Sunday, October 25, 2009
Unfair
Since young, I think I heard "People are not born equal" by LKY, and it has stucked to my mind since.
Whenever I think I'm up there, I'll see hordes of better people, and they gave me a good, humbling lesson.
Whenever I think I'm in a dire situation, I realised there are probably way many people who are a lot worse, and I should perhaps treasure what I have.
Life's unfair, it always was, and will always be. The key thing I've learnt while growing up is not to moan about the unfairness, but to understand these unfairness, and work your way around it.
To put it in a more cynical way, to tilt that unfairness to your favour, i.e. be at the 'right' end of the unfair situation.
Life's unfair. Some people are 'born' smarter, and some worse. Some people are 'born' beautiful and some ugly. Some people are 'born' hardworking, and some lazy. Some people have the gift of the gab that makes them seem better than they actually are, and some people just toil in the dark simply because they don't know how to shine.
Instead of moaning, why don't we just sit down calmly, assess the situation, and see which areas of the 'unfair' scale can we exploit?
There's where the boundaries blur actually. Do people look good because they are 'born' with it, or because they have spent considerably on nicer-looking (meaning suitable to one's body) clothes and hair? Or did they work hard to research on what suits them? Do people have good results because they are 'born' smart, or it is because they work harder than the others, or simply in the right way, while the others toil in the dark? Do people become successful in their careers because they are lucky (meeting good bosses etc), or they are born with good looks, or they can talk better, or simply because they really worked harder than everyone else, squeezing that little additional quality into their work?
If we understood the production function of each good we want to produce, perhaps finding the factors to produce them would be much easier. The key is to first predict the production function as accurately as possible, and get the necessary factors ready, before trying to produce the good. Not try to produce the good blindly, then complain 'how come the production function does not cater to my endowments'?
Another random philosophical post from me, can /ignore, haha
lowtide blogged @
12:45 pm
Monday, October 12, 2009
Realisations
Recalling from the story of Jackie Chan's Shinjuku Incident, actually we humans only need some food and a proper shelter to survive. We toil because we have to feed ourselves.
However, as we grow in incomes, we develop new wants - and through habits, they become needs. This is when discontent occur, this is when we forget our most basic aim of doing everything. And this is when we get unduly stressed over 'unimportant' things, and this is when we keep inventing problems once we solved the ones life gave us.
Actually, having a mundane family life, where everyone has a healthy body, living in contentment, that is the most important. Because it is so 'mundane' and seems so 'normal', we often take it for granted, and instead, we focus on what we not have, rather than what we always had.
Go for your dreams, go for your lofty aims. But at the end of the day, even if you don't get them, count your blessings - your family members' 'mundane' health, your loved ones' 'normal' behaviours.
At this age, it seems that they will go for forever. But trust me, they will go one by one, including our own. So let me remind myself to count my blessings - lofty targets, whether I achieve them, is not as important, as long as the 'mundane' stuff hang on as long as possible.
Often, it just takes a little deviation from the 'mundane' to make us realise this. Please, don't wait until that to occur. It's gonna be too late.
lowtide blogged @
9:26 pm
Friday, October 09, 2009
Good week?
As continued from the last post, I'm getting used to the toughness of the modules, and thanks to the mid-sem break, even though I did not do a lot, it allowed me to catch up for some modules, do tutorials in advance for others, and overall, study until where I was supposed to be at.
This gave me a lot more room when the mid-terms hit, as I needed just to recap a bit, and I'm ready to go. As I always believed, physical well-being will affect your mental well-being, and I'm glad that having enough sleep in the mid-term weeks due to the sufficient studying beforehand led me to be a happier and more ready-to-absorb student.
This was a good week, with tuition money coming in deservedly after that 4-tuition week, reimbursement for my hostel fees, a way-easier-than-expected test, and of course, this.
