When I entered the world of work as a fresh graduate, two older, successful people who didn’t know each other gave me the same advice, seemingly by coincidence: “Those whose sole goal is to earn lots of money rarely achieve their aim; those motivated by both money and a sense of mission, by contrast, are more likely to enjoy both financial success and emotional satisfaction.”

At the time, I thought it was purely accidental that these two offered me the same nugget of wisdom. Now that I’m older, I can see that this wasn’t the case, for just by observing the people around me and those I read about, I can easily detect the same pattern and the reasons behind it. Those doing work that aligns with their values and natural talents are more motivated to stay on course when the going is tough. On the other hand, those who don’t find intrinsic meaning in what they do will quickly change paths once a more lucrative option pops up. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a peer dabble in ESG, DEI, and AI in quick succession.

Most schools don’t teach with the intent of instilling a sense of mission. Quite the contrary – the education system is set up in a way that discourages self-discovery. Students are rewarded not for excelling in self-chosen passion projects, but for being obedient enough to memorize a mass of largely useless material. It is therefore only natural that students go from studying for the sole sake of getting high marks to working for the sole sake of earning money.

In my primary and secondary school years, I was a victim of this system. Luckily, my education wasn’t a complete waste of time. In my teens, I had a middle-aged music teacher whose voice was virtually indistinguishable from Sarah Brightman’s (indeed, when she demonstrated how to sing “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom of the Opera, the whole class giggled because it was almost like having Brightman’s Christine giving us a private performance). Yet by the time I met her, she was an empty shell of a woman (and drably dressed at that). Perhaps at one point in her life, she had harboured the dream of becoming a performer. Not that it mattered anymore. In the here and now, life consisted of coping with each year’s student load. No wonder her gaze was always vacant, her fingers’ manner of hitting the keyboard always in autopilot mode.

Now that I’m a writer who funds her writing with her income from teaching, my music teacher is never far from my mind. Earning money is comfortable and easy, but if I focus more on teaching than on writing, will I end up just as disillusioned? So, even though I have long forgotten school syllabus material like the date of this war and the chemical composition of that compound, I will never forget my music teacher, because it’s by mentally replaying her image that I will get a fresh impetus to do serious writing. In my book, no fate is worse than sharing her fate.

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Michelle Ng

英國牛津大學畢業，前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家，現在身在楓葉國，心繫中國大陸和香港。

聯絡方式： michelleng.coach@proton.me
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