I took this photo when I went to a secondary school to recruit students and offer advice. I thought it was interesting because some of the switches didn’t have labels on them or those with labels had cryptic descriptions or just codes. A good metaphor came to my mind right away was that life is full of switches. Sometimes you hit the right switch and sometimes you don’t. The important thing is that YOU have to take risk to find out.
Many parents want to give the best to their children making sure they go to the best kindergartens because a good kindergarten leads to a good primary school leads to a good secondary school leads to a good university leads to a good life. Everything is planned out so well for them. One of the biggest problems I found from my teaching experience is that students don’t want to take risks. They choose courses that are easy to score high grades or they have studied similar courses before or taught by nice instructors. No wonder why HK scored almost the lowest in Asia in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Study. If our students don’t take risks, how can we expect to have the next Bill Gates (well, Bill is out now, we need the next Mark Zuckerberg)? I always tell my students that school is the best place to take risk because it is a well-controlled environment. It is just like having virtual crash pads all around you, if you fall, it may hurt but you’ll keep your life, and most importantly, you learn. So my advice is: Go study something that you have no clue what it is about, get out of your comfort zone! You will learn more in the long run. Dale Carnegie once said:
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.
Krates' Blog 