riangceriagirang

anything for you Boss

We’ve always been told that we have to know what we want in life. We have to be confident in the things that we wish to achieve. Being opinionated shows that you are a person with solid virtues. If you posses all these qualities, they(employers) will definitely take you in. So what if you don’t possess any of it, they won’t take you. So now you’re a loser and a failure in life.( well because yeah, you don’t have a job) So does that mean if you don’t possess all the qualities mentioned, we can directly conclude that you’re a loser? 

Does this also mean that if we never become this ‘ideal’ employee, we will never ever be employed unless of course you pretend to possess all the positive qualities. 

SO…

Is the world run by employers now? 

girlfindingselfidentity

It’s one of those nights again…

Where you just stop and think about yourself, where should you go from here, what’s your purpose in life, what’s your life’s passion and the list goes on and on. You start questioning your doings, achievements and the ‘life-route’ you ‘chose’. Is it worth it? Is it right for you? Will you be happy(the most important factor in decision making). Although most of the time, ‘happiness’ is unmeasurable so most of the time, you WILL make wrong decisions in life. Then of course, you can start questioning how wrong is wrong? or can wrong be right? Is wrong just the longer route of right? Is wrong necessary in order for right to exist? Inevitably, these are all very abstract and most of the times unanswerable . Imaginary arguments I would say. But they EXIST. Yes imaginations are intangible, but they EXIST within us everyday. 

A friend once asked me,

“How can I contribute to the society if I’m not interested in these student activist movements or ‘intellectual discourse’?”

I told him..

(kononnya konfiden)

“Self-development. Kalau semua orang nak jadi leader, gaduh la semua orang”

I looked back and thought about it..

Was my statement even relevant?

I spent 5 years in a school where it’s aim is to generate ‘student leaders’ , ‘future leaders of the nation’ or ‘intellectual minds’. This school is deemed to be an elite school; so many parents want to send their children there(parents always want the best out of their children). However, to enter, you need to be an  active and all-rounded student and of course being a ketua pengawas or presiden kelab bole sepak would demonstrate that. After that, I went to another school where ‘the cream of the crop’  was selected to study together. What more is that these ‘cream of the crop’ are selected from various ‘batches’ of ‘student leaders’ from across the nation. 

At the moment, I am in my penultimate year, where everybody is ‘hungry’ for experiences to nurture soft skills. And yet again, being a student leader would help in achieving those aims. just sayin. In the scenario where you don’t  have experience, you will seem incompetent thus unattractive to be hired as an employee in the future. and nobody wants to be unemployed(especially in the recession). 

So when you think about it, not being a ‘leader’ is NOT the most rational decision you would make is it?

Then again..

You would argue that being a leader is not all bout making your CV spectacular, it’s about doing the things you like, pursuing it to the next level and enjoying it. This is indeed true too. 

Then, with this being said, we can observe that either ways, it is still in the best interest to get involved in a committee, to run as president for an organisation, to form a new society, to be the captain of the football team etc. This is of course only true with the assumptions that everyone is rational and everyone responds  to incentives. 

So who was I to say that? When I myself, at a point in my life felt the urge to fall into the ‘rat race’, to get those ‘work experience’ everyone is talking about. Why? Simply because I don’t want to be left out. Period. Would I have done  it independently of everyone else’s decision? I would say No. Simple as that. 

Back to the initial question.

Where do I go from here if I choose to firmly stand on the brink as opposed to letting myself drop from cliff and succumb to the never-ending rat-race. Where do I start? 

Finding my interest/passion and start from there? 

What if my interest is against what I have always been believing?

Does that mean I should just disregard what I have been believing? Surely no. Surely, there must be some truth in what I have been believing. If it is true, is this ‘thing’ i am passionate about not worthy of pursuing?  I have always believed that one should always do something that create value for the society.  But what IF I like things like make-up, clothes, hair, photos, basically visual things. Does it create more benefit than incurring cost? Very difficult to say. Because as mentioned before, happiness(derived from being beautiful or making something/someone beautiful) is unmeasurable. Can the world live without an Urban Decay Naked palette and LV Bags? perhaps. But can the world be thaaat significantly better with them? perhaps. Because being ‘materialistic’ is always deemed negative in any society, perception towards the creators of these ‘materialistic things’ are the same. In effect, these people generally do not make a lot of money. When you don’t make money, let’s go straight to the point here, you’re a nobody. 

Then again, 

You would want to say, no no no, of course I respect Donatella Versace and the late Alexander McQueen. They were really good in sense of boosting up the retail industry. But that is if you make it big. Was Leonardo da Vinci well-respected when he was alive? Answer is no. Did he earn a lot of money? Answer is no again. Truth is, most artists struggle to be known and make money. We can see here that generally respect and money correlate with each other. On the other hand, you could argue that just because they move in the same direction, doesn’t mean that one is the cause of the other. But because the 2 variables have been moving together for a very long time, perhaps I can hypothesize that subconsciously that’s just how humans price respect. With money?

Sincerely,

girlfindingselfidentity

How can a government topple?

Under communism, the lack of private property was compensated for by power and status. A party boss did not own a factory personally—he could not even buy a flat—but his position in the party gave him access to the collective property of the state, including elite housing and special food parcels. The word “special” was a favourite one in the Soviet system, as in “special meeting”, “special departments” and “special regime”.

The Soviet system collapsed when top officials decided to “monetise” their privileges and turn them into property. The word “special” was also commercialised, to becomeeksklusivny (exclusive) and elitny (elite). It was used to market almost anything, from a house to a haircut. Under Mr Putin, “special” regained its Soviet meaning without losing its commercial value. A black Mercedes with a blue flashing light, ploughing its way through pedestrians, became the ultimate manifestation of power and money. It was also one of the symbols of injustice which helped to trigger the latest protests.

-“The long life of Homo sovieticus”-The Economist