Of Trials and Tribulations: Life Lessons with Three UB Professors

Words & photos by Sng Ler Jun

As generations to come envision their future, a burgeoning subset of millennials are discovering the value of retrospection, and how looking back is the new step forward. Here, our writer interviewed three professors from SIM-UB, who shared with him some of their life lessons and how today’s generation can hopefully gather a thing or two from them.

I study human behavior and specifically how technology influences that behavior. People love it whenever I say I study technology and social media. It’s a really fascinating topic.

There are a lot of them. First, everyone thinks I teach English. Which is not true at all. People tend to think I do broadcast journalism, which also isn’t true. My personal study of communication is similar to social psychology. However, I focus less on what happens inside our heads, and more so on the exchanges that we have with others and how technology influences these processes.

Honestly, I will say that I haven’t because I’m very strategic about how I communicate with other people and the channels that I use. I think a lot of that comes from studying social media early on in my life. Before I really started using social media I was aware of the consequences of communicating in these public environments. I do agree that there are moments when you do need to be vocal about things, but it is about how you do it, the way that you deliver the message. I think that a big problem with people who grew up on social media is that they tend to get into fights with others on these platforms; a lot of people care more about being heard and getting their message across rather than having that two-way exchange of information with others. It ends up becoming a shouting match.

Not applying to graduate school right after taking my undergraduate degree. I knew what I wanted to do, but I had too many choices tempting me. I took a year off after university and I’m not kidding you, I was miserable. My friends, colleagues, and family did not enjoy being around me at that time.

I guess, earlier on in when I was an undergraduate, I didn’t give much thought about school. I never showed up. I don’t even know why I was paying tuition because I was more focused on my job and making money. For me, I had no motivation to work hard and get through classes that I didn’t care about. However, later on in my undergraduate career I found something to be passionate about which was research. I guess I was just mad at myself because I felt as though I went through a lot to find something that I was passionate about and then missed an opportunity to follow through with that because I was distracted by all of my other options.

The universe will always be testing you. You’ve got to recognize that your failures are not the end of the world and use them as wake-up calls. Learn from your mistakes and do better. For me, I’ve learned to get out of my own way and not be distracted. Today, we have so many choices that sometimes it can be overwhelming and potentially distract us from our goals or the things that are actually important to us. I’m not saying you shouldn’t venture out and try new things, but you also need to know how to pace yourself and stop when you need to. And remember, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

I tell people that I’m a researcher and I study how people deal with stress.

People often tell me they know what stress is like or that they experience stress daily. They’re curious then about what causes stress, and will ask me what’s the most important lesson I’ve learned from my research. Which is really how people appraise certain situations in the moment can determine whether they feel stress negatively or positively. Sometimes, we build situations up in our head to be a lot bigger and scarier than they actually are. So, having ways to put the magnitude of our stressors into perspective can be helpful.

It really depends on how you interpret the failure. There’s often a tendency with individuals who encounter failure to assume that there is something inherently flawed and faulty about them. These internal global attributions, which could be as simple as self-blaming, can be very overwhelming and destructive. Certainly it’s important to acknowledge what you could have done differently or could improve upon, but an instance of failing does not mean you ARE a failure. It just means that the situation didn’t go as well as you wished, and gives you insight into what you can do differently in the future.

The more failures you have, the sooner you start seeing trends in how and why they occur and what conditions make them more likely. For instance, after years of data entering and analysis failures on my end, I know I make more careless errors when I’m working late in the evening. So I will often do this detail-oriented work in the morning, and work on more big-picture tasks (literature reviews, writing) in the evening. So in this way, recognizing these personal trends and vulnerabilities, as well as the conditions that ultimately increase the likelihood of my failures, helps me prepare and adjust.

To be honest, a lot of research ideas are formed from my life experiences. In this case, I was constantly overwhelmed by the choices I had to make, and all too often, I wasn’t certain if I was making the right choices. After researching, I started seeing evidence of this phenomenon of choice overload or the “Paradox of Choice”. It’s this idea that when we have too many options, we get concerned that we’re not going to pick the right one. And then, no matter what we pick, we wind up disappointed. What I wondered in my work was: What are people experiencing in the moments they’re having to process these choices? Overall, we find that people care more about their decision when there are many options, but at the same time, lack confidence in their ability to actually make this decision.

Yeah, exactly. He’s constantly in a state of choice overload. Chidi is the paradox of choice.

For this generation, I think it’s that fear of making the wrong choice in a sea of so many options, such as their career path and things like that. It can be really overwhelming for some people and I still struggle with that too. But it’s often fine to try something out, even if you aren’t sure if it’s the exact right thing for you or the perfect decision. Sometimes, you just simply can’t know until you decide to try and experience it. Worst-case scenario: It doesn’t go extremely well and you learn from the experience and move on.

I mentor young people to think about life questions and how they should be living.

It’s not exactly a failure, but more of a regret I had for not planning ahead. I knew I liked philosophy during my 3rd undergrad year while on exchange. I went on to do my Masters, but didn’t have enough urgency then to prepare immediately for my PhD upon completing my Masters.

Try having diverse experiences. Only then will you expose yourself to things that you might actually enjoy.

I came to realize that sometimes we will never really get a second chance. It wasn’t all that clear to me at the start. I used to think that if I couldn’t get something this time, there would always be a next time. It’s not really true. Sometimes, you only have one chance.

(laughs) Well, there’s another “deep” takeaway too. Things don’t always work out. I used to bear this belief that everything would work out for me no matter the circumstance, which wasn’t true. Sometimes, things don’t work out. And it’s your responsibility at the end of the day. If you don’t do something right, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. So yeah, I guess that gave me a sense of urgency.

It depends on which part of the world you are looking at and what’s your background. In Singapore’s case, it is generally harder to grow up. What I mean by growing is when a young person becomes independent and is motivated to make the world better. It’s harder to do so in Singapore because many people are raised in an environment where they have a lot that they don’t have to fight for. In a sense, most young people are living comfortably here. But in other countries, things might be different.

One thing I look forward to is seeing how the new generation can bring about change. I think we are already seeing this everywhere, especially in the US and the UK where young people are pushing the political establishments of the country into new directions. Currently, there are a lot of very serious problems happening around the world, such as climate change or nuclear war. It’s exciting to see what else these young people can do for the world.