I once asked two parents out of curiosity how they advised their children to go out into the world to earn a living. They told me that they cooed and coaxed their boy, “Go to work, my child, go out into the world so you can have money to show off!”
“Mum, I’ve got a degree. Why would I waste my time with a normal person’s job? I’m going to change the world with what I’ve learned.” Replies their pride and joy, half listening while languishing on the couch.
The parents immediately conjured up a gnarled stick to increase their persuasiveness: “Behave! Listen, we are your parents and we love you.”
The mother-child love is as warm as an action movie. But life doesn’t always have a happy ending like in the movies. Recently, I heard rumors that young Vietnamese people are not interested in doing trivial manual labor and instead are focusing on the university path.
In a typical example, the result after working for a few days in a new job with a boss who spoke to them in the wrong way: You can take this job and shove… I quit.
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A book left opened and a glass of water at a couch. Illustration photo by Unsplash |
There are a lot of stories of bad attitudes of pampered kids in expensive universities. When criticized for their poor English, they cried like a rain shower on TikTok. Their ego is as powerful as fish sauce assaulting a Canadian’s conventional sense of smell.
This partly explains corruption in academia: cheating on exams, buying grades, using fake degrees, etc. Even the desire to have a degree is sometimes just because of the ego wanting to be praised, not to gain real skills.
Then, after graduation, “I have a degree, I am the best!” This fallacy is everywhere like classified ads on electric poles.
But the harsh reality is that many people have fat degrees but their ability is ‘error 404. For example, the IELTS saints pronounce words like “hê lô, hao du?” while western employers cringe at the sound.
Thomas Sowell once said: “Too much so-called ‘education’ is nothing more than a costly isolation from reality”. Like an expensive blanket mom and dad swaddled tightly asphyxiating their child’s potential.
True, first jobs can be quite difficult. Young people have to wake up early, interrupting their beauty sleep. Forced to rush into a traffic jam filled with fine dirt.
Suffering a salary that is just enough to buy iced tea and gas to go to work. And, the boss is usually as cheerful as a traffic ticket when dealing with new employees.
In the West, young people fiercely compete for terrible jobs! They go to work in fast food restaurants, where the ingredients are as costly as the free wifi. High difficulty, low pay, and the smell of fried potatoes and beef fat dulls the senses.
But they do it because working at cafes, fast food restaurants, ect, requires energy, diligence and discipline. Through the fast-paced service environment, young people develop teamwork skills, communication, time management, responsibility, as well as the ability to work effectively under pressure and adapt quickly. They work hard; wash hundreds of dishes, prepare ingredients, clear the table, even chop onions until they cry. Management is strict if you are late, and customers do not easily forgive if the order is wrong.
And yet, the young people are willing to trade away their youth in exchange for permanent psychological damage to achieve the coveted working mindset.
Opposite to that, the fixed mindset functions like this: When a boss praises their employee “Adam is good!”, the employee is possessed, the dopaminergic system exploding like fireworks. Feels like you grabbed the last oyster at a Chinese buffet, beating hundreds of competitors trying to stuff it into their pockets to bring home to their lazy children.
But then, the dopamine rush wore off, and you drool and crave to hear that mantra again.
“Adam is a good boy!”
You start to do everything you can for that feeling; buy food, give gifts, shine shoes, even flatter the boss’s long-vanished good looks. Just to hear the words “Good boy!”
However, in a learning mindset, if the boss compliments, “Adam worked really well this time!”, this is completely different. When we receive compliments about our ability, we will know to try to improve that ability. That is the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
Thoughtful praise can be used to improve employee performance. An egotistical university graduate would respond to a manager’s feedback:
”You need to be faster Kirk, there are still tables that need cleaning.”
Kirk with his hair in full creative colorful expression, fresh from his degree, whispers bravely to himself “Who does this fifty-year-old broke manager think he is!? He must be foolish, he doesn’t even have a degree… when I’m his age I’ll be a CEO.”
Compared to, ”You need to be faster Adam, there are still tables that need cleaning.”
Adam rubs his chin and has a stoic internal dialogue, ”How could I make what I’m doing more efficient? Where can I multitask? Delegate? Am i prioritizing the right things?”
Imagine, the ego inside you is a horrible slimy monster hiding deep in a cave. When praised for being “good”, it will swell up and crave for more praise. Then it will plot to eat more. But if you bring it out into the light and force it to demonstrate its skills so that the world can evaluate it practically, the ego will writhe and protest, “Nooo! Don’t point out my weaknesses!” but it cannot escape the searing light of truth, causing it to burn away the illusions and reveal itself warts, kyphosis, and all.
And this is why young people should put on their shoes and go out into the world early, burn their hands on a hot pot. It prepares them for real work where they are criticized, and tense their feathers.
Otherwise, when asked “Do you understand?”, the youth nod their heads repeatedly even though it is as dark as a moonless night. But by letting their ego be left behind, like the smell of a garbage truck, they can develop their working skill.
After all, attitude is still the greatest asset in the world.
People who focus on skills will seek difficult challenges to improve, instead of choosing easy tasks to be praised. As a young student I loved serving and interacting with customers, so I practiced this skill as a self-motivation, to improve and escape from washing dishes, and chopping onions until I cried.
The best thing about the learning mindset is that it has no limits. If you continue to improve yourself, you will reach a level that no one can deny. The best people always crave to improve their skills, and that effort is worth tears and onions.
*Jesse Peterson is an author who has published some books in Vietnamese, including “Jesse Cười”, “Funny Tragedy: adding color to life”.
