades than what I am having now… so that when I graduate I´ll be able to get a good civil service job and be happy with a comfortable pay. Or perhaps I should try to aim for a PhD and get resigned to the fate of an academic life. But the idea of working under others in Singapore´s public sector dread me, especially since I already had a taste of what office politics was like in the military.
Having said all these, I still hope that one day I can fulfill my dreams. I really don´t think it is a lot to ask for, right? I´m not intending to become a multi millionaire or something. Of course, like most other people, I will try to work towards that, but whatever the case, I just hope to be able to do what I like to do… and I hope I will not have to eventually settle for something I don´t like, just for the sake of earning a living for a better life in Singapore and force myself to accept fate… like what most other Singaporeans do.
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Hey, you are still very young. Try to do something you like rather than something that pays well.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ” – Mark Twain
The first step is tough: Find out what you really wants.
The second step is much simpler: Just do it.
there are several kinds of people in the workforce
but the two extremes are:
one who truly love their work, works hard but paid just enough to go by;
and one who utterly hate their job, but works hard and gets paid lots.
of course, pertaining factors like company, co-workers, the managers all play a part.
i’ll just say; Study hard, Leap onto opportunities and Keep yourself on your toes and leave the rest to fate.
anyway, when coming out for kopi again?
hey luvphobia… hmmm as with all other NUS ppl, now busy with midterms. maybe another day if you happen to be in the area just let me know in advance…
anyway i guess it’s best to take things as they come. who knows when it’s time to leave this world anyway. but this also means that one should always strive for the best so that there won’t be too many regrets at the end of the day.
you are echoing many people here. to me, that’s the failure of our system despite all the outward tangible successes.
it is better not to have ’succeeded’ if the present success ultimately lead to producing ‘ugly’ people all round.
our atrocious service sector is testimony to the kind of ‘educated workforce’ or people we have become.
i dont think they know where the problem lies otherwise they would have changed course.
Hi,
I am double your age ( almost).
I know you have heard this before but … Time flies real fast.
The 20’s and 30’s are decades you should decide what you want to do and where you and your family want to be for the rest of your life.
Don’t procrastinate. Don’t allow “toxic” people change your dreams or pour cold water on your aspirations.
If you think Sg is the place to be, and you don’t like what you see, then do something to change it!
If you think this place sucks and is beyond hope, then go someplace else ( unless you are a masochist).
Just… don’t do nothing!
Before you know it, you are past 45 ( then no country in the world wants you- unless you are Wee Co Yaw or Bill Gates).
You don’t owe anything to anyone ( just as no one owes you a living)- (apart from your family of course).
Good Luck on your journey!
Dr.Huang
Hi Dr. Huang
My hopes are to go overseas one day and leave Singapore for good. It is not a healthy place to live in either for myself or for the sake of the next generation.
Too much competition, too little space, too little freedom and privacy.
However, I think it’s easier said than done to uproot oneself and move thousands of miles away. There are so many problems to consider – that of employment, immigration and perhaps more importantly, family acceptance.
Perhaps it’ll be a dream for the rest of my life…
mrbiao,
Read through your blog. You’re quite exceptional.
The KTM believes that you will most certainly achieve your dream. Sure you will get there. It’s just a matter of time.
It is unfortunate that the day you achieve your dream, it will be a loss for the nation. The KTM wishes you the very best.
Keep up this great resource. best greetings!
Thank you for the nice comments, KTM. Your abbreviation reminds me of the m’sian railway!
Know how you feel too. Sometimes, we just have to take hard decisions to create value for ourselves.
The longer it takes for you to start that “Bread & Breakfast” the harder it will be when you eventually get to it.
Meantime, do help support Harro with stickers and links.
We endeavour to make the common man heard.
Cheers.
We’ve added you to http://harro.com too btw.
Hi Mrbiao,
When I was 25, I begin to question my life. So I went around to ask my colleagues, what is “ming yun”? One colleague told me, “Ming shi zhu din, Yun yao kao zi ji gai “. I believe that for many years.
Since 1997, I went through many up & down due to recession. A few years ago I realised that “Ming shi zi ji jue din, Yun shi kao tian shi, di li, ren he.”
Yes, it is not easy to know what you want to do, that is, have a direction in life. That is the toughest part. I’m 46, to-date, I’m still seeking a direction in my life. It’s has been a dilemna for many years. One of the main reason is that I’m not able to let go completely of what I have, a burden. But I knew that my direction in life will become clearer when I let go everything.
Since you are 24, still young, I suggest you go backpacking around the world for a few months to years. I am sure you will be able to find what you wants. I did that when I was 26. During that time, I feel like a frog that has jump out of it wells and travel to all the great sea. But now, unfortunately, I jump back into the small wells and I’m waiting for that day to jump out of it again.
The world is so big, why confine yourself to a pathetic wells (Singapore)? Go and see the world while you are young, trust me, you will never regret it. Remember the key words is “Let Go” or “Put Down”.
Take care.
Hi Directionless, thanks for the encouragement.
It’s quite sad yeah, that in this country we all grow up to the world and are expected to start working right after graduation, as we are no longer young and have to work towards getting a costly HDB apartment like 95% of the population.
I look at my western counterparts and they can afford to go on a year of round the world travel right after graduation as they are in no hurry to start working towards a home and a family (as they are just 20 or 21 when they graduate from college).
I am now 24, and still have 2 years of college to go. By the time I’m done, I’ll be 26. I have a significant other and we hope to get hitched eventually. Because of this, my dreams may ultimately remain dreams afterall, unless I can get a big break with an overseas job assignment and leave with some financial security.
All the best to you too, and I hope like what you said, I will have the opportunity to go backpacking after graduation with my significant other (but the chances are we will never have the financial security to drop everything for a year or even a few months to travel).