Balance

To the edge, where the spirit is divided from the soul.

Life is all about a balance and equilibrium. In this morning's sermon, the priest shared with us an interesting story about money and happiness. There was a fisherman who had just came back from sea. He had sold his catch and was sitting on the beach, smoking his pipe, relaxing. The perfect picture of contentment. A businessman walked by and started making small talk with the fisherman.
Businessman: "Why are you sitting on the beach relaxing when there is still plenty of time to make another trip out to sea?"
Fisherman: "And what would I do then?"
Businessman: "you can sell the extra catch for more money and if you keep this up you might actually save enough money to get another boat".
Fisherman: "And what would I do then?".
Businessman: "You can increasae your catch with another boat and earn even more money. And if you save enough, you can eventually buy another boat and expand your fishing fleet till you are as rich as me."
Fisherman: "And what would I do then?"
Businessman: "Then you can retire and enjoy life"
Fisherman: "And what do you think i'm doing now?"

I think this is a pertinent point for most Singaporeans, especially those who are caught up in the Singapore Dream just like me. I am only doing Law because I thought it would give me a good financial headstart. When I was deciding my career path just after the 'A' levels, the notion of happiness or living life to the fullest was probably the last thing on my mind or maybe even non-existent. Or perhaps it was, perhaps then I equated making lots of money to being happy. Now that I'm back from exchange, now that I'm graduating soon, I start to wonder. Is this the life for me? I keep telling myself that I should just bite the bullet, make my money and then quit to do something that I enjoy. But why don't I just quit now? And take up a course in Ancient History? Literature? Art History? Photography? Economics? Why do I have to bite the bullet just to end up back where I started? The short answer is still Money. Who is going to finance my pursuits? Therefore, life is really about a balance. Balancing between Wants and Means. Balancing between the chasing the Dream and Happiness. And that every use of a balance which fails to meet equilibrium is a measure of costs; opportunity cost.