Being an engineer-to-be, and being a person who is constantly asked by my friends around me on what path do I set for my own future, I rarely have a fixed answer. I think that's why even my girlfriend get frustrated and feel insecure coz whenever she raised that question, my answer is: "I don't know". But that's life, we never know what we are, and here I will conjecture more: You don't even know who you are even you get there. Unless you are a few of the lucky ones. Like always, there's nothing that is necessarily true or untrue.
So, the serious topic I gonna put myself through now when writing this post is: What work do I really love to do? I guess this question is pretty much the question in almost every person on earth.
The Path: Form 5, and then...
I didn't choose engineering because I actually love engineering. I mean, I used to love playing with words in high school, and I know I am pretty good at it. I won prizes, by observing how the winning essays were presented and assume the 'frame' of a winning piece. And I am proud to say I am pretty good at manipulating emotions into words, twist them with a flavor of vanilla topping or whatsoever. Well, you know I am talking bout mandarin, right?
Until Form 5 is near to an end and everybody is troubled by their future. The choice to go to private college that gonna cost you a hell lot? Or to go to government-funded Form Six that seems to be a sinkhole for those who are from poor families and getting poor results (coz all those people got in the end are Malaysian universities)? Or dropout and find a job?
A lot among us are taking this seriously. And I am pretty much sure we don't know a shit about what we really like or love to do or to work on. You don't expect a Form Five kid to come at you and say, I like to become a doctor, for a reason other than 'saving people' and 'earning big money'. So a lot among us were pretty much blur, and those rich ones got sent out to foreign countries to be 'polished', while those who had not made their choices or those poor ones stay in Form Six. And Form Six, is pretty much what a lot of people call 'Hell'.
And in Form Six was the time I realized that my family is really poor. As in I found out from here and there that studying abroad in a good university is basically just a 'Cinderella'-like dream. The numbers are astronomical, although we were learning how the speed of light alter matter into energy at that time. So I decided to paint some colors into my totally fucked up life. I study really hard.
Most would have dropped their jaws if I tell them that I was not nearly a 'physics' or 'math' person in form 4 and 5. So I go for biology in Form Six, and then I realize biology is first and foremost, dull, and the second thing come into my mind is, I am pretty much fucked up if I don't get myself the good grades. So I change. I rather confront physics than the huge uncertainties of a jumbled up future career. This is the sad thing about Malaysian education. We are going towards money or prestige, rather than interest. Not because we really want that money or prestige, but rather that logic of the society and the people around us and the fact that Chinese is a 'secondary' citizen in Malaysia even we were born there.
Prestige
So when I got myself a good result, I told myself, hmm, this time I can bargain for my choice of work. So I weighed medicine, pharmacy and engineering. And to my genuine instinct, medical world just gonna fuck my life up because it is so 'routine' and lack of creativity. So I pick engineering. And because I love buildings to start with, so why not civil engineering?
Here I am, in a prestigious university studying civil engineering. Now I am starting to see the real question that is lurking behind: What do I really love to work on?
Till then I have this idea on how prestige works, but only vague ideas. Paul Graham clear my clouds and make my idea concrete. To me, this world is a whole junk of made-up prestige, especially in the business world. Tell me, which CEO is running a company happily while he has to flip through accounting reports, financial reports, schedules of meetings, endless tasks of client meetings and practically a weak heart when he goes to bed to have sex with his girlfriend or wife? So I guess that's a no-no. But that's how it works. When people don't wanna do this job, those people who want you to do it pay you a lot better, and with the 'light' of the prestige that comes along with it. And now, hear Graham out:-
"Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. That's the recipe for getting people to give talks, write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious.
The other big force leading people astray is money. Money by itself is not that dangerous. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing, or prostitution, or personal injury litigation, ambitious people aren't tempted by it. That kind of work ends up being done by people who are "just trying to make a living." (Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this.) The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about what they really like.
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?"
About discipline and my principles
I told WZ about my principles today: 1) Time efficiency: I don't like to spend too much time solving an easy problem. I don't mind procrastination, but I rather spend time working on harder problems; 2) Cost efficiency. I never wanna spend money acquiring gadgets before working, rather when I started to work, I figure out then what I gonna need to use for work and I buy it.
So you never see me buying high-end computer shit. Or any fancy cameras. It's not that I don't like them, but rather the fact that even I have them, I never will use them up to their fullest potential. So I feel great when I purchased a desktop and used up all the CPU's computing capability rather than buying a Pentium II 333 Mhz and left it there to rot. And obviously, WZ disapprove my first principle because he said that, if that's it, then it's not gonna be fun.
