Different Times, Different Measures

This episode is dedicated for young adults who are not fortunate enough to continue their formal education due to external circumstances.

Hi everyone! 

This is your host Sayar Henry, and thank you for downloading this episode and choosing to spend time with me today. 

This week on social media, I happened to share one of the old posts that I wrote back in 2015. It’s about how working as a part-time waiter during my university years shaped me better and how I grew significantly with that experience. 

Although the post itself was rich with motivational energy, a couple of comments under that post reminded me that there is something more I can do. To be precise, there is something more I should do right now for young adults in Myanmar.

And that is how this episode came to be — an episode that is dedicated for students who are willingly choosing to still be a part of the Civil Disobedience Movement in The Spring Revolution of Myanmar (2021). 

Throughout the history of Myanmar since its independence from British rule in 1948, the political climate in this country has never been stable. The main reason being the military coups attempted by the arrogant and selfish generals every few decades or so. The sad thing is, every time that happens, people try to resist the suppression of the military regime with little to no success in the long run. Among them, young people are the ones that lost their education, hopes, and dreams at the most damaging level. Even though we can say the Spring Revolution is by far the longest-running resistance in terms of defying the evil military and maintaining hope for the restoration of justice and democracy in future, what this generation has lost is no less than that of the previous generations. 

Now, I’m not talking about those who can choose to go abroad and continue their education, or those who are employable enough in a foreign job market. I’m talking about the less fortunate boys and girls who are not there yet. 

In a country where graduating from a university is the only way to land even a low salary job, not being able to continue or complete the studies automatically means most of these young people will remain unemployed too. That’s such a painful loss of human resource and capacity for this country!

We don’t know if, or when, the country’s political situation will be stable once again; but we know for sure a long gap of nothingness can deteriorate the morale and willpower of young adults.

So it becomes crucial that the older generation finds ways to educate and employ this unfortunate group of younger generation in non-traditional and modern ways (especially with the help of technology).

So in this episode, we’re going to explore some ideas and way of thinking that might be useful for many young adults. Now I say this with some reluctance because not everything I talk about here will resonate perfectly with every single one of you. However, these can at least open your eyes and help you see your situation from more than one angle.   

To make things easier for you to follow, I’m going to break things down into two main parts.

Now let’s get right to Part One.

This part is all about Assessment and Adaptation. You see, every time we are in a difficult situation in which we don’t know what to do next, or everything we used to know and do doesn’t work anymore, the first step is always to assess our situation objectively. Now the key word here is to assess objectively. That means we must try to see things as they are without being influenced by any personal or emotional bias. 

Now think this through: 

In every responsible adult’s life, having a job and earning decent money is the most important aspect beside family matters; but for young adults like you, getting education and getting a job are equally important. It also seems like you can’t get one without the other especially if your family cannot support you financially. 

So if you cannot complete your education while assuming the country’s political situation is not going to improve drastically in the foreseeable future, the only one decision that can give your life a degree of meaning is to earn some money. If you cannot get education now, at least you should be getting some money, right?

This is the part where your ability to adapt to new circumstances comes into play. When external factors limit your path to formal education, you need to grow the mindset of embracing opportunities that can give you informal education and some money. I will talk about the ways you can get informal education and money a few minutes later but now let me tell you a bit more about adapting to change.

Now I know adapting to change is not the easiest thing in the world, but it can be managed if you approach it right. Here is the biggest misconception you should be aware of. Most people think that adapting to or accepting change is difficult because they have no control over that change. But that’s only true if the change is coming from the outside with external factors you can’t control. In many cases, however, change can be internal. It means there are many changes you can adapt to as soon as you see things from a different perspective and decide to move forward step by step in that direction. In such cases, change is simply about trying to understand what is available in your hand and what you can do with it. 

In another word, dealing with change is mostly about understanding your options and redefining your priorities.

Now allow me repeat that sentence because it is probably the single most impactful takeaway you can get from this episode.

‘Dealing with change is mostly about understanding your options and redefining your priorities’.

Let me try to put that into the context of your life right now.

You bravely chose to be a part of the Civil Disobedience Movement, and now you are out of education. You don’t want to attend the local universities run by the military regime. And there is no way your family can afford to send you oversea to complete your education. Or in the worst-case scenario, your family is not fortunate enough to even pay for any online class you want to attend.

In this particular situation, can you honestly hope to live your life again as an immature student like you were two years ago? Think about it seriously. Is that still an option? I guess not. 

So if you keep expecting to have an option that is no longer on the table, it will be painful for you. More importantly, the only person hurting you again and again in this context is you. You need to accept that the formal education is out of the equation, and you need to learn to let go of it. Truth is, even if you think you’re not letting it go, it’s not there anymore. It’s gone. You can’t think of formal education as the top priority of your life anymore. Instead, you should try to accept that it’s gone and start to redefine your priorities.      

Remember, boys and girls, that dealing with change is about understanding your options and redefining your priorities.

So, what should be your new priorities?

Well, like I said earlier, your new priorities should be to focus on informal education and to start earning money even if it is just a small amount. But then, you might be wondering how you could possibly overcome the frustrating cycle of not having education to earn money, and not having money to get education, right? 

