In today’s highly competitive Singapore, many high-fliers want to achieve – but my question for them is: Who are you achieving for and what are you truly leaving behind?
Many of us today, especially among the younger generation, have the mentality that to achieve “success” (defined in your own eyes – be it status, money or position), you put yourself first – some of you even do this subconsciously without realising it’s always about what’s best for you.
In an era of self-entitlement, we should not forget the key element of true achievement. Talent and discipline are important. But so is humility.
Humility is not about bowing or appearing servile before your superiors. It’s about performing little acts of service for your company, your team, your family, and your country daily.
What are acts of service? Taking out the trash, helping to put back your bowls and plates after a meal at the hawker centre, and deeper acts of commitment such as volunteering weekly and helping a colleague out at work when you don’t need to.
It’s the little acts of service that will truly matter at the end of the day. A word of encouragement to your family. A smile for a service personnel. Spending time (not on your phones or on social media) with good friends and meeting them face-to-face. Being kind to yourself.
“How can I serve?” and “How can I give?” are questions I do not hear often from young people. Perhaps it’s time to ask a little more, do a little more, give a little more. I learnt from my kind-hearted neighbour who asks every morning “Who can I bless today?”
You need to be part of something bigger than yourself. If you want higher performance, begin with a higher purpose. At your age, you can do a lot, especially with other youth – focusing on technology and financial literacy. How about teaching computer coding at a study centre or teaching financial literacy to kids in a neighbourhood school?
The secret to true sustainable and meaningful success is to live a purposeful life.
That in addition to making meaningful impact in whatever cause or field you choose, material successes will also naturally come – not because you seek them, but because you will then naturally act and apply your life with a passion and selflessness to much bigger things beyond your own narrow ambition?
And that in so doing, you will find joy – and realise that work can equal life – and that a life worth living for is a life worth dying for?
Today we have lost much of our face-to-face interactions. The art, beauty and importance of real human conversations have been lost to this faceless online facade. We have forgotten how to engage each other, and to some extent how to truly understand, empathise and love each other.
Yes, you may think this transactional culture is localised to only specific things like the Tinder app – but no – we are the most networked generation and yet many of us are lonelier these days.
Dear readers, do not let this happen to you. As I said at the start, dedicate your life and your livelihood to a cause greater than yourself – find it for yourself – whatever it is to you. Each of you have unique gifts, talents, personalities; each of you have much to contribute and serve the world with.
I challenge you to really think about what matters to you beyond all the noise and clutter and striving for success the world throws at you, and think of a life worth living.
This is a life worth swiping for.
The writer, Tan Chin Hwee, is the Asia-Pacific CEO of a global company and an adjunct professor at several universities. He was on the founding advisory committee for the Volunteer Youth Corps. Mr Tan is also on the board of trustees for Nanyang Technological University.
This article is adapted from a speech delivered to young adult leaders at a recent National Youth Council event.
Read more here.
Source: The Straits Times, 10 March 2017