Haolian moment it might be, as this is a really tough module with a super anal prof. Here hoping that this will give me a good buffer should finals come bad. (Legend has it that if you can finish half of his paper you're very good already)
But this also led me to being very wary and I want to keep my mind alert of things. By human gut feeling, knowing how to do tutorials and understanding lecture material will give us a (false or real) sense of security that you're going to score well. But my micro test gave me a good warning - no matter how well u do in your tutorials (which is not marked or counted), failure to translate that understanding or daily correct answers to the exam scripts' correct answers will only make the previous sense of security, well, false.
Back on the topic on helping people. Sometimes you feel good when you have a good intellectual debate on the answers - you know that the person is as interested as you to know the 'correct' answer, mutually benefitting each other. Or now when he/she doesn't know, he/she takes, but later on when he/she can give, he/she will.
On the other hand, when you get that feeling (very subjective indeed) that someone is only trying to make use of you, or show no sign of wanting to help you back, you do feel shitty helping him/her. I don't know, it's just a feeling.
I just like to share things - no matter I get very frustrated, or feel defeated by a module, or I did a very tough tutorial question successfully - both my failures and my successes. However, maybe, sometimes to protect myself, I need to share less, to prevent these vultures hovering around my head.
It's like a constant struggle inside me - the 'nice' me v.s. the 'evil' me; the 'helpful' me v.s. the 'competitive' me; the 'pro-active, smart and capable' me v.s. the 'backward, lazy, and blur' me.
I wish I could be nice to everyone, but sometimes evil strikes when you're the kindest, or when you're the most unaware.
Maybe, the stress and extremely high level of competition in the Year 4 econs cohort is getting into me, or I'm thinking too much. I hope someone can enlighten me on the art of helping people without being detrimental to myself, and how to strike a balance between the various 'me's'.
lowtide blogged @
6:44 pm
Thursday, October 01, 2009
I did it in year 2, I'll do it again now.
Things are picking up. Other than stupid International Economics II which is taught by a prof whose name is a province in China, mentally I getting more and more used to the difficulty, and the tediousness of the mathematics and concepts.
However, spending the gaps in between lessons going to the honours room to discuss tutorial solutions, chionging research participation for my psych stats mod, and having to travel so far back and forth for tuition at night has taken its toll, it's like working right from the minute I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep. Only meal times and travelling times are times when my brain can take a rest.
Pardon me if I am not as friendly as before, or even more reluctant to teach people. Now my mantra is that I will only teach people subject to my energy/time constraints. Previously, I have plenty of time and energy, as tutorials are far easier, and correspondingly, time spent on work is far less, and also far more energy to do other stuff. Now, I just don't have the extra energy to essential spend
MY brain power (which already so little is left) for
YOUR work. I'm not obliged to teach anyone anyway. My previous kindness does not make my current neutrality bad. It simply means I was kind enough.
In life, you always hope that every step of the way, there is someone (not necessary the same person) to guide you along, to hold your hand as you grow. However, the cold hard truth is that people who 'have arrived' also achieved it previously through their own struggles (which you can't see and hear, as you only see the 'success'). It's now your turn to struggle, so don't expect to have an easier ride than the others who have done it before. Just that it is now and happening to you doesn't make it any tougher, it's just a time difference. There is nothing unfair here.
If you think you have grown up, show it. Show that you can have the self-discipline to achieve what you sought out to. Show the your don't require extrinsic motivation - all motivation simply comes from within. Constantly showing acts of childishness while wanting the recognition as a 'grown up' simply doesn't work.
You either act like a grown-up and want to receive the recognition, or act like a childish creature and not want to be viewed like a grown-up. You can't have it both ways.
Hopefully, like in my year 2 semesters, I would pick up slowly but surely, and in the end achieve what I want to achieve. The class of honours doesn't really matter now - all of these is just extrinsic, exogenous. All that matter is that I do well in the things I want to do well and prove myself in, rather than what the bloody school requires.
I hope I will fly. But first, let me sort out my International Economics II first. Let's conquer Guangzhou together!
lowtide blogged @
11:57 pm
