My friend who is married to a Singaporean once told me that all she wished as a young lady looking for that one fish in the gigantic ocean is to not catch one from the country called Singapore.
She was not being racist or countrist (that is, racist based on someone’s country of origin), of course. She had just known for so long that Singaporeans are kiasu people and that all those stereotype and culture and habit die hard.
Today, she finds herself happily married for two years, where she could just joke and laugh it out loud for it is indeed ironic that the ultimate right fish comes from that small island.
Most people have heard the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for.” Like, you may wish for a new job with all its perks and beauty only to find that it’s just a mere illusion.
You may dream of moving away to a new country only to find longing for your hometown.
But I think it works the same for the opposite: Be careful what you don’t wish for.
As a teenager during my high school years, I have vowed to never have a long distance relationship. Like, I see my friends’ relationships crumbled (of course, theirs may not work not only due to distance alone, but due to other coupling factors as well), and I just fancy him and I, in one city, doing things together.
Fast forward a couple of years and I’m now finding myself in a separated-by-distance relationship for two and a half years.
As an aspiring youth eager to get a foot to the real world, I have vowed to never touch the things called business and its derivatives – be it marketing, management, accounting, or economics.
Turns out my first and second full-time jobs are in the Marketing and Communication department – which pretty much involves branding, clients, partners, and proposals. And truthfully, I quite enjoy them (and I actually wish I had taken more Marketing and Management breadth subjects while in university).
To make things worse, I have also vowed to not get chained to a corporate chair and work the nine-to-five. Guess what am I doing now?
Oh, I’m actually also considering to get an MBA degree somewhere down the road. But we’ll see.
(And I never wish to fall in love with writing either. I had hoped to become some sort of science-geek-ish professional who channels random theories and hypothesis.)
Bottom line? Create your life plan, jolt down your dreams. But never be afraid to step out of comfort zone and embrace new things.
Who knows, perhaps those new things are better.
