Job Stability And The Underlying Problems: My Thought

Last week, I posted a video by Alex Alejandro Chacon that went viral here.

So, a brief introduction of Alex Alejandro Chacon. Alex was a Biomedical Sciences graduate. After graduated from his studies, he sold everything that he had, loaded all the necessities for his upcoming journey onto his bike (a KTR650) and started his lone journey to travel and experience the world. For now, he’s a public speaker, charity raiser and is continuing his passion travelling around the world. You can check out everything about this guy at http://www.modernmotodiaries.com. Below shows one of his earlier videos that went viral.

Now, if I am to tell his story to my parents, I am very sure that my parents will say this guy is crazy. Crazy in terms of stupidity by the way, not genius, but more towards negativity overall. That’s because from my parents view, a person life should always go through these stages (or my interpretation, Conventional Life Stages (CLS)): Growing up, schooling, graduating with at least a Degree, looking for a STABLE job, buying a house, getting married, having kids, raising kids, saving for retirement, retiring, resting at home, getting old, getting sick and lastly, saying bye to this world. I’m not sure if Alex Chacon’s first part of his life (ie. Growing up, schooling and graduating) is consistent with the CLS I mentioned earlier but for the next stage of his life (ie. after graduating) it’s definitely out from the CLS. Now, I’m not trying to criticize this CLS. After all, all parents only wish the best for their kids. They advise what they think is the best for the kids and for that, I’m sincerely grateful. However, since graduation and 8 years down the road, I started to realize there’s some flows in this CLS but today, I would like to talk about "looking for STABLE JOB" stage. STABLE JOB according to my understanding, is a job that gives you consistent stream of income, and that you are guaranteed of the job until you retired at the age of 60 (Malaysian retiring age). 

In this world, people come in different personalities. STABLE JOB, for me, is only suitable for people who look for steady life, people who are mostly risk avoider and people who just want to stay in their comfort zone until their time ends. There’s nothing wrong with that of course. After all, this is their life and they are entitled to live whatever kind of life they wish. However, there’s another kind of people, just like Alex who’s very passionate about experiencing life living this world, who will go adventuring and challenging all obstacles that the world throws at him. A STABLE JOB is definitely not suitable for people like Alex whom, from how I see, is a bold risk taker. Of course, I’m talking about two extreme personalities of one that avoid risks and another one that welcomes risks head-on. So, STABLE JOB may not suit everyone. 

Secondly, STABLE JOB is getting lesser nowadays compared to our parents’ time. With the advancement of information technologies, information flows around in a matter of seconds. Events happened very fast with these fast flowing of information. We see small companies become big corporations and before we knew it, these companies already gone bankrupt (think about Nokia and Apple, just to name a few). That’s how fast things happened. So a STABLE JOB is no longer stable nowadays due to changes takes place every seconds.

Thirdly, a STABLE JOB makes us UNSTABLE. Unstable emotion and sense of security, that’s what I mean. Through these years, based on my personal experience, I find that a person who has being working for a company for many years tend to have this false sense of self pride and some times, arrogance. He has this thought that whatever experiences, skills and ideas that he has gained from many years of working in the company is the only package that made him successful in his career life. He failed to understand however, that he may be success in the current company, but may not be so if he works for different company). He gets too comfortable with the working rhythm in this Company and when there’s change required, for example, new top management team demands different operation approach, he got very annoyed easily and reluctant to change. The worst part is, when the Company that he worked ceased operation, he got very depressed, thinking the world owe him his losses, be it his salaries, his status and his comfortable life that he has to forgo should the Company continue operating. 

STABLE, is defined by Oxford dictionary as “Not likely to change or fail; firmly established”.  The fact is, nothing is STABLE in this world. Anything can happen. 911 event happened. Tohoku Tsunami and earthquake that caused nuclear reactors meltdown in Japan happened, Flight MH370 is as at to date of this writing still missing without a trace. Big corporation like Nokia is now sold to Microsoft. Worldcom and General Motors went bankruptcy. Of course not all are heartbreaking news. Company like Apple went from nothing to the biggest name of the world. The key of life is not about looking for stability and comfort but learn to embrace head-on, experience it, and coming out stronger every time challenges are thrown at us. Only by doing so, we become mature in order to deal with all the instabilities around us instead of crying or getting depressed over what is unfavorable to us.

I feel annoyed whenever parents are telling their kids to look for a stable job in order to get a stable life. They failed to understand by encouraging their kids to do so, their kids become handicapped when disasters strikes in their life. They are not able to cope with problems, like a case in Malaysia that happened few days ago whereby a young lady who committed suicide because she’s unable to cope with her stress in her studies. Most people agree that in order to stay ahead of now ever competitive world, we need to be very unique in terms of our thinking, ideas and approach and yet, when our kids graduated, we encourage them to get a typical stable job in the market. Isn't that contradicting? 

Please let me know your view by leaving your comment below. I would really love to see your thought as there are many perspective to look at this subject.

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