Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 16 March 2015 issue)

Dear Kam,
My son says he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life and it makes me frustrated and anxious. I’ve been very understanding for the last few years, but now, he’s about to graduate from kindergarten and it’s time to make a decision.
Tiger Dad

I gave a talk to a group of local university students the other day. I don’t like the idea of telling young people how they should live their lives because, well, they get enough of that anyway in Malaysia. So, I asked them what jobs they wanted to do after leaving university. Accountancy was the most popular choice, followed by banking. One said sales and another said advertising. It wasn’t surprising because they were mostly accountancy students, but the most popular choice after accountancy was “I don’t know”. I can respect “I don’t know”. It is difficult for 19-year-olds to make the grandiose decision of what to do with their lives, especially if most choices are patently ridiculous or futile.

What’s the point of saying you want to be an astronaut? Sorry to say, but none of them were pretty or Malay enough to become a Malaysian astronaut. And what’s the point of saying you want to start your own business when you have neither life experience nor the possibility of raising the necessary capital. Their parents, or maybe their grandparents, may have been fortunate enough to have had a job for life, but those days are over (unless you can get into the civil service). The hope for accountancy or banking would be a measure of certainty by joining a big and stable organisation. But what if you want certainty but don’t want to be an accountant? I don’t know.

I wanted to reassure these young students that “I don’t know” will probably follow them throughout their lives, but it didn’t feel like it would be much of a reassurance. Unless you’re a very strict Hindu following the caste system, we’re surely not born to follow any particular trade. I used to think that medicine was a vocation, a calling that had to be answered. But then, I was talking to a friend of mine, a senior surgeon who also teaches medical graduates. He told me that many of the students obviously don’t want to be there. They don’t want to be doctors and they are deeply unhappy. He wishes for everyone’s sake that they never enrolled, but they had been pressured into becoming doctors by their parents.

Now, I think that if we’re very lucky, we stumble into something that we enjoy doing and that pays. And if you have found something you love and that you’re good at, then you’re probably in the minority. If you haven’t, then keep searching.

Dear Kam,
Help! My email has been hacked. What do I do?
Helpless

Hillary Clinton is in trouble, and it might torpedo her ambition to become the next US president. It seems that when she was the Secretary of State, she didn’t use an official State Department email address. Instead, she used her own email address with her own personal server. Consequently, none of her emails are in the State Department archive. It seems that her Republican predecessor Colin Powell did the same thing and, maybe, also Condoleezza Rice, but she was so ineffectual, and the world was simply waiting for the Bush presidency to end, so I doubt she sent or received too many emails. But no matter, Clinton didn’t have an official email address and now she’s in trouble.

On the one hand, I think it is somewhat odd behaviour, but on the other, I think, what?! Clinton is in trouble because of her email address?! Complaining about email addresses is a luxury of a fully developed economy. Maybe it’s the kind of thing we’ll be complaining about after 2020.

Dear Kam,
My son complained the other day that he couldn’t be expected to do his homework, clean his room and play a video game at the same time, so he would concentrate on the video game. I tried to tell him that a future employer would want to see that he could multitask, but he told me he was on level 5. Isn’t it possible to multitask?
Different Strokes

Of course, it’s possible to multitask, if you’re hardworking and clever with your time management. But some jobs are tricky to balance. I’ve been searching the Internet to see if I can find any other countries where the prime minister and finance minister are one and the same person. Maybe I just don’t know how to google the question, but I can’t find any, but I did find some interesting combinations. The prime minister of India is also in charge of personnel, public grievances and pensions, the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space. He must be a busy man. When I googled various Cabinets, I found that Pakistan has a minister for overseas Pakistanis and human resource development; Samoa has a minister of police; and eBay has an antique oak China cabinet in excellent condition. Although the prime minister of Bangladesh and the president of Zambia are also minister of defence, I could not find any examples of prime minister and finance minister being combined.

Dear Kam,
Have you seen the new Apple Watch? Isn’t it amazing?!
I-Watch

I’d been hoping this day would come but I never really believed it would happen. Finally, Apple has released a product that I don’t want. With the usual fanfare and stand-up presentation, the Apple CEO (Mr Can’t-Remember-His-Name-But- I-Know-He’s-Not-Steve-Jobs) unveiled the Apple Watch. Not only does it tell the time but, well, I don’t care. It could brush my hair and tell me bedtime stories and I still wouldn’t want it. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but a watch should be able to tell the time and that’s it.

My life has already been ruined by the iPhone. I’m now so distracted by the need to check Facebook, Twitter and my emails. One second, I’m reduced to tears by a video of, I don’t know, Ukrainian jugglers and the next, I’ve forgotten all about it because I’m on to the next thing. The iPhone is an emotional roller coaster that doesn’t lead to anything in particular. And yet, I will not be parted from my iPhone. I can’t live without it. But I don’t want the new Apple Watch. Phew.

Reprinted with the kind permission of