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March 15, 2006
What is success?
Ask people what is success and they come up with all kind of things. Frequently, I hear people say that success is to have a great and rewarding career, a house, a car, beautiful and smart children, a wife, education and so on.
Is this really success? What will you think when you are 65 or 75 and summarise your life. Oh - my life was successful, because I drove 5 different car models, one better than the other, because my career was very rewarding?
What is success? It is not easily defined if you define it apart from possessions. Try it!
"For the Malay female, success apparently is to have children. "In the nationwide study among 1,000 women aged 15 to 67 years, 96% said having children was the biggest success indicator."
It also seems that the females are in a conflict. "Malay women in the country faced a conflict between career and family. 'They want to be assertive and successful but, at the same time, there are cultural constraints. They feel if they’re doing too much or being too aggressive, their feminine side will be lost.'
How do you feel about this? Reading those findings, there are always questions on mind:
- First, where is the conflict? Is it possible to do both?
- What is the connection between assertive and succussful? Can you be assertive without being successful?
- How do you define cultural constraints? Are there any differences between culture in KL, Penang, Pahang or East Malaysia, for example?
- How do you define "femine side" and why should it be lost? Not every women needs to develop into a Marget Thatcher, just because she starts to work - there are plenty of women around me at my workplace and they seem pretty okay.
Whatever the findings it is a clear sign that the Malaysian society is undergoing change. Change is often about being "torn apart" between more "traditional values" and "modern aspirations".
And it is interesting to really think through what success means to you, what values drive or support your success, beliefs and how you plan to achieve it. And this is what life is all about.
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Posted by Andreas at March 15, 2006 05:05 PM
Comments
I had this conversation with my Turkish ex-boss, comparing Malaywomen and Turkish women. It's obvious that Malay women r more independent and tend to be controlling.Turkish women won't keep calling their husbands when the husbands are still not at home after dark. Malay women are not as obedient as Turkish women. The reason, he said, is that Malay women can earn money on their own, that's why they feel that they deserve to have a power in the house too. Well, actually, anyone, not only women... a child for example, once he or she start to work and earn money on his/her own, parents no longer have power to control what they wanna do. They have more freedom. With money they can leave the parents when misunderstanding occurs, unlike those times when they have to agree with whatever decisions parents make, otherwise, no monthly allowance...
Posted by: Nizar at March 17, 2006 10:10 PM
Insurance managers keep telling me this: Success is just a journey in life, not a destination.
Posted by: Nizar at March 17, 2006 10:00 PM