Don’t worry fellas. I’m going to talk about these in Part Two of this episode, which is coming right after some advertisements. That is, if your device is in the United States. Here we go.

    ***Ad Break***

Part Two

And now we are back to the show. 

So, I was talking about the new priorities that you might want to focus on if you want your days to be a little more meaningful and satisfying. 

First, let me start with some basic ways you can make money. When people talk about money, they usually associate it with formal employment. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for you boys and girls, it’s not relevant to you because you are not a graduate, right? So just like you should focus more on informal education under the circumstances, you should find ways to get informal money. But to be clear, when I say ‘informal’ money, I’m NOT talking about cheating, or participating in scams or illegal ways, or trading, or even investing in some digital currencies like bitcoin. I am talking about the local currency that you can be paid directly by a real person in your social circle. 

Now, it’s important to realize that your first goal is not to earn a comparable amount of money that your elder family members are making, okay? 

Your goal is to ask for pocket money in exchange for some work. Yes, let me repeat it to be clear. 

Your goal is to ask for pocket money in exchange for a corresponding amount of work. 

For example, if you can clean the whole house, offer your parents a deal that is much cheaper than the amount they would have to pay a cleaning worker. If you can fix some plumbing or wiring issues in the household, offer them to pay you a lower price than what they would have to pay a professional plumber or electrician. If you can cook, offer to cook a nice meal for your parents in exchange for an amount of money that is less than the cost of ordering food from outside. 

In another word, you are going to offer yourself as a part-time worker for your own family, neighbors, relatives, or even friends. Now this may sound unusual and even weird for some people, but the truth is, there are many boring or repetitive tasks that people don’t want to do and are willing to pay for if they can get a good deal, especially if it is with someone they can trust. So every busy person in your social circle that knows you could become your potential customer that you can help in exchange for some pocket money. That is where you start in the business of personal services.

Now, there’s one critical point I need to mention. Some of the elder persons you give your offer to are going to misunderstand this idea, and they might try to give you the pocket money without letting you work. And it is super important at that point to not take that money.

I repeat: DO NOT TAKE FREE MONEY FROM ANYONE.

They may tell you that they are giving you this pocket money out of love. But in fact, they are not; they are doing that out of pity. Accepting that free money will hurt your pride. It will damage your self-esteem. So you might want to stay away from that at all cost. Just try to explain clearly again that what you are really looking for is some work, not just pocket money, okay?

Now, while doing such work, I want you to invest yourself in reading the text books of any subject at a level that you are comfortable with. For example, if you are a third year student, you might want to read a second year text book of your choice. The reason for that is to help you see what you have learned years ago with a fresh perspective so that you get to understand the subject matter much deeper than you did in the past. Once you start remembering all these past exposure and gaining new insights, you start to feel comfortable to talk about these concepts to another person. In another word, you will become a person who can explain this subject to a junior student in exchange for some money. The idea here is that if you are a third year CDM student, make money by helping second year students; if you are a second year CDM student, earn money by tutoring first year students; and so on. This will work well if CDM students and their friends are tightly connected not only to each other but also to the parents’ network too. 

If you start making some money like that and save it well, you should be able to afford some local online courses with your own money in just a few months’ time. At this point, I want you to invest in a course that can give you a marketable skill so that you can start to approach more professional people in your social circle with that skill. For example, if you are interested in digital content creation, you might want to attend some video editing or photoshop classes rather than starting a new language class such as Japanese because learning and mastering a new language takes a long time until you get the return on investment. If you are a food person and you have some potential to make money in that direction, you might want to spend your hard-earned money on cooking lessons rather than a personal development course. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Now let’s imagine that you have acquired new skills from these courses with your own money. 

You now have two things: a new skillset that can be useful for some busy and serious professionals and a network of elderly people who know you personally and can give you recommendation for your hardworking behavior. 

That means you’re now at the next level with better resources. It essentially means that you can start earning more money than you did in the past few months, and that you can start investing in more expensive courses in the near future. 

I think you now start to see where I’m going with this. 

Initially pursuing a small amount of money can lead to not just earning more money, but also to educating yourself without the financial aid from your family. It’s a way that can help you become a truly independent young adult that your parents are proud of. 

And the good thing about your generation is that it’s not just free information that you can get on the internet; freelance opportunities from international employers are there too as long as you know where and how to showcase and sell your skills, and communicate effectively in English, and as long as you have a payment account that your international clients can transfer money to. 

But selling your skill or services for an international client or a platform, or pursuing the path of a content creator is much more complicated than most of you guys think and it is also beyond the scope of this episode. So I’m not going to get into these here, but maybe I’ll talk about it in a future episode. If you don’t want to miss it when I do, make sure you have subscribed to this podcast as well as to my website, alright?   

So, boys and girls, the final message I want to give you today is that money and value exchange are inseparable, and that you should always make money with the intent of investing in yourself, upgrading your skills, and increasing your value. Because only when your value as a person becomes higher, you will be able to land a job with bigger income, and able to enroll in a quality education of your choice. 

Okay, before leaving your here with some thoughts, I want to remind you again to assess your situation, to understand your options, and to redefine the priorities of your life. And remember, buddy. Difficult times call for difficult measures. We will have to give whatever it takes.

I’ll see you in the next one. 

Goodbye for now!

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