Habit

I have read many articles which criticize people for sticking to their habits every day without deviation. Yesterday I read one such article. It talked about a diamond shop which tried to promote its merchandise by sending letters to its old customers, with sample of real diamonds inside. Unfortunately all its old customers saw the letters as junk mail so they got tossed into the bin without even being opened. The conclusion was that sticking to habit causes us to miss many valuable things in life.

However, let's look at the flip side of things. What if after hearing of this story, everyone became determined not to miss anything in life due to habit? The first step would be to open and read every piece of junk mail. This would certainly take up a lot of time that could be used for work or relaxation.

Not only that, everyone would have to open and read all the junk emails just in case one of them was actually a good promotion. Never mind the viruses and the Nigerian emails, there might be an opportunity there!

Obviously this is not viable. Too much time would be wasted in total to be worth it even if a diamond comes in the mail once in twenty years, which I doubt.

We follow our habits in daily life because they save us time. Time is money. Spending time every day on a very low-percentage possibility is simply not sensible. Say we would need 20 minutes every day to check through junk mails and junk emails. That would come up to 7300 minutes a year, or 121 hours, or 15 work-days. Clearly spending so much time on something so unlikely is ridiculous.

I'm not going to buy lottery tickets because the percentages are not worth it. Same with other things.

Why Malaysians dislike reading

There was some newspaper article which stated that Malaysians had a pretty low reading rate compared to citizens of other countries. I have not done any survey on this, but when I look at profiles on Facebook, I do tend to see the "books I like" field either blank or bearing the words "I hate books".

So why do we, as a people, dislike books so?

When I was a kid, my dad was bringing me around. I brought a storybook with me to entertain myself. Upon seeing that I was (shock and horror!) reading, one of my dad's friends remarked to him "Wow your son is really hardworking!". So that might be a reason why we dislike reading; we associate it with schoolwork and study and exams and low marks and parents shouting at us for the low marks.

But then, I'm sure kids in countries like Japan and Korea get pushed hard in their studies too, probably harder than us. Yet they read more. Japan was shown to have one of the highest rates of reading in the world, and their authors are paid like rock stars.

Perhaps then a reason why we read less is because we have to learn multiple languages. A local Chinese has to learn at the very least Malay and English, and quite likely Mandarin too, and maybe some dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien. Learning too many languages might mean that we master none, therefore have little deep interest in any. Hence our disinterest in literature.

So in the end, I'm not sure whether our vaunted capacity to converse in many languages is truly a blessing or not, as many of us never reach mastery in any of them.

What's the best degree?

The best degree is in something that you love to do, be it quantum physics or Middle Eastern dance or plain old business administration. Having said that, if you like a few things but can't decide what to do, or you don't really feel strongly towards anything, then we need to objectively study which degree is "the best".

When I chose my degree, I chose Finance. This was because I was not sure what I wanted to do. I felt a Finance degree could help me get my foot in the door for a decently wide variety of jobs, or serve me if I were to set up business on my own or invest. Also because I was lazy and a science degree seemed like a ton of work.

Among the business degrees, I actually think an Accounting degree is best. This is based on what I call the "Theory of replaceability". That is, an Accounting grad can get any other business-type job, but Marketing/Management etc cannot get Accounting jobs. Finance is somewhat weaker than Accounting in this respect, however it somewhat makes up for it by sounding cool in an investment-bankish way.

Based on this theory, an Engineering/Computer Science degree would be even better, as they can do science jobs and most business jobs too, except hard-core accounting.

The trouble with those degrees is a ton of people get pushed towards them for prestige and career reasons, even people who are really not interested or not cut out for them. These people then end up having low CGPA's and find it hard to get a good job. The thing is, although I do feel a 2.5 in engineering is equal to a 3 or more in business in terms of equivalent difficulty, HR people do not see it that way (probably because very few of them have science degrees).

In short, my feeling towards each degree is like this:

Pure Sciences (Chem/Physics/Bio/Math) - Don't expect to get a job in your field in Malaysia and you will be okay.
Engineering/Computer Science - Wonderful, but if you hate it don't force yourself.
Business - Okay, try to take something more quantitative such as Accounting/Finance/Economics.
Lawyer/Doctor - If you are willing to have not much life you will earn a ton.
Arts - If you do it do it because you love it not because you think it's an easy degree.

Anyway, we can't judge a person's future from what major they take. Remember, Kate Middleton took Art History, and look where she is now!