Choices in the Making

Perhaps any writer's greatest motivation to write is a strong emotion about a certain issue. I woke up with one today, thanks to a conversation I had the earlier night with a friend whose perpetually sombre face, cracking, deep voice and the slow, measured pace of talk exuded a sense of immense gravity to everything he said. The conversation starter was when I told him that I wanted a work life balance in my future career, to which he replied,

"Work life balance? Throw that out of the window. This is Singapore and anything you do, you need to work really hard. The reality of modern day is that you cannot afford to sit on your chair at home while there is someone from some other country willing to do your job for more time and less pay"

That statement did not really surprise me. I had known it all along, but I still chose to desperately cling onto the remnants of a hope that I could one day have work-free weekends. Coming straight from someone whose face seem to bear the scars of a ultracompetetive job market, the point drove straight into my insecurities and auto shifted my internal priorities from my assignments to my job hunt.

This job hunt has been more than twenty years in the making. From the very moment that astrologer looked at my stars while I still lay in my cradle and said I would be an engineer, through the years of mindless, forgettable examinations, the last 24 years of my life seem to have been spent in preparation for this moment. Yet 4 years in NUS had not made me any more clearer about what I wanted to do. In 4 years, I had considered being a humanitarian, first aider, farmer, civil servant, narcotics officer, journalist, lecturer and of course, engineer. However it seemed that even when one chose a particular line of field, the choices did not end there. One had to next choose the company, because people did not just care if you wore a shirt to cover your naked chest, they wanted to see a brand on it. 

One could disregard all these and follow the feel-good articles that quitters from top banks and consultancies writes and friends endlessely post and repost on Facebook. Follow your passion, pay does not matter, do something extraordinary, live your life to the fullest, change the world etc etc. Though as another friend who had just entered university and was with my friend and me yesterday, naively pointed out, "Won't that mean I will be poor?"  

As humoured as I was by her concerns about being poor, she had a valid point. Depending on what one wants in one's career, certain tradeoffs have to be made. I am not in a position to advise anyone on their own career path given my own cluelessness, but decisions can be made based made on facts. Though with respect to finding a job, there is only fact, that is one do need money to survive. Everything else, including, how much money you need, job satisfaction, job purpose, success, how hard should you work, are all opinionated and choices that are up to you to make. 

And not for a sombre faced, deep voiced friend to decide.