The Process of Organic Evolution

Truth be told, I’m 27 and feeling that I’m hurtling headlong in the grown-up realm of the 30’s… and feeling wholly unprepared to be exiting my 20’s without a bang. No memories of exciting adventures, silly (and hopefully not so painful) tumbles and scrapes? Oh man. Life is surely meant to be thoroughly savoured like a giant juicy medium rare steak. Tear-into-it-and-let-the-juices-drip-down-your-chin kind of living.

After graduation, the most exciting thing I’ve done was to say “screw it” to my national standard of jumping into a (bank) job without so much as a break or reflecting thought. The national standard was relentless money/status-chasing, where one’s financial achievements appeared to define the worth and depth of one’s personality. I sniff at you, despicable national standard! The factory line for soulless creatures with as much intellectual and emotional range as my grandmother’s sugar spoon.

I took six months off to try to find a job in country where I spent my glorious university days in and graduated from. Gasp, choke, SACRILEGE! The incredulous looks I got from local HR and local bosses told me plainly that I simply must be lazy, or worse – uncontrollable, unconforming, any usually complimentary adjectives but prefixed with “un”. I was an “un”.  

The job search had, in the end, spectacularly failed. I say spectacularly, because I had applied for jobs diligently, completed application forms with questions like “who is the one leader you admire and why” (that would be… world peace! *miss universe smile* So I win now?), gave employers the impression I didn’t need a work permit (cheeky, I admit), got up at 3am to catch the 5am bus to other cities for a full days of interviews and group presentation torture, stood at the bus station alone feeling worried as I see drunks stumbling past, received an offer letter, had it rescinded because they realized I needed a work permit after two years. I tried hard, I did everything I could, and although I failed, I was glad I took life by the balls and just went for it.

Through my bumbling and stumbling along my first horrible year of work life which consisted of working under she-demon from the darkest depths of hell ever unleashed upon poor sods like me, and an I’m!-gonna!-rule!-the!-world! trader with the strangest business idea bordering on a scam job / Ponzi scheme, I had despaired. I feared that despite my best efforts, I would fail. I would be one of the nameless, forgotten graduates who just fail to become anything. I feared living in contempt of my job, my inability to somehow get where I want to be, of myself. I had great dreams without limitation, anything is possible. Yet 1.5 years after graduation, I was a promising young nothing in danger of losing the “promising” part.

Then I came across a job vacancy. A shaky start, if any. They had already hired someone for the position, but I had received good reviews from the interviewers from my first two interview rounds. I joined the company, the original hiree left within months.

Three years later, I am still here. I love my job, in a human fashion. I don’t dance around whooping in joy every Sunday night in welcome of Monday. I enjoy the projects I get, the intellectual stimulation and breadth to explore and grow. I relish engineering something out of nothing but sheer brain power (mostly my bosses’s) and making things happen. I also wake up some mornings wondering if I should pull a sickie.

But three years on the job and three years from being 30, I can’t help but look back and realize that it was a blur of long workdays that merged into nights and weeks. I’m not complaining, I learnt hell of a lot, but I can see how easy it is to be sucked into the whirl of money-chasing and corporate ladder-climbing. Then maybe on my deathbed, I would realize my life was a blur of late office nights that merged into months and years. Then maybe, I might realize that the deals I helped materialize, the rich that I made richer… maybe my epitaph would read “she was great in the office” and as a final insult, decorate my tombstone with tombstones of my successful deals.

And so, I refuse! I refuse to be a smug powersuited, jargon-touting, name-dropping corporate rat. I’ll take the money and I’ll work hard for it, but this blog is my personal reminder that I have so much more to live for. That life doesn’t revolve around comparing salaries and car models.

Oh wait. It doesn’t mean this blog is full of meaningful reflective thoughts. Too dark, too heavy and besides, I like celebrity gossip.