Twenty-six and still failing

Back in secondary school, my English teacher first introduced me to TED Talks. In one of my online spirals after that, I stumbled across Kathryn Schulz’s talk “On being wrong.” It’s been 12 years and I still vividly remember her analogy of the cartoon Road Runner, particularly the trope of the coyote running off a cliff and not realising they’re in danger until they look down. She used it as an analogy to explain how our emotional perceptions of being wrong are usually tied to the realisation of being wrong. Those emotions, of feeling inadequate, like an imposter, embarrassed, are all tied to that moment of realisation. However, much like the coyote, before that moment, being wrong often feels very much like being right.

On being wrong

She goes on to make many brilliant points about our attitudes towards being wrong but I think this is fundamentally what we as a society, especially as Singaporeans, have come to embrace. In a country that flexes its prowess, in education, healthcare, and cutting-edge technology, being wrong is cumbersome. It feels like a hindrance to productivity, a weed we need to pluck out to ensure that the gardens–our citizens' minds–never grow again.

When we’re younger, this attitude towards being wrong manifests in not wanting to mess up our important examinations and educational milestones in life. We can’t seem to afford to fail an exam or skip educational steps like the PSLE or ‘N’/’O’Levels. However, when we bring such attitudes into adulthood, we see an even more detrimental phenomenon where our young adults seem to think they cannot “make mistakes” in their careers.

The Fresh Graduates’ Dilemma

It’s mid-May when this article reaches you. It is a point where many students from polytechnics are having their graduation ceremonies and when final year university students have finally completed their last semester. Many of them may begin to take their first steps into the working world. And the narrative they seem to be fed is this: choose wisely because you are choosing your future.

That is a big ask for any twenty-something-year-old.

For some context, I’m twenty-six this year. In fact, I just turned twenty-six this week (yay birthdays!). I graduated from university about two years ago now (yes, you may do the math if you’d like). And when I graduated, I thought I had a plan for what I wanted to do. What I’m doing now, writing articles and posting them regularly, was supposed to be my full-time job. The plan was to get a monthly salary for doing what I’m doing with this article (is this my hint at wanting to install a paywall? 🤭). But when I tried it, I realised I really didn’t like it as a job. Or at least, it didn’t sit well with me to churn out article after article about causes and topics I simply had no interest and personal stakes in. It was simply a matter of recognising that when it comes to matters of writing, I simply did not like writing about what was too far beyond my scope of familiarity, for various reasons.

Now, some might say I made a “mistake” then in my career path. And, perhaps, to some extent, it was. But I would never have known that had I not taken that leap of faith to try my hand at journalism. If anything, it would’ve stayed more of a hypothetical, “what if?”, a question that lingered and haunted the rest of my life had I immediately dismissed what I felt was right for me then.

Mistakes are always the product of hindsight. You find out your mistakes in a test after it has been marked and graded by your teacher. You only know you messed up in a presentation at work after your colleague or boss tells you. Otherwise, in those moments, it somehow still feels right.

Because that’s the thing. At that moment, upon graduation, journalism felt so right. Writing, as a full-time career, felt so…me. And even though I learned later that it might not be the case, it was always a realisation I could only make later, with hindsight. Mistakes are always the product of hindsight. You find out your mistakes in a test after it has been marked and graded by your teacher. You only know you messed up in a presentation at work after your colleague or boss tells you. Otherwise, in those moments, it somehow still feels right.

Learning between right and wrong

Some say we learn to differentiate between right and wrong at a young age, especially with good parenting. Our parents might teach us the fundamentals of good decisions and how to make them. They might even recommend certain pathways in life to take to ensure you make the “right” decisions in life.

But “right” and “wrong” are not black and white. In fact, if anything, they stand more on the spectrum of colours, with some decisions feeling more passionately “red” and "right" than depressingly “blue” and "wrong", and others like a blend of both in “purple.” In fact, many decisions fall into this area of blended colours, where multiple emotions and perceptions exist for one choice. And if we are inclined to decide the rightness of a decision based on our emotional responses, this likelihood of having various feelings towards it does nothing to narrow things down for us.

This is why it is an insurmountable task to ask a twenty-something-year-old to know for a fact and be completely self-assured about their decisions, both in careers and other important matters. It is an Atlantean feat, where the whole weight of your future rests on your very newly trained shoulders (I hope your educational institutions had good trainers!).

Because the fact of the matter is, you could be twenty-two or fifty-two, but the right decisions just don’t always come intuitively to you sometimes. And that’s just that.

This is why it is an insurmountable task to ask a twenty-something-year-old to know for a fact and be completely self-assured about their decisions, both in careers and other important matters. It is an Atlantean feat, where the whole weight of your future rests on your very newly trained shoulders

It’s never too late to fail

So fast forward to a year later, and I can attest to how much of a necessary mistake it was for me to get my first job wrong. Because it was a mistake that led me to a future I now see is more aligned with what I may want to pursue as a career.

As young adults, we’re constantly told, especially fresh out of school, that our career is everything. But no one stops to remind us that it is okay to make mistakes in our career choices. No one stops to tell us that we won’t always have all the facts of the matter in our hands when we make big life decisions like getting married or buying a house. No one stops to tell us that, just like dating and starting a relationship, not a lot of people are lucky enough to get it right on the first try. When it comes to work, sometimes we have to date a few companies before we find the right fit. Sometimes, we even have to search beyond our familiar dating pools, jump industries, or even countries, if it comes to it.

What matters is that we allow ourselves that room to breathe. To fail, and even fail hard sometimes, but always fail forward. Let the noise of LinkedIn posts and that friend who just got promoted in a year settle into the background. Instead, remember yourself and embrace your own journey. It’s the only one you’re compelled to take and stick with all the way. And sure, being in your twenties might feel like a constant problem of guess-and-check (oh, maybe that’s why they gave us those sums for PSLE), but if it helps, just remember to check these life experiences according to your own barometers of success and happiness, not society’s or your friends’ or your family’s.