Getting rich together?

I recently had a debate with my housemate about a statement we saw on Astro. It was a short preview of a documentary which is being aired on the Bio channel on Astro. It was a documentary about Chairman Mao and one of the things was quoted saying a long time ago was "Let's get rich together!". I reckon it was one of the things that sparked the revolution in China.

I shared with my housemate that, the idea of 1 billion people getting rich together was rather impossible and had China succeeded in achieving that goal, the world economy could very well be in jeopardy. Why do I say so? In my opinion, for everyone to live in peace and harmony, there has to be a balance between rich and poor just as there are day and night, left and right as well as long and short. It's all about balance, yin and yang.

Say one day, everyone becomes rich and has a million dollars each. Would anyone want to work hard to make more? I doubt so because when everyone has enough to get by, nobody will have the will and determination to strive and work hard anymore. The services (no matter how big or small) we depend on in our daily lives will come to a standstill and even the providers of such services, such as buses, taxis, food stall operators, cleaners, security guards, nannies and care providers, policemen, fire-fighters would be sitting at home expecting someone else to do their job and provide essential services to them instead.

Furthermore, if everyone in the world became rich and had a million each, I wonder how much money would need to be printed to accommodate such a sudden influx of riches. The more 'millionaires' there are, the higher the demands would be for premium goods and when this happens, every producer in the market would be scrambling to produce goods to cater for this market. When this happens, automatically the price of everything in the market would have to be adjusted upwards because nobody will be eyeing low cost, generic or brandless products anymore. If everyone had a million each, I wonder how much a million would be worth then. It would probably be like Indonesia where a million rupiah is worth USD111. That is probably one of the countries where everyone is a millionaire. The question is, are you considered rich with a million there?

Producers would then have to find other third world (reads: poorer) nations to dump their products.  This would become a problem in terms of product pricing after deducting logistics and handling costs to export these products. But when everyone is rich, where do we find poorer nations to dump cheap products in?

When producers are not able to dump their cheap products, there would be a new problem of consumers being ripped off with low cost products being passed off as luxury or premium products.

Thus, in my opinion, a world where everyone can become rich in the sense of dollars and cents is merely an ideal situation propagated by politicians and leaders to give hope to their people in order to encourage and motivate them to work harder and dream bigger dreams. I am reminded of the analogy of the farmer who uses a carrot tied to a string in front of his donkey to 'motivate' his donkey to keep on walking ahead and pull his wagon along. To be entitled to the carrot, the donkey must put in the effort and time to pull the farmer and his wagon along to the market. Tomorrow he must put in the same effort to be entitled to the carrot again and as long as the farmer does his part in planting seeds to grow carrots and the donkey puts in the effort to pull the produce to the market, can he have carrots to eat everyday.

It is the same for us human beings. We may be motivated by 'carrots' that are being offered as we progress through life but we must first put in the effort, time and another crucial element, intelligence to be entitled to the carrots we see dangling in front of our faces. We must always remind ourselves that the gap in wealth between the rich and poor and all the people in between is there for a reason because if everyone is rich and wealthy then there will be a gross imbalance in the economy and grave consequences may result from it. The gap between the rich and poor is also there to remind us constantly that if we are poor, we have to work harder, invest more time and money or increase our knowledge so that we can put in more effort so that we too can become rich.

There is  no such thing as reaping rewards before putting in the effort. I read somewhere that, for one to receive something without working for it, another person would have to work for without receiving. Wouldn't that be unfair? If you were that person who had to work for without receiving, would you be mad about it? I'm sure you would, just as I would too. The message I want to convey in this post is, don't be that person who always expect to receive in life without first putting in the time and effort to achieve something. There is no such thing as something for nothing as well as everyone in the world getting rich together.

That would be something to ponder about.

Convocation Experience.. yet again!

I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed in the wee hours of Sunday morning because I had to work. It was 4:30am in the morning and I could think of a thousand other things I'd rather be doing at that hour, in that day for the matter. Nevertheless, I got showered, put on a nice expensive shirt and a silk tie and drove myself to the JW Marriots Hotel KL. The college i'm attached to was having their 15th convocation ceremony and like everyone else in the team, I had a role to play in ensuring that the convocation ceremony went along smoothly. Being the newcomer (about 1 year on the job), I was given quite a minimal role to play in ensuring that all the lecturers who was attending (as VIPs) had their academic robes on for the 'grand' march into the ballroom at the start of the graduation ceremony. 

The last convocation I had attended was during my own graduation slightly more than a year ago when I went on stage to receive my Masters cert from Professor Wilson from the University of Hertfordshire at a convocation held in the Nilai Springs Golf Resort in N9.

Never would I imagine that, a year later I would attend someone else's convocation as an academician and march into the ballroom on the red carpet to the boisterous cheers and thunderous claps of hundreds of graduates adorned in their graduation robes and mortarboards! The ceremony was graced by the guest-of-honour, Mr. Mike Cogger, the Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of Faculty of the University of Gloucestershire, Datin Irene Gan and family, the owners of the Reliance Pacific Group of Companies as well as the Reliance College (which I am attached to)

Above is a picture of me (in the middle) flanked by 2 other lecturers, Mr Alex Chang to my left and Ms Teresa Lo to my right. The ceremony which started at around 8:30am lasted till around 11:30am. The guests then adjourned to the foyer to be treated to a luxurious buffet spread. 

Here are my 2 cents on graduating. Imagine a marathon where a few hundred runners are participating. They all line up at the starting line and when the pistol goes off signalling the start of the race, every runner races forward with much enthusiasm and vigor. Halfway through the race, only half the runners who had eagerly started earlier are still running. Three quarters through the race only bout 25% of them are still running and towards the finish line, maybe only 5-10% are still running. At the end, there are only 3 shiny medals that really matters, a gold for the runner that finishes the race in 1st place, a silver for second and a bronze medal for third place. Everyone can start a race but it takes one that has the same determination and perseverance as when he/she started off will be the ones who will complete it.

In my life's journey, I have observed this. 95% of people quit what they started out doing due to lack of determination. Another 4% soldier on despite the odd and obstacles they face and another 1% actually finish as winners. I believe that, this 1% are winners because they envision themselves as winners even before the race began and manifested this vision throughout their journey (or race for this matter) and had made it their absolute mission to succeed no matter what it took. 

So who are these 95%, 4% and 1%? Honestly, I'd say that, I fall in all these 3 categories at one time or another. Sometimes I'm really determined to succeed in spite of the odds, sometimes I just want to give up and quit and sometimes I want to finish as a winner and show people how good I am and what I am capable of achieving. 

So the advice I give to my students during their orientation programme or during lessons is, before you embark on a new journey, have your goals in mind, write it down and refer to it every time you feel like quitting and give up. In every journey you undertake, or every new task you plan to accomplish, you will always find yourself in one of the 3 categories I had mentioned above. I'd be honest to myself what I want to achieve, my abilities and the time I have to accomplish the task I set out to do because we only have that much time on our hands and being human, we try to multitask and try to squeeze as many things as we can so that we have a 'back up plan' in case something goes wrong. 

To the class of 2011 who graduated on 4/12/2011 at JW Marriots Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, I congratulate you on a job well done to arrive at where you are today. You truly deserve whatever you have earned through your hard work, perseverance and determination. I wish you all the best in your future undertakings and if you like to, you may take this little advice I humbly give you in this blog posting.

David Geh