And so I am thinking, is there a work that you can call total fun, at all? You can find a work that fascinates you, but never a work that make you feel great and fun ALL the time. Pretty much now and then, you will get to the hard problems, and hard problems are always a pain in the ass. But why people always tell us to choose a work that we actually like? I guess the major reason is because we will procrastinate a lot less, and produce more. You couldn't actually tell an office boy to make coffee for fun, right?
"With such powerful forces leading us astray, it's not surprising we find it so hard to discover what we like to work on. Most people are doomed in childhood by accepting the axiom that work = pain. Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige or money. How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions.
It's hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don't underestimate this task. And don't feel bad if you haven't succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you're discontented, you're a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial. If you're surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they're lying to themselves. Not necessarily, but probably."
So what about work that you love? I don't think there's a fixed answer, ever. One has to keep switching jobs or their fields of interest to actually get to the thing they like. I like what Graham suggests, "always produce". What he actually mean is, if you don't like your current job, and you think that you are actually very much an author, then start producing, and "always produce". Only when you get your hands on the work that you think you are supposed to like, by then you will learn whether you actually like them or not. If you think you can earn enough money by doing the current job and get to author a book later, you may be in a deep shit when you quit your work and find that you are totally not an author after all.
So how to find the work that we love? I like the idea of a dynamic work for starters. Dynamic as in, you have a job that does not require the whole fucking attention of your time and life. And this always means a job that is less paid. The highly paid jobs are always those that require a huge attention during the working hours, for e.g. financial accounting firm. Now we know why business firms pay their workers more in general. It's because their jobs are totally boring and practically made their life wasted. So, if you think that you don't have an idea yet, start off with a dynamic job. And by that you can have enough energy to hop around different things and works. At least, you have the energy to 'always produce' at night or after work, am I right?
Being an engineering student; And...the Boundary
The thing I love about engineering is that, engineering is a field that will always (or somehow) converge in the end. People doing civil engineering can always switch to mechanical and EE and vice versa. All the things we learn are pretty much inter-related, and if you are a knowledge hunger freak like me who actually interested in engineering, you will be extremely happy. That's why I come up with the idea of having my own workshop in the future. I might like to do something mechanical, or EE or chemical on my own. I never know what field of engineering that interests me the most, yet, right?
And so the idea of being an engineer is becoming sensible to me at this moment. At least I am happy with the idea of working out a hard problem that I actually like to work on. But it does not mean it's fun. C'mon people, you gotta erase this idea. If you can watch movie rather than work, you will always watch movie and not work. That's the basic logic. There is no such work that is more fun than watching movie or reading manga or watching anime. But there is always this boundary, that if you have not produced anything and just having the fun, you will feel something is wrong, and you get to work on something then.
So this boundary should be the one used to remind ourselves now and then, not that the work is actually so fun. Find a work that you love doing, but do not expect it to be so hard-assed fun. I always believe that work brings pleasure, especially hard work that requires you to solve hard problems, like those in engineering. The pleasure here does not mean the one-second movie pleasure. The pleasure is not now, but rather the feeling of being great that lasts for one month, one year or even your entire life after finishing it.
So my dear friends, do not live in denial anymore. You should consider how to find out which work that you love to work on, rather than telling yourself that you are already working on one. You know the answers change from time to time, and I am sure one day we will find it. About how to do it, Graham suggests two methods: the Organic method; or the two-route method. You can dig up his essay and read it. Either method or any method of your own, there's always this principle: hard work always bring lasting pleasure; and the work you love is not gonna be always fun.
Cheers!!!!! And wish you guys have a great weekend! ^^
References
I always like Paul Graham. His essays are clear and easy to understand, even after you had drunk two cans of beer and a long tiring day. Here's the link: How to Do What You Love.
p/s: I welcome any debate or idea but inspire me, please. ^^
-
So, the serious topic I gonna put myself through now when writing this post is: What work do I really love to do? I guess this question is pretty much the question in almost every person on earth.
The Path: Form 5, and then...
I didn't choose engineering because I actually love engineering. I mean, I used to love playing with words in high school, and I know I am pretty good at it. I won prizes, by observing how the winning essays were presented and assume the 'frame' of a winning piece. And I am proud to say I am pretty good at manipulating emotions into words, twist them with a flavor of vanilla topping or whatsoever. Well, you know I am talking bout mandarin, right?
Until Form 5 is near to an end and everybody is troubled by their future. The choice to go to private college that gonna cost you a hell lot? Or to go to government-funded Form Six that seems to be a sinkhole for those who are from poor families and getting poor results (coz all those people got in the end are Malaysian universities)? Or dropout and find a job?
A lot among us are taking this seriously. And I am pretty much sure we don't know a shit about what we really like or love to do or to work on. You don't expect a Form Five kid to come at you and say, I like to become a doctor, for a reason other than 'saving people' and 'earning big money'. So a lot among us were pretty much blur, and those rich ones got sent out to foreign countries to be 'polished', while those who had not made their choices or those poor ones stay in Form Six. And Form Six, is pretty much what a lot of people call 'Hell'.
