Philosophy of Work and of Life

This is the original unedited piece which I intended to put in my Friendster as a bulletin. Alas, I had to change the vulgar words to enable it to be posted there. The references of "bulletin" points to the bulletin board of Friendster.

For all those nitpickers and grammarians out there, you'll be the first ones to point out that grammatically, my above title of "Philosophy of Work and of Life" is correct but is aesthetically displeasing. You'll be the first to tell me to remove the "of" before "Life" so that it'll look prettier.

Well, fuck you if you think that way, because this is my piece and I'll use, MISuse, and ABuse the English language in the most fitting way that suits me.

This is going to be a long outpouring, so if you're the kind that's impatient, I suggest you skip this and GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Otherwise, please join in. See what makes me tick and what makes me disillusioned, disenfranchised, disconnected, discontent, and demotivated.

I have come to learn something which in my opinion is life shattering. I have learnt that in work, it is best to distance myself from being too close to any one of my colleagues. That in work, however hard it is, or however hurtful it may be, the best way to OPERATE EFFECTIVELY AND PRODUCTIVELY is to keep my colleagues at a distance and to detach my emotions with my professional endeavours.

When colleagues become too "chummy chummy", all manners of ugly emotions surface. Because let's face it, you can't please everyone every time. Which is why every time you feel left out, you start getting angry, you start getting jealous, you start questioning your so-called "friends-cum-colleagues".

Whether it's the unintentional dropping of your name from the list of invitees to an ex-colleague's wedding dinner, or the unintentional/intentional oversight of not calling you to join for a session of "yum cha" after work, or just any other "small" matter that precluded you from that activity, or even precluded you from the mere "invitation" to that activity, it all adds up.

You start to feel, after some time, that it's just not worth it to invest in so much emotion to connect with these friends cum colleagues when in the end, you end up feeling left out and/or shortchanged.

Of course, by "you", I could have easily meant "I".

So, in the end, one question pops up: Why bother?

It's high time to detach yourself from all this shit. Of course, the other argument may be that it's only oversight, those are small things that shouldn't ruin a friendship.

To which I rebut: it's EXACTLY these small things that ruin friendships. I consider myself a good friend once you get to know me, but I'm also notorious for breaking off friendships because of small things. Do I have regrets doing so? Maybe. But it's my nature, it's the real me, and there is little that I can do to change it.

Which is why I now feel, as I had felt when I started my work life, that colleagues should remain colleagues. But I've invested so much emotionally to be accepted by them that I feel it's very difficult to detach or separate myself from them.

Furthermore, to detach myself from them now would be a near impossible task because I really do treat them as friends. Whether or not they reciprocate is another matter, though.

I say "a near impossible task". Which means I believe it is still possible. When it gets to this stage, i.e. when I'm neck-deep in work and I cannot get any emotional support from any of my so-called friends cum colleagues, I think it is high time to just separate "friends" from "colleagues".

To not do so would be the real mistake. To not do so means I'll invest more emotionally in the so-called "friendships" and find myself being left out again and again and again.

To not do so would mean I'll self-destruct faster.

So, to those who have been reading this bulletin until now, I hope I've been clear in what I've said and you understand my feelings and emotions, as well as the rationale for my sudden change of attitude, behaviours, and values.

It's my belief that we should change in order to fit the norm and to serve our own interests.

Because deep, deep down inside, we are all selfish people.