Thursday, October 25, 2007
The agony of growing up
As I lay in my bed feeling the effects of the medication nursing my flu today, my mind started wandering, turning back time and going throug the years. My 24 years of growing up. Sometimes I couldn't help thinking how great it would be if I needed grow up. As a child in a average and decent family, I got what I want everytime. Yes I was spoilt - badly, to be honest.
Growing up a guy in this country call Singapore isn't easy. A demanding country where the bucks rules. Yes, the bucks. You are shit if you do not have the bucks and to put it simply, you can't survive. And so as you age, you have to think of how to make the bucks. There is pressure to make the bucks to secure your future, to repay your parents and of course, to secure a wife. It's all about money in Singapore!
When you reach the crossroads of your life, you have to make important decisions, 1 of those are which direction you want to go in your career. What kind of job do you really want to do? How are you going to acheive it? You don't find such thoughts in your mind when you're young. It's something new but something unavoidable and definitely something which I believe many people struggle to find an answer. I'm not one of them fortunately. I'm clear about what I want to do, how to get there and what is required. But that is only the easy part. The hard part is actually doing it.
As I lay in my bed feeling the effects of the medication nursing my flu today, my mind started wandering, turning back time and going throug the years. My 24 years of growing up. Sometimes I couldn't help thinking how great it would be if I needed grow up. As a child in a average and decent family, I got what I want everytime. Yes I was spoilt - badly, to be honest.
Growing up a guy in this country call Singapore isn't easy. A demanding country where the bucks rules. Yes, the bucks. You are shit if you do not have the bucks and to put it simply, you can't survive. And so as you age, you have to think of how to make the bucks. There is pressure to make the bucks to secure your future, to repay your parents and of course, to secure a wife. It's all about money in Singapore!
When you reach the crossroads of your life, you have to make important decisions, 1 of those are which direction you want to go in your career. What kind of job do you really want to do? How are you going to acheive it? You don't find such thoughts in your mind when you're young. It's something new but something unavoidable and definitely something which I believe many people struggle to find an answer. I'm not one of them fortunately. I'm clear about what I want to do, how to get there and what is required. But that is only the easy part. The hard part is actually doing it.
If you think the hardships of securing those few sheets of paper in school were
nightmarish, you wouldn't want to think about securing your future.
In Singapore, the society judge you all the time for everything you do. If you are in NS, they assume you are a poor fuck who doesn't qualify to apply for exclusive memberships or credit cards. If you do not have a decent education, you are nothing but a waste to society. If you party often, the girls think you are unreliable or desperate. And if you own a condo, you are deem to be rich. They never look at the whole picture, even more so if you are a guy. You don't face all these when you're a sweet innocent child though.
Growing up, I feel the strains all the time. I feel there is lesser time for entertainment, I feel there isn't anymore time to bum around. At times, I worry about my health, other times, I look at people around me, younger than me getting married and starting their families and I feel the pressure. Not the pressure to get married but the pressure to become the 'final product' - stable and ready to start a new chapter in life.
No matter how confident or positive a person is, there are always worries to contend with. There are always question marks and doubts at times. There is always a need to prove, all because you're a guy living in Singapore. When you were young, your life is painted by your parents, but as you grow up, you are the artist, and as we know from painting a potrait, there is no rooms for errors - hardly any.
Welcome to the new world.
posted by mango at 3:42 PM
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