How to be rich in Singapore?

How to be rich in Singapore 100218

In Asia News Channel, a study conducted by Mediacorp revealed the following facts – to be rich in Singapore, one must have three things going for him/her, namely: connections, education and hard work.

Connections refers to the people you know, who could push you along to your path of success.  Education refers to specialized knowledge that one attained via a college education (or even an advance degree such as a masterate degree or a doctorate degree).  Hard work refers to the willingness of the individual to go beyond the normal eight (8) hours of work, of sacrificing holidays and important personal dates and anniversaries just to produce the necessary work outputs.

There were two classes of respondents that were tested.  Those that belongs to the upper class and those that were categorized as lower class.

For the lower class; the ranking of the criterions were:  education was number one, followed by hard work and connections.  For the upper class, the ranking was connections, education and hard work.

Now since this was a research based in Singapore, I will not attempt to extrapolate conclusions and recommendations of the said research.  Suffice to say that this particular research stated three elements/criterions on making it big in Singapore and by extension, how to be universally rich in any country.

Being an educator, I cannot overemphasize the importance of education.  Centuries from now, when humanity have finally licked the problem of poverty, education would prove to be one of the main bullet that slayed and ended the horror of poverty.

Hard work is hard work.  There is no substitute for hard work.  Hard work refers to the willingness of an individual to roll up his sleeve and do whatever is necessary to make things happen.  I have yet to meet a person who is rich and successful who is not a hard worker.

Now, I have some reservations about connections.  Because one cannot actually plan and produce notable work that is geared towards connections.  Personally, connection is just an accident or just an incidental factor.   Having the right environment (like the right school, right church, and right geographic origin) however, open doors that is usually closed to anyone who does not share the same element of similarity.

So, there you have it, such is true in Singapore and by extension – such is also applicable in the Philippines.

Courtship

Courtship in the Spanish Era 100218

In every town in the Philippines, whenever there is a church, there is always a plaza nearby.  And inside that plaza, there is always a fountain.  Nowadays, it is a big question whether such fountain is still working, but during the Spanish colonial times, that fountain served as a venue for a daily promenade for men and women of marriageable age.

Every afternoon, usually from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM, young women of marriageable age walk around the fountain in a clockwise direction while men walk around the fountain in a counter-clockwise direction.  This affair is strictly regulated by the priest of the nearby church.  And any men or women who deviate from this routine are punished by being banned from the promenade (temporarily) or expelled (permanently) immediately.

For decades and centuries of Spanish colonization, such was the way where men and women of marriageable age greet and meet one another.

If one were to fast forward the hands of time, one could pose a silly question whether such a promenade still occur in the current day Philippines?  And though there is no longer a fixed promenade of men and women walking and circling the fountain inside the plaza and in front of the church.  Current Filipino men and women still walk (as if in a promenade) in a mall.

In every town or municipality where there is a mall, Filipino men and women strut their way to meet, to greet, and find temporary or long-lasting connections or affairs.

The venue may have changed, but the need to socialized is still there, regardless whether it was during the Spanish colonial times or in the age Duterte and his tokhang.

Negative Psychology

Negative Psychology (082318)

Theoretically, this is based on the Operant Conditioning of BF Skinner, specifically, the negative reinforcement.  People follow rules or conform, not because they like to be good but rather because they are afraid of punishment.  Rules and regulations tells them what do to but at the end or such rules and regulations, there is the penalty clause where the punishment is stipulated for those who will not follow.

Negative psychology is about failures.  It is about how one leap over failure and how one turn failures (which is negative) into a glowing success.  Failure is just a dress rehearsal for success, as they say in show business, hence instead of shunning failure, one must embrace failure.  One ought to own failure and shortcomings, learn from it and aspire to do better in the next round of opportunity.  Because opportunity is just around the corner if one knows to look for it.

Negative psychology is not the opposite of positive psychology, though a balance could be maintained so as to extract the maximum effect for behavior manipulation.  Negative psychology could be a tool in business psychology (increasing efficiency), academic setting (reverse psychology), and cognitive psychology (changing motivation and adding a layer of meaning to what one is currently experiencing). 

Negative psychology is not negative thinking, in fact, negative psychology changes the dynamics of thinking where things, people and events – that are initially deemed important, are not really that important as it was initially thought to be.  Negative psychology could even serve as an extension of existential psychology.  It is all a state of mind.

Popular aphorism that gives a glimmer of negative psychology:

Why commit suicide? You are eventually going to die anyway, just wait.

Everything changes, nothing last forever.

Why wake up? If you just intend to sleep the day away.

The pain tells you that you are alive.

These things will pass us by.  And you will remain standing.

If you think this is expensive now, just wait another year.  It is going to cost you more.