And in Form Six was the time I realized that my family is really poor. As in I found out from here and there that studying abroad in a good university is basically just a 'Cinderella'-like dream. The numbers are astronomical, although we were learning how the speed of light alter matter into energy at that time. So I decided to paint some colors into my totally fucked up life. I study really hard.
Most would have dropped their jaws if I tell them that I was not nearly a 'physics' or 'math' person in form 4 and 5. So I go for biology in Form Six, and then I realize biology is first and foremost, dull, and the second thing come into my mind is, I am pretty much fucked up if I don't get myself the good grades. So I change. I rather confront physics than the huge uncertainties of a jumbled up future career. This is the sad thing about Malaysian education. We are going towards money or prestige, rather than interest. Not because we really want that money or prestige, but rather that logic of the society and the people around us and the fact that Chinese is a 'secondary' citizen in Malaysia even we were born there.
Prestige
So when I got myself a good result, I told myself, hmm, this time I can bargain for my choice of work. So I weighed medicine, pharmacy and engineering. And to my genuine instinct, medical world just gonna fuck my life up because it is so 'routine' and lack of creativity. So I pick engineering. And because I love buildings to start with, so why not civil engineering?
Here I am, in a prestigious university studying civil engineering. Now I am starting to see the real question that is lurking behind: What do I really love to work on?
Till then I have this idea on how prestige works, but only vague ideas. Paul Graham clear my clouds and make my idea concrete. To me, this world is a whole junk of made-up prestige, especially in the business world. Tell me, which CEO is running a company happily while he has to flip through accounting reports, financial reports, schedules of meetings, endless tasks of client meetings and practically a weak heart when he goes to bed to have sex with his girlfriend or wife? So I guess that's a no-no. But that's how it works. When people don't wanna do this job, those people who want you to do it pay you a lot better, and with the 'light' of the prestige that comes along with it. And now, hear Graham out:-
"Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. That's the recipe for getting people to give talks, write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn't suck, they wouldn't have had to make it prestigious.
The other big force leading people astray is money. Money by itself is not that dangerous. When something pays well but is regarded with contempt, like telemarketing, or prostitution, or personal injury litigation, ambitious people aren't tempted by it. That kind of work ends up being done by people who are "just trying to make a living." (Tip: avoid any field whose practitioners say this.) The danger is when money is combined with prestige, as in, say, corporate law, or medicine. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about what they really like.
The test of whether people love what they do is whether they'd do it even if they weren't paid for it—even if they had to work at another job to make a living. How many corporate lawyers would do their current work if they had to do it for free, in their spare time, and take day jobs as waiters to support themselves?"
About discipline and my principles
I told WZ about my principles today: 1) Time efficiency: I don't like to spend too much time solving an easy problem. I don't mind procrastination, but I rather spend time working on harder problems; 2) Cost efficiency. I never wanna spend money acquiring gadgets before working, rather when I started to work, I figure out then what I gonna need to use for work and I buy it.
So you never see me buying high-end computer shit. Or any fancy cameras. It's not that I don't like them, but rather the fact that even I have them, I never will use them up to their fullest potential. So I feel great when I purchased a desktop and used up all the CPU's computing capability rather than buying a Pentium II 333 Mhz and left it there to rot. And obviously, WZ disapprove my first principle because he said that, if that's it, then it's not gonna be fun.
And so I am thinking, is there a work that you can call total fun, at all? You can find a work that fascinates you, but never a work that make you feel great and fun ALL the time. Pretty much now and then, you will get to the hard problems, and hard problems are always a pain in the ass. But why people always tell us to choose a work that we actually like? I guess the major reason is because we will procrastinate a lot less, and produce more. You couldn't actually tell an office boy to make coffee for fun, right?
"With such powerful forces leading us astray, it's not surprising we find it so hard to discover what we like to work on. Most people are doomed in childhood by accepting the axiom that work = pain. Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige or money. How many even discover something they love to work on? A few hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions.
It's hard to find work you love; it must be, if so few do. So don't underestimate this task. And don't feel bad if you haven't succeeded yet. In fact, if you admit to yourself that you're discontented, you're a step ahead of most people, who are still in denial. If you're surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they're lying to themselves. Not necessarily, but probably."
So what about work that you love? I don't think there's a fixed answer, ever. One has to keep switching jobs or their fields of interest to actually get to the thing they like. I like what Graham suggests, "always produce". What he actually mean is, if you don't like your current job, and you think that you are actually very much an author, then start producing, and "always produce". Only when you get your hands on the work that you think you are supposed to like, by then you will learn whether you actually like them or not. If you think you can earn enough money by doing the current job and get to author a book later, you may be in a deep shit when you quit your work and find that you are totally not an author after all.
