What to do with your life? Read this!
Pursue your happiness with your heart. Do something that you’re relatively good at, something you enjoy, something that’s meaningful to you.
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By Jonson Chong
Most Malaysians are now focused on the 13th general election, easily the most interesting and most important in the history of Malaysia.
What most Malaysians may not realise is that some Malaysians, most of whom can’t vote yet, are now making one of the most important decisions in their lives: What to study after my secondary education? And who should I vote for, can wait.
Before I go on, please let me share a story with you:
A young man, decides that the most useful thing he could do with his life is to help others. He decides that more than anything else, he will be filled with joy if he can always be of help to others, human and all.
First, he thinks he wants to be a doctor because he believes doctors can help people and all.
Then he thinks, “I want to help more than people who need a doctor. What about people who need a shoulder to cry on? What about people who need nursing care for their aged parents? Hmmm… I can’t be all things to all people… but I can change things so that all these people can be helped. Maybe I could Prime Minister.”
And the growing boy decided he wants to be a politician. So that, as he believed then, he can change public policies and human society will change accordingly.
After more than 10 years in full-time politics, and only one year in the education sector, he realised that he was wrong. He realised that education—the art of cultivating hearts and minds—is much more powerful than politics.
Now, he is determined to be the best teacher he can be. No matter what the medium of instruction. English. Malay. Chinese. Classroom. Online. Social media. Graphics. Words. Sound. Arts. Science.
The boy thought studying psychology was the best option because he wanted to understand people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. His mother and eldest brother suggested that finance and law (together) was a better option.
He figured that a politician would need to know about money and law. So he agreed. Since graduation, he has been and out of the legal profession at least five times. The only time he used his financial knowledge was to sell unit trust and life insurance. He was in politics for more than ten years of his short life. One quarter, to be precise.
Anyway, he still spends most of his waking hours thinking about policy change.
The boy in the story is me. I didn’t get to study psychology but along the way I learned what Abraham Maslow said about the hierarchy of needs, as described in his book, Motivation and Personality.
Wrong perspective
I agree that most people think that way (the sequence of the pursuit of needs by people, as describe by Maslow). Unfortuntately, most people are often wrong about many things in life. Read Unpredictably Irrational by Dan Arielly, another professor in a top notch US college, if you don’t believe me.
I wonder if Maslow adequately covered the prescriptive part of the equation. I believe that the need, or desire, for self-actualisation began the day we were born. We don’t have a choice but need, and want, to be who we are born to be. Or believe we were born to be. Which is which, only you will know.
Anyway, when parents and elder siblings try to tell young adults what they should or should not study, without understanding the thought process of their children, or sisters, they are doing themselves and the rest of society a great disservice.
As Stephen R. Covey has taught, seek first to understand, then to be understood (read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). That is so important, especially for people with power and responsibility.
Why? Because we are wielding great influence over others—humans who want happiness just as we do—who don’t know as much as we do. As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
As I try to counsel parents and young adults these days, I try to understand where they are coming from. I discovered, not surprisingly, most of them are coming from the perspective of preparing their children, or themselves, for the life of work that comes after their life in education.
That’s a correct perpective… but only partially.
What’s the point of work? For its own sake? For the sake of your parents? Or for your own happiness’ sake? A Harvard professor, Tal Ben-Shahar, says that the ultimate currency is not money but happiness. It’s ultimate in the sense that happiness is an end in itself. You don’t want it for something else. You just want it for its own sake.
We work for money. We want money to buy things. We buy things so that we can consume them. We consume things to be happy. When we are happy we are successful. Or is it the other way round. Thus, we think work is for success, which is equivalent to happiness. Is it? I don’t think so. If you really want to know, please read Shawn Achor’s book, The Happiness Advantage.
Coming back, we must remember the ultimate reason we are going to work. If not, if you think it’s all about the money you’ll earn, you might as well marry a really rich woman. The ultimate reason is happiness, not money.
Are we happier being ourselves or being someone else? If we follow Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we should focus on earning the dough to make the bread first. “Go get a job. Stop mucking about with your silly dreams and ideals. They don’t matter in the real world. You can chase joy and fulfilment later. Happiness is unrealistic.”
Follow your heart
Been there. Done that. Painful. Torture. I forgive. I know the advice given to me was given out of love. I moved on. I decided to give everything I’ve got to the pursuit of helping others. I ended in the education sector.
So, let me tell you what else Professor Tal also said. He said you don’t have to do what you’re good at for a living. You may be good with numbers or words, but you do not necessarily have to use them for a living. The most powerful and important thing to use for a living is your heart.
Pursue your happiness with your heart. Do something that you’re relatively good at, something you enjoy, something that’s meaningful to you.
Joy and fulfilment are essential for real happiness. Transient pleasure is not happiness. Eternal contentment is.
Jonson Chong is a former PKR deputy secretary-general. He now heads the Business and Law School at KDU University College.
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