About My Ambitions

I was never ambitious, I thought, when I was a child . Yet reading this, doubts creep up, a truckload of them. Alright, that is pure exaggeration, magnifying a dubious, otherwise inconsequential point.

As far back as I can remember, the first thing I want to be was to be a soldier in the army, like my dad. On this little red dot, it was considered a iron rice bowl, being a soldier, a government servant that is, but I am not too sure about that now in our current economic environment. How irony that I have became part of them, in a subtle way. I remember as a child, relatives used to roll their eyes, and offer a blank expression upon hearing my ambition. Yes, it was one of those lowly respected job where we live. Maybe because we can't imagine this tiny island going into war, so what use do we have for them. Well, that was when I was a kid, anyway.

Things change, of course, quite easily when you are a child. So the next inspiration came in the old English soccer show, The Big League Soccer. Give me a ball any day, and I would be a utterly happy kid. Then came that incident, when my Primary School teacher told me, straight in the face, how there is only one Fandi, and even he struggled to make ends meet. Well, thanks a lot! Look at the S-league now! What can I say? I can only say I was born in the wrong time.

I am exhausted, and it's late, so I will try to keep the rest of this short.

In a flurry, I went from wanting to be a math teacher (my mum said I was too soft-spoken, so the kids would walk all over me), an engineer, psychologist (Freud is the man!), a cost accountant, a corporate trainer (now, this is craziest of the lot!), a novelist (this is not too far behind the trainer; there is only one Catherine Lim you know!), a journalist, an auditor, back to being an cost accountant. Well, that just about sums up my ambitions - too much for one life, though mostly in a whim. Alright, I confess, I have no idea what I want. But one thing for sure, I don't mind trading my long-sleeved shirt, FX creation bag, the morning bus and monitor cum keyboard for quality time with kids, dishes and laundry as a house-husband. Any taker? For once, you don't have to remind me I was born in the wrong time.

Come to think of it, I once thought of going to Japan to become a famous porn star when I was serving my National Service. Then again, which guy don't dream of this at least once in their lifetime? That is what I think.

I could blame it on our education system, our social framework on this wasteland of dreams. But seriously...