The Sexy in Struggle

 

People Who Come From Nowhere and Make a Life for Themselves are Worthy of Respect  

As a recently divorced man, I’ve reached a strange place in terms of my personal life. I’ve discovered women who find me attractive. My heart ran away and went to a woman about ago and I’ve also met and befriended a woman whom each and everyone of my friends have told me I’d be stupid to go all out for.

However, as a friend of mine recently pointed out, I’m off the mindset that my ex remains the best that I’ve ever had and will have. His point being that whenever I talk about her, its always in admiring terms and even if most people in Singapore won’t understand it. He argues that the girl whom everyone wants me to be with isn’t going to match up, let alone the girl whom my heart prefers over me.

Here’s the truth, it was 13-years of my life and unlike marriage number one, this one involved a home and a child. I did spend time with her side of the family and we’re still speaking. So, it goes without saying that some feelings developed along the way and a part of me feels a little nostalgic and wishes things might have turned out differently.

However, I’ll be the first to admit, that it wasn’t smooth sailing. This “driven” woman was at times “too driven.” Communication was a struggle. So, whilst I’ll always go back to the moment, I decided to get married and make the same decision as I did back then, I’m not broken up by the break of the marriage.

Everyone is curious, why do I still speak well of the ex when one might consider everyone else a step up. The girl whom everyone wants me to be with, is gorgeous and from a well to do family. Her lifestyle is what I used to sell. To top it all off, she’s really well mannered and a decent human being. First time we went out, the cab driver brought us to the wrong place and she actually told the guy that it was ok, people make mistakes and she’d still pay him. There’s something beautiful about a person with so much who treats people with so little with dignity and compassion.

The girl that my heart likes to hang out with is also, in Singapore speak, not too bad, she’s had a string of decent jobs in respectable places and has done well for herself financially.

So, why do I still talk in glowing terms about the ex. What I respect the iron will to survive hardship. My ex and her friends, more often than not, come from Vietnamese hometowns, which, whilst scenic to outsiders, are places where a lot of people don’t know where they’re next meal is coming from.

https://www.vietnameseprivatetours.com/vietnamese-villages

 

 Someone from here:

Yes, despite their handicap, they find a way of surviving and thriving. One of my favourite of her friends is now a franchise owner in the USA:

https://www.upmenu.com/blog/how-to-start-a-franchise-with-no-money/

 

Thinks and does this:

I’m not saying that people in well to do countries don’t struggle. However, not getting into the university of your choice isn’t the same as not actually being able to feed your family. Then, there’s the issue of jobs.

I mean, yes, its more challenging now. The basic degree is considered a basic requirement just to get into the typist pool these days. However, the formula isn’t that difficult once you get in. You basically stay where you are, collect your monthly salary and plot your way around the corporate world. Some of us do it better than others but by and large, it’s a simple formula.

It's a different story when you don’t have qualifications or you barely speak the language of the place you’ve moved to. As one of my favourite African girls likes to say – You have to be a hustler and you have to work very hard for your money.

Success, as they say, is very easy when you have lots of money. As they say, it takes money to make money. So, yes, I do agree that many Western expats who come here to work for multinationals do have certain skills that are valuable to the economy (as a matter of full disclosure, I was an “expat” kid – my first stepdad was a senior creative director in a huge ad agency and transferred around the world with great perks). However, you’re part of a system. The plum job you do come with financial security. The staff speak your language.

By contrast, I have a lot more regard for Chinese and Indian communities who went over to the West. Didn’t speak the local language, and didn’t know anyone. Yet, within a generation they set up businesses and made a life for themselves. I’m old enough to remember the joke in English schools of “Why did the Romans build straight roads? So, the Pakis couldn’t build corner shops.”

To many of us get caught up with things like the car someone drives or the bands they wear. We get caught up with where someone went to school or, worse – which family they come from. What we never look at is the struggle and the things that people had to do to survive and beyond.

It’s not that I think less of girl everyone wants me to be with or even girl whom my heart prefers to me. At the end of the day, it’s the ex that still gets my respect based on the things she’s had to go through.

The Misfits

 If You’re Not Fitting into the Mainstream – Embrace it.

