Career

Shortly after I completed my duty as a clinical psychologist, we held the year 3 examination.

The running was amazingly smooth and immensely efficient under VW, so much so I have very little to remember. Late in the morning, when everything was in the right track, VW and I had a leisured moment, and he talked about a recent gathering with a friend of his, who was looking for job in Hong Kong (see http://vwswong.blogspot.com/2010/03/supervision.html).

My friend asked, "If you were to give some career advise to our new graduates, what would you say ?"

"Oh, I don't think I could give any," I murmured, and said to myself, "After all, they seem to have their own idea."

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When you come to think of it, the eternal dilemma of choosing a career seems to be either pursuing your own interest or following the market trend.

On this, I would say neither.

To begin with, personal interest is a frothy idea. True, we should avoid choosing a job that we distinctly dislike - but it doesn't mean that we should have one that we love best.

And, to excel in a social game, we should not always follow the crowd.

PS. Unlike the choice of a career, for decisions that we have to do repeatedly, there is now go evidence that the chance of survival is highest if one follows the crowd 60% of the time and spend the other 40% searching out escape routes on your own.

Go read The Perfect Swarm by Len Fisher.