Direction

When I was a kid, my father hoped I would be a great scientist who would do much good for humanity.

Unfortunately that has not came true at all. Sorry, Dad.

One thing with society is everyone keeps telling you: "To achieve something, you need to have a direction in life. A purpose, an aim." The idea is everyone should know what they want to do since they are a kid, and stick with that all the way till the grave. Of course, parents hope that their kids aim at being a lawyer or doctor.

The trouble is I have never really knew what I want to do with my life, and I suspect many other people do not as well. Most of us just settle into the most comfortable position that we happen to stumble upon, and remain there for our entire lives, with varying degrees of happiness.

And this is not necessarily a bad thing - if everyone had an undying passion that could never be quenched by the passage of time for what they wanted to do, the world would be scary indeed. Tons of people would be killing themselves for not being able to make it into law or medical school, even more people with zero talent would keep trying to become singers and actors, and when the structure of the economy changes all those whose jobs no longer exist would be doomed.

Flexibility, which in a way is linked to the lack of extreme passion, is key for our society's resilience.

I never had much of an idea as to what I wanted to do. When I was younger, I entertained the idea of becoming a writer, but after taking a look at the number of people who actually earn big money from writing, I decided it was not going to be my full-time job. I then briefly thought of acting, but after being a spare in a certain drama production, the idea of endless reruns scared me off.

Later in college I did Finance with the idea of being an investment banker, which sounded pretty cool at the time. I did actually secure an offer with the Malaysian Stock Exchange; unfortunately the pay was really low. So when my current company offered me a much better package, I immediately said goodbye to my dreams of high finance.

When that happened, I realized that I was never really that keen on finance anyway. I just wanted the money.

And so I suppose many people are like me. We are not absolutely sure what we want to do in life, and a number of things are fine as long as they pay enough and we don't hate our lives while doing them. So yes, we have no direction if you speak of direction as a career path, which is what society has always drilled into me.

But if you speak of direction as a purpose, then I suppose my purpose is to be good in whatever field I am in, to deliver high quality work to people who rely on me, to be honest and trustworthy to others. It may not sound as poignant as "I want to be a doctor and help people", but I suppose it is something I can truly follow.

And I hope I never forget it as long as I live.