Growing up, I’ve never been one to excel in school. I always see myself as a medium-sized fish in a large pond. I may not be the biggest, but being mid-sized gives me opportunities that the large ones give up on.

So along came the first tough decision I had to make in life after high school. Should I go to college? Or should I have more fun in life by going straight to tertiary education offered by local polytechnics? What kind of education should I go for?

At that time, in the early 2000s after the dot com bubble burst, not many people want to jump into the IT industry, but I went ahead anyway – to go with the latter and opt for polytechnic. I knew this would equip me with a skill set which would prove useful in years to come. Like a typical Singaporean, everyone wants to go to University, and that final goal alone pushed many to take up a college education. In those days, only the top 5% of polytechnic cohort made it to local Universities. I’ve never doubt that I won’t be able to make it, but I’ve just decided to take a different stepping stone than others. Of course to be able to make such a choice means to do pretty decent in high school, enough to pick either option. This counts as the first incidence of my philosophy in life – Choose your options, don’t let your options choose you. In life, you are always happier and better off if you able to choose what you like. Choose a car you like because your education gets you a better paying job, choose a location you like for travels because you can afford it. You get to choose the better paying job because you did well in your education. You get to choose a better education because you worked hard to get good results. Bottom line, it’s all about you and how you want your outcome to be.

People hate it when they are forced to accept an outcome they dislike. Don’t get yourself into that situation. Get a hold of your destiny. Nobody controls it better than you do. Don’t be afraid to be different. You don’t always need to follow the masses.