Incentives

Incentives
I'm currently not entirely happy with my life. Of course, I cannot compare myself with the millions and billions of others less well off by circumstance and who have things like daily survival to fill their minds. After all, I as a soon-to-be-17-year-old already have most living's necesseties already provided for me. I've parents earning a respectable income in the slightly-above-average income bracket, I've got a reasonably comfortable weekly allowance that allows me to eat more than just canteen food, a reasonably comfortable home, I'm in a reasonably good school with good friends and I'm living in a nice country. (What's more, I got a nice computer even!) But I'm not happy.

My life lacks things. Not just materially (although that does contribute). Everyday, I just slack around and each day passes me by just like that. My best years are spent doing nothing of use. I do not contribute. I do not feel fulfilled. I do not feel challenged (even though I should be). I feel bored. Somehow, I do not feel comfortable too. Its the same everywhere, in school; at home...

And the worst part is, even after thinking it through, I do not see any feasible way to improve on that in the short run.

Enter Parkin's book and a certain lecturer in school whom I shall call TJ roughly a week or two ago. From the book, which had a few pages of what distinguished economists do in the world today, I figured out that economics is a rare gem in the sense that it is a very interesting field which many somehow find uninteresting, and I can tie the way I think with the economic way of thinking too. Before the book, I just thought that economics was just one of the subjects that I take that I somehow always manage to pass in tests even without studying while when I do the same for other subjects, I end up failing their respective tests in school. In other words, it was merely a subject to bank on for a good grade, and nothing much more. Since the book, this has changed, and the subject has become something more than just a subject for me. As for TJ, I truely appreciate him for recommending the book in the first place, and for having such a brilliant mind and for the giving of outstandingly insightful lectures, which further boosted my interest in the field..

Sailing languidly down the river (or ocean?) that life is, an indistinct outline of an island far in the distance forms, where there was none before.

And so, I set my bearings to the island and attempt to pilot my craft towards it just a little faster..

What is this target? I've realised that everyone should have their personal one and that it is a sad thing to sail aimlessly, just going wherever the wind and current brings you. For me, I've reflected this target of mine on the sidebar to the right; to get into the LSE with a scholarship. Its a daunting task as merely a handful of scholarship providers offer places there and every single one which does requires sterling qualifications, ie. which cannot be further improved on. aka. 4 A level 'A's, S-paper distinctions, outstanding 'O' level results (which I do not have but who cares) and outstanding cca records. Achieving these alone will a shot with a rubber band at the moon already, for me, but I shall shoot still. Whats more, as less than 1% of my school's previous cohort were awarded any undergraduate scholarship at all, much less a top-notch one, theres a perceived psychological barrier, which I shall attempt to break.

Should I manage to do the above, I believe that I would be a very happy person, for I believe that life at the LSE as compared to presently would be much more fulfilling, intrieguing and challenging.

That's a normative statement if I change 'believe' to something else, and the whole idea is in some ways based on a greener pastures assumption. But I just pray that I will be given a chance to test that assumption with first hand experience.

(After all, it IS arguably achievable by me in the long run, despite my dismal results in my previous school common tests.)


PS. And so i've created an incentive to study where I had none before, I just hope that it will see me through all the way to my A levels next year.

PPS. LSE - London School of Economics, the best in the field.