So how to find the work that we love? I like the idea of a dynamic work for starters. Dynamic as in, you have a job that does not require the whole fucking attention of your time and life. And this always means a job that is less paid. The highly paid jobs are always those that require a huge attention during the working hours, for e.g. financial accounting firm. Now we know why business firms pay their workers more in general. It's because their jobs are totally boring and practically made their life wasted. So, if you think that you don't have an idea yet, start off with a dynamic job. And by that you can have enough energy to hop around different things and works. At least, you have the energy to 'always produce' at night or after work, am I right?
Being an engineering student; And...the Boundary
The thing I love about engineering is that, engineering is a field that will always (or somehow) converge in the end. People doing civil engineering can always switch to mechanical and EE and vice versa. All the things we learn are pretty much inter-related, and if you are a knowledge hunger freak like me who actually interested in engineering, you will be extremely happy. That's why I come up with the idea of having my own workshop in the future. I might like to do something mechanical, or EE or chemical on my own. I never know what field of engineering that interests me the most, yet, right?
And so the idea of being an engineer is becoming sensible to me at this moment. At least I am happy with the idea of working out a hard problem that I actually like to work on. But it does not mean it's fun. C'mon people, you gotta erase this idea. If you can watch movie rather than work, you will always watch movie and not work. That's the basic logic. There is no such work that is more fun than watching movie or reading manga or watching anime. But there is always this boundary, that if you have not produced anything and just having the fun, you will feel something is wrong, and you get to work on something then.
So this boundary should be the one used to remind ourselves now and then, not that the work is actually so fun. Find a work that you love doing, but do not expect it to be so hard-assed fun. I always believe that work brings pleasure, especially hard work that requires you to solve hard problems, like those in engineering. The pleasure here does not mean the one-second movie pleasure. The pleasure is not now, but rather the feeling of being great that lasts for one month, one year or even your entire life after finishing it.
So my dear friends, do not live in denial anymore. You should consider how to find out which work that you love to work on, rather than telling yourself that you are already working on one. You know the answers change from time to time, and I am sure one day we will find it. About how to do it, Graham suggests two methods: the Organic method; or the two-route method. You can dig up his essay and read it. Either method or any method of your own, there's always this principle: hard work always bring lasting pleasure; and the work you love is not gonna be always fun.
Cheers!!!!! And wish you guys have a great weekend! ^^
References
I always like Paul Graham. His essays are clear and easy to understand, even after you had drunk two cans of beer and a long tiring day. Here's the link: How to Do What You Love.
p/s: I welcome any debate or idea but inspire me, please. ^^
-
4 comments:
i agree with the part where u mention the work u love might not always be fun. that's true!
however i beg to differ when u said medicine was "routine".
actually, any job, after doing it for years, will definitely become routine and boring. ask an veteran surgeon, this must be his what? 100th appendicectomy? i beg he can conduct the whole surgery with his eyes closed (well lets hope he doesnt do tat of coz :P)
but the point is, as long as there's smtg in the job that continues to put a smile on ur face, i think that job will be worth it.
PS: btw not all ppl doing medicine are in it for the prestige. and for all the effort put in, lemme tell you, the money at the end aint worth it at all, contrary to popular belief. so dont let them fool u when they tell u a normal dr earns a ton.
lol thanks for the comment.
anyway to me medicine is boring because i think i can never be so good at it that i will create a new surgery method or what. So what i gonna do for the rest of my life is a drained-out life and boring-ness. that's my thought but I know there are determined people like you outside, definitely. that's why medicine shines I guess. ^^
haha the smile on your face...that's the long lasting pleasure. I hope you really find your path in this. Don't jump to conclusions though. Always give urself a break. ^^
btw, i understand what u said about the money that is not worth it. haha but still, you guys do earn a lot. LOL.
I bid you luck since you are going to aus. I am sure everyone of us will get down on the right track sooner or later. we're not like those ordinary ppl, are we? ^^
haha you never know. there are a lot of ppl who discovered new signs/symptoms or new diseases too.. medicine is like an uncharted journey~
for me, it's not of the discovering, more of the thrill of figuring the diagnosis among many possible others..plus the happy look patients give u when u had finally cured them. (i cant wait to see tat!)
anyway good luck to you too! hope u had finally found ur muse! ^^
PS: well i was refering to a General Practioner, when i say drs dont earn alot. i guess specialists do, but its takes a long time to get there. and alot of $$ too!
hmph i m impressed. well u know what, u shud go watch 'team medical dragon', a jap drama. i guess it will inspire u a lot more after u watch it. ^^
u are definitely those who wanna c ppl getting better haha. for me, i like creating things more that's why i see things differently gua.
work harder! your dream is right at ur dooorstep. ^^
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