Liberty 052218

Liberty (052218)

In the 19^th century, for the immigrants who are just entering the coast of New York, the statue of the Lady Liberty symbolizes freedom. For these weary immigrants, the search for the truth, happiness and wealth is over, one is now in the USA, and everything now is possible and attainable.

The immigrants in the middle ages were persecuted in Europe.  They were persecuted by the virtue of their beliefs, pursuit of happiness and opposing political and religious beliefs.  With nowhere to go, they found and migrated to the Americas and created their own piece of heaven (in whatever shape and form) and up to this date, the USA remains the symbolic bastion of liberty and freedom.

There is a creeping dictatorship in the Philippines.  Whether this is confirmed or obvious to people is irrelevant.  The fact is that the current occupant of the office of the presidency, is an advocate of taking short cuts, and the very core of check and balance is being challenged.  The dynamics is being changed.  From a democratic model we are now shifting to dictatorial model.  For all intents and purposes, the current occupant is a tyrant, he intends to be a tyrant and he wants to perceived as a tyrant.

Despite his protestation that he is not, is irrelevant, his actions speaks louder that his deplorable words.

Character 100118

Character

It is what essentially makes us unique from other individuals.  Our character, whether it is subjectively considered good or bad by other people, is what defines us as a person.  Though I really do not mind the opinion of others, since there is really nothing that I can do to change it, but surprisingly, there is something that what one could do to shape it.

Opinion is of the cheapest commodity around, everybody has one.  More than anybody else’s opinion, your own opinion about yourself is the most valuable opinion.

A person’s character is always dependent on perception.  Being predicated on perception means that such is always influence by subjectivity.  The equation here being that there is always a 360 degrees’ perspective of looking at things.  There is your own personal view, there is the view of other people and there is the objective perspective on what actually happened.

PRRD with his trademark callous disregard for manners and decorum, crossed the imaginary line of decency ages ago, there was even a time that such was an advantage.  While Erap encourage the proliferation of Erap jokes at his expense, the advantage was that tales of his stupidity endeared him to the masses.

The support base of Erap is a ghost of what it was at its peak.  The applause and buy in for the tough guy image of PRRD is waning.  Cussing your way to the presidency and maintaining the hold on presidency via cussing are two different things.  And the audience are getting tired of the usual excuse that such was only a joke.

Character is what makes us unique as an individual.  While some are aware that such is their public image, others are still struggling for their own emergence of character that they could truly claim as their own.  Some are originals by their own right, while some are pathetic replicas.  The challenge really is how to find your own defining character and shape it further from being generic to something that is specific.

A character is supposed to related to values, so what values do we represent that defines our character?  Subjectivity is all around us and a person’s character is a dime a dozen, or in this inflation laden era, lima piso.

Ang Mapagmurang Pangulo

Ang mapagmurang pangulo

Matapos ang halalan sa lupalop ng mga ungas, tinalo ng mapagmurang kandidato ang kanyang mga kalaban sa politika at halalan, at sa kauna unahang pagkakataon – ang kandidato mula sa Mindanao ang nahalal na pangulo.

Nag bunyi ang mga ungas, sa pagkakataong ito, ang nanalo ay kanilang kandidato na nagmula sa masa at hindi elitista.  Isa syang dating alcalde sa isla ng Mindanao at meron talagang karanasan sa pag papatakbo ng gobyerno.  Nagsaya at nag diwang ang karamihan, maraming nag babala na magiging maka saysayan ang bagong halal na pangulo.

Halos walang gawang mali ang bagong halal na pangulo, pero isa isa ay lumalabas na ang kanyang kapintasan.

Sa simulat sapul na ay talagang mapag mura na ang pangulong ito.  Habang kandidato palang ito, ay naipit sa mabigat na trapiko na dala ng pagbisita ng Santo Papa ng simbahang katolika, at ano ang kanyang nalat halang komento?  Minura nya ang Santo Papa.

Ang insidenteng ito at nag mula nuong sya ay kandidato pa, pero nuong sya ay mahalal na, maraming beses at madalas pa itong nag mumura sa publiko.  Mura dito, mura duon, mura hanggang sa SONA.  Sa labis ng kanyang pagmumura, marami na rin ang gumagaya sa kanya.  Pati ang mga mababang opisyales ng gobyerno ay mapagmura na rin.

Sa labis ng kanyang pag mumura, na mura na rin nya ang may likha.  Humingi sya ng dispensya sa Santo Papa at sa ibang pang pangulo o lider na kanyang namura.  Humingi sya ng kapatawaran sa diyos sa pagsabing hangal ito.  Pero ang hindi nya alam, ay nakarating na ang kanyang paboritong mura sa dapat makarinig.  At sila ay nagalit.

Ang mura ay isang pautang na dapat bayaran.  Sa ayaw o sa gusto, mag babayad ang me utang na mura.  Mamumura din kayo at ang mas masakit na mura ay iyong mura na hindi binabanggit ng labi ninuman.