Ponder for Life

Today, my colleague just told me some great news. Four of my colleagues had been promoted in the recent promotion exercise. One promoted to Technical staff, one to senior engineer, and two from entry-level engineer to full engineers. Congratulations to them!!

But then at the same time, I realised I had kind of lagged behind. Many of my friends and colleagues had made great achievements both in their private life & at work. People getting married, starting a new family, buying house & car, getting to senior positions at work. After 7 long years with my current company, I am still at best a 2nd fiddle player. Not a single product that is in production. The joy of telling people that 'Oh, I designed that one' has never come upon me.

The other 'attempts' that I made to try to be 'successful' are not progressing, either. The passion in photography is dying. I picked up photography more seriously in 1997 with the purchase of my 1st SLR; 10 years later, I am still very much an amateur, if not beginnger. I am not making as much progress as someone who maybe just took up photography a year or two ago. One reason I know very well is my being stingy in investing time & money in it. Photography now is more of a frustration, rather than an enjoyment. The fire has come across a fire extingisher ;P

I tried microstock photography, thinking it might be a good avenue for me to share my 'prodcuts', so that they don't sit in my harddisk waiting for the crash time to come. It did give me some sense of fulfillment for a while. It was exciting to know people actually vote for your pictures with their money! Soon I realised again I am at best a 2nd class, if not 3rd or 4th or any other lower class, in the microstock community. I got excited if I can get more than 50 bucks a month, while others are talking about thousands. The contrast is big.

There are other attempts that unfortunately also failed terribly. To make things worse, I discovered there is a pattern in my failures. In other words, I always make the same mistakes, regardless what kind of attempts that I make. This is serious.

I seldom feel happy anymore. Nothing that can arose my interest or passion. The goddess of joy seems to have forgotten about me, or had been offended by me. Or, maybe God has answered my prayer for strength, wisdom & glory. He kindly gave me difficult tasks, laid down obstacles, to provide me the opportunity to gain the strength, the wisdom and glory.

I am feeling tired and lonely. The desire to return to my family is getting stronger and stronger everyday. A break from my daily routines.

A Singaporean motivation speaker, Adam Khoo, once said, you will be successful no matter what you do, as long as you are the best. How true it is! I am always the 2nd best, or 3rd, or lower. That makes me a perfect candidate to be an under-achiever :)

It is high time I pondered about my life and made changes. Hanging on to my unpromising job is not going to get me anywhere.