Perspectives

I think almost everyone has heard about it. It is imminent. The government is mulling a hike in petrol price, this time by 10 cents or so we read. A week or two after they implement this new subsidy decrement - like it or not - we shall be feeling the snowball effect on other commodities such as food and housing property - just to name a few - going up up up as well.



Unfortunately, the only thing that does not comply with the above clip would be my salary.

-sigh-

Anyway, before you misunderstand me any further, this is not an entry about me whining non-stop. Recently I had an enlightening experience which I think can be applied on a bigger scale and I would like to get some opinions if this is truly relevant.

It is about looking at things from different perspectives - be it wider, bigger or from another angle.

I always eat out for lunch. Whenever the waiter comes over to take my drink order, I would usually opt for those iced drinks in the range of plus-minus RM1. I actually prefer plain water, but I have always been under the impression that it is not a wise choice as a glass would cost me 30 cents WTF?! However, me being me, I started a deep dive into this decision-making dilemma and came to a conclusion that plain water is actually the right way to go. Why is it so you ask?

You might disagree or unaware of this but in a normal everyday scenario, we usually take into account how much the kopitiam (coffee shop) gained from each glass of drink we ordered. Let us assume a glass of iced tea with milk as costing us RM1.

Compared to a glass of iced water with tea extract plus a few teaspoons of condensed milk, a glass of plain water sounds so empty, so unrewarding and too easy for the 30 cents that we have fork out for. Hey, that is almost akin to a donation of 30 cents for the kopitiam each time I ordered plain water!

Now, if we shift our attention to the main reason we ordered drinks in the first place and stop giving a damn on how much the kopitiam earned, things would not appear the same anymore. You drink to quench thirst. Whether the drink is sweet, cold or plain, they still serve the same purpose. However, plain water is healthier and cheaper by 70 cents, hence the definition of a clear winner in my opinion.

As you can see, by focusing on things that are advantageous to us instead of others, a simple object like a glass of plain water can be painted in another light.

Of course, focusing entirely on benefiting only yourselves is not always the best choice out there. Back to the topic on fuel price increase, would you pay more for a cleaner and environmentally friendly public transportation such as monorail or choose to drive to work? If you take monorail, your wallet burns but you will be doing yourselves and the people around you a big favour by keeping the air clean... unless you got yourselves molested in the sardine-packed monorail but that is another story altogether. :P

From the two feeble examples I suggested above, we can more or less deduce that most - but not all - decisions that are selfish in nature or do not go through much thought usually revolve around money while anything else would require you to take a step back and do some thinking for them to reveal themselves. Money is evil, eh? On a side note, have you ever realize that economy - like most of the other human inventions - is ultimately one of the main reasons people were being pushed around, me getting stressed out, nations waged wars and humans extincting themselves?

Anyway, sometimes I do find it a little frustrating when I come to a point of realization that a choice which was earlier on deemed as wrong or illogical actually appears to be the best that I should have made. This sort of situation usually manifests itself when you have something at stake, such as having 16 points in Blackjack. Do you hit or stand? :)

If you find me making no sense or whatsoever, blame the heat... or yourselves for looking at this entry from a wrong perspective. :P