Life lessons
Since monday, I have learned 2 important life lessons. No. 1: it does not matter how people look at you, it is how you look at yourself. No. 2: when someone passes away, he/she is not wasted but the knowledge and the experiences he/she brings away are wasted.
Lets talk about the life lesson no. 1.
As an individual living in this world, we tend to do things that please others more than ourselves. Do we ever stop to think why exactly are we doing this?
In today’s society, one very good example is exam results. Many students bury themselves in books and more books everyday, just focusing on pure studying (or I should say pure memorizing). This is to give them "confidence" so that they can go into the exam hall full of facts and regurgitate to obtain "excellent" scores. However, do you think they really like this type of life? They are probably just doing it so that they can please their parents. I dare not speak for every single student but this is what I see in the current education system.
This type of education life that most students are living everyday only brings them more harm. Students are coming out of schools with their minds full of book facts yet they know nothing about the true cruelty of society and the working world, where book facts will only get them that far. Yes, you may argue that education is still important as it is determines your future; but in the corporate world, education can only get you a job, probably with a higher starting pay, yet it is the attitude that most employers are looking out for, not how smart or how good your memory is, when it comes to employing long term employees.
So, the word now is ATTITUDE! Attitude is a very personal thing and it often determines a person’s character and way of doing things. If you walk along any street and see the construction works, have you ever stop to think: why are most of the workers there foreigners? Many of you will straight away give me a standard answer: because cheap labour! But let me present a different view today. Have you ever thought of this: why aren’t companies employing locals to do construction works or even engineering works? This is because we often display disgusting attitudes. A foreigner would usually set his sights on a target and work hard, regardless how difficult it can be, towards achieving that target yet many locals (probably used to the "good" life here) wants to achieve their target by doing the least work, even demanding unreasonable conditions such as pay, working environment etc etc. In my point of view, this is because many of the foreigners are able to remain oblivious to the stares and not-so-nice comments by the locals and just tell themselves that they are doing this job for the sake of their own future.
Another example would be the not-so-educated people (as society would label them). Every year, we see reports of successful people who had failed to climb the education ladder. We also see multi-millionaires/multi-billionaires sharing their stories on how they too used to fail to climb the education ladder. Why is this so? I believe this is down to their attitude towards themselves and their future. The moment they fail to climb the education ladder, people would label them as failures or even "will never succeed in life". Yet they are able to take these views as a driving force and believe in themselves that they can succeed even with a lack of education. Their attitude of not looking down on themselves despite eyes looking down on them everywhere is the secret to success, as I can see.
That is why I say, it does not matter how people look at you, it is how you look at yourself. It is still up to you whether you believe it or not.
As you can see, life lesson no. 1 was a really long lesson. But do not worry, lesson no. 2 is much much shorter. =D
Life lesson no. 2.
All of us, I would think, learn through our experiences as we go through the different stages of life. The knowledge we gain outside our books increases with our vast experiences in life. Basically, what we learn in books are not the most precious knowledge we have on our hands. Instead, we can learn alot more from experienced people in life, especially on lessons like these. What the books teach us is only the surface, what is deep within has to be dug out by our own bare hands. In particular, the working world stresses very much on this point. What you learn in books can only teach you the basics, yet the knowledge you gain on your jobscope increases with your work experience. However, many people do not see this so they tend to be arrogant thinking that what they learn from the books is everything in this world. They do not seem to understand that: when someone passes away, he/she is not wasted but the knowledge and the experiences he/she brings away are wasted. Well, Think about it!