I have a pretty screwed up work history. Back in the days when I was in PR, I actually couldn’t hold a steady job on either the agency or client side. I actually never worked in a single organization for more than a year. My patchy work history was such that a mentor actually told me that looking for a steady job was a waste to time because I’d never be able to explain my short stints.

Then, when my things were running really dry in PR, I got a job in the insolvency trade, where I’ve been with my employer for the last decade. I have, however, remained an outlier in as much as just about everyone is a lawyer or accountant and I’ve resisted joining one either of these professions to justify my existence in the game.

Despite all of this, I’m not ashamed of how things have turned out. Although I’ve never had the “respect” of my peers, I’ve had the privilege of doing things nobody thought I had the right to do like Government-to-Government (Visit of then Crown Prince Sultan to Singapore in 2006) work, events that drew several government ministers including a former and current president (the IIM and IIT events in 2013 and 2012) and litigation PR.

So, although I would probably have been better off financially, had I been more “conventional,” I’m quite happy with how things worked out (even if I hate sitting in offices these days). For a start, I enjoy not having the world view that my profession is the be-all and “end-all” of things. In the years I’ve been working, I’ve had the privilege of befriending the people you are obliged to call “Your Excellency” but at the same time also making friends with people who are a step away from lock up. These are things that have enriched me in ways that I would never have imaged.

I’m glad to say that being a misfit was not a lonely journey. I had a few friends who encouraged me, even when everything I was doing was “wrong” as far as standard careers went. Interestingly enough, one of the first people who found me “interesting” is PN Balji, former editor-in-chief of Today, who got me writing commentary for Today, which inevitably got me into blogging.

Balji, an “old-school” newsman who had climbed the ranks of the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Despite a stable career, he proceeded to commit the ultimate sin in Singapore’s corporate culture of “divine rights.” He joined a competitor and proceeded to build a newspaper that didn’t belong to the only newspaper publisher. As such, his thinking was different from the rest. Instead of treating contributors like he was doing them a favour by publishing them – he actually encouraged ordinary folk to write and paid them. So, while I never had a proper “journalism” job in any sense of the word – I actually got published and published regularly.

However, whilst freelance wannabe writers like myself appreciated him, the powers that be in the media thought rather differently. As a Facebook post of his recalls:

 

Taken from the Facebook Page of Mr. PN Baji.

Having a patron who encouraged misfits wasn’t the only thing. Along the way, I met a few other characters who would encourage me in the journey of being a misfit. I think of Mark, the one-man operator law firm who managed an international trial of one of Israel’s largest corporations. Mark remains an interesting character who, instead of working his way up the traditional law firm route, proceeded to set up on his own early on and took on what one could call “rogue” cases (read helping drug offenders – or in Singapore’s context, cases that are lost before they start). The man never really become part of the lawyer cliques but preferred to spend time with the SME owners who were his main support base. He encouraged me to do things, not as part of a big group but as “little Tang Li.”

Another key cheerleader of misfit ways that I had the honour of catching up with, is my former Recee officer, Chris, who graduated from West Point Military Academy. The man gave up a very stable career in the military for the path of “entrepreneurship,” without government support. In the decade since he’s left the stability of the military, he’s gone out of his way to help other misfits get on with their own thing:

 

Stranger’s Misfits.

In a way, being comfortable with being a misfit means you get attracted to like minded people. Somehow, you get to see certain talents gel together. I have the example of my Chubby Tiger partner, who as the name implies, is as chubby as I am and confident about her love for food. The chemistry is as this little African girl explains:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Zvil4hBuFD0

 

Being a misfit isn’t easy. It’s taken me nearly two decades to be at ease with the fact that the “normal” path was out for me and that I was best trying to make things work with other misfits.

Then again, its worth being at ease with being a misfit. The alternative is inevitably worse. Its being a misfit but ashamed of it and spending your whole life trying to get accepted by a system that won’t accept you. I think of people who get consistently summoned by HR but yet stick to their jobs because their identity is totally tied up to having a room and being part of an organization. I think of ethnic minorities who are so desperate to be part of the mainstream they will gladly sell out to try to be like the majority.

Its sad because what they fail to see is that “not” being part of the main stream is a strength. It allows you to see things that people in the box won’t see. So, if you are misfit, work with it and play to your strengths. Work with being different. It can only lead to real blessings.