MSUGANA

Life is Like a Business Cycle

I would like to thank Steve Jobs, the Dalai Lama, and the 1929 stock-market crash of the United States for being the dominant inspirations for this post.

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Irving Fisher, a prominent economist from Yale University, announced the week before the US ‘stocks fell off the brink’ at the end of 1920s that the US were experiencing a “permanently high plateau”.  Relating this to my recent IPE mid-term ‘rapeage’ (rapeage = 95% chance of asian failing) after receiving over 100s on my other essays/assignments, I can’t help but to wonder that…… 

Life is like a global business cycle: It fluctuates up and down and you can’t really predict when or to whom the recession is going to occur.  For the past year, I have fortunately been experiencing the upward sloping curve, enjoying my time as I am supposedly on the right path to achieve my goals.  But eventually I would have to resist the inevitable: facing recession.  In the life of an undergraduate student such as myself, recession would involve things like not getting the grades you want or other mundane things like not getting a phone-call back from your crush.

While happiness is a choice, it’s quite impossible for us human beings to live a life with an x=1 (1 for happiness) curve.  Shit happens. The life cycle fluctuates.  When life is good, enjoy it.  But do not disregard the fact that unfortunately it may not last forever (what a skeptic, I am).  Take the United States or Europe, as example.  If these countries were individuals, what would they be thinking during their prosperous economic times?   That it’s going to last forever?  Surely, economists and politicians (other than Fisher, perhaps) are aware of the fact that ‘happiness does not last forever’.  

Steve Jobs’ death made me think (Damn I think way too much): Sure, his career was successful and I am certain he was happy with his wonderful family and personal life.  But what about his cancer?  Health is one of those aspects of life that I always take for granted and it’s definitely not something that any of us has a complete control over.  It’s inevitable! Simply said, what if all this ‘greatness’ in my life was taken away?  What if..What if..

What if I can’t get my dream job?

What if I can’t get in to my dream graduate school?

What if all the hard work I’ve been doing is for nothing?

What if I’m not destined to achieve my goals?

Having the ability to deal with the downward sloping curves is something that we all should prepare, whether we want to or not.  When I went to the Dalai Lama’s speech last year, I was inspired by his teachings that “Having too many desires leads to unhappiness.”  While I agree with him that we shouldn’t want too many things, I am honestly one of those people who needs STRONG DESIRES to be happy and motivated.  But at the same time, yes I am aware of the fact that the higher are these desires, the higher the probability that I might just crush deep into the cup of the curve.

So what should I do?

An awesome quote by my betch Kate McCaw:

“WHY GET SO WORKED UP OVER SOMETHING YOU CAN’T CONTROL? CHILL OUT!”