Happiness

An article appeared in today's The Business Times Weekend (page L13) on the subject of happiness. I am not surprised to find us Singaporean faring lower than our counterparts, even worse than poorer nations like Vietnam. The main reason, if you have not already known, is social comparision.

I believe everyone who has lived in Singapore for one point or another should understand how competitive it is here. Fighting to be the best is what we are trained from young. First to top the class in every subject, then for the highest paying job and then fighting to be the best in your species to attract the best from the opposite sex. Never ending.

Having one of the highest living standards in the world also mean that we need loads of money to be termed as successful. And the problem really comes when we don't know how much is enough. A sentence from that article struck me hard, it says

Materialism leads people astray, because having money is a poorly defined aspiration. "When a student wants to graduate, there is a specific goal. But how does one know when they've made enough money?"

Indeed. This question was in my mind sometime ago when I was a bit lost in the midst of my career. Because this line has no cap on earnings, I asked myself how much is enough. Who should I benchmeark against? The top 20% of the industry, top 20% of the company or top 20% of the agency? I don't know what I want and it got me really unhappy as I hate to have unknowns in sight.

But when it comes to academic performance, it is really easy cos the cap is 100%. You know what to aim for when you know 100 is the end point. And that is also the problem for many students because most see 50 as their end point and a handful of them 70. They don't understand that what you want is what you get and nothing more.

Are you happy with what you have? I am happy with what I am going for.