Dialogue with a Good Mate

How does one “get on with life”?


I reckon it is not an easy option, as if you were trying to join the fast streams of vehicular traffic along the LA highway. Keeping up with expenses is the first practical challenge. To get on with life literally means to be able to be self-sufficient, not just in the spiritual and physical sense, but also to settle on-going bills, not over spend and find ways of increasing in-coming cash flows. Once we are able to do that, we more than get on with life - we begin to savour more possibilities of what life can offer.

For one to fully get on in life, there must be opportunity. When such openings do not come to us, we have to seek them. To seek them, we may .have to change our mindset. At times, we have to let go of preconceptions or ideals, and temporarily divert our track in the woods to eventually reach our goal – and have a target time, like by sunset when one is in unknown woods. At other times, one has to go into partnership to attain mutual goals. The choice is ours.

The human mind is habitual and thrives on familiarity. To jump into other options, or try different trails, one must be driven by a passionate desire to succeed. To leave the known for the unknown is not natural.  It is most effective to be driven by the lure of possibility and reward, the promise of practicality and the option to do so. Then one truly “gets on in life”.


It is not always useful to however get back to the drawing board.

Whatever back- up plans we have, they are only to be used in the last resort. John Lennon wrote as part of his lyrics for his young son Julian that “Life is what happens while we are making our plans”.

The drawing board can be compared akin to an insurance policy. It provides relative peace of mind, but we never plan to actually utilise it. Such a board is just a good tool while we are making plans for the future, not usually to revert when our plans do not work out.


Never use the study option as an on-going path.

The purpose of education is to use it. Many of Australia’s CEOS of top corporations never had an MBA.
Education also includes working on the job, doing the nitty-gritty and not just acquiring paper-based qualifications. Okay, I recognise that one has to get that job first.


Envisaging oneself to be where one would be based in a career in the future.

Nobody knows. Plans reflect what we know in the present. Not all changes in the future can be anticipated.
New means of doing things lead to possibilities that we may not figure out today. More efficient means of transport can offer us more choices in terms of physical or virtual workplace locations, they are only one factor in the scheme of things.

You may take a chance in dabbling in a new industry or occupation – just to try it for a while, you may convince yourself – which you then may enjoy for years to come. At the same time, HR professionals expect more changes in role, job location and industry for the younger generations,but they do not elaborate to us on the details.


The employee of the future can expect to experience several redundancies in his or her career.

Work life and environments are in for a radical change – many of the assumptions and parameters of the past are rehashed, modified or simply obliterated. Where one does work, how one delivers, whom one interacts with and/or how rewards are parcelled out will change like a transforming creature from Nature's wild environment, affected by the search for niche talent, the flows of available resources, the right pricing, the enabling technology and radically emerging customer markets.

Loyalty to employers and organisations were dead long ago, and in its place a different nature of loyalty – perhaps to lifestyle, inner personality and self-preserving careers – has long made its impact on role and career choices, commuting patterns and balancing adjustments for family, self and community.

Can I please share the best quote I read recently , thanks to a mate Henry Quah:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -USA President Obama

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