Bali Nine: Chan and Sukumaran

This morning, 29 April 2015, Australian born Asians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed in Indonesia for heroin trafficking.  They were the ringleaders of the “Bali 9”, arrested in 2005.

In recent times, their imminent executions have got enormous attention in the Australian mass media and thus by politicians.  There has been so much cant and posturing.  “Australia” has supposedly been outraged by their death sentences. Really?

I would have preferred that they had not been executed. They were not so evil as to merit it, but nor were they victims. Punishment should match the crime and I do think execution was more than enough.

Given that had gone to Indonesia and, knowing the risk, deliberately disobeyed the well-publicised laws, the Indonesians were not going to say, “well, you are not such bad men, so we will not execute you”.  No.

Just maybe, quiet diplomacy might have gotten the sentences commuted. Instead there was this very public objecting by journalists and politicians.  There was no way the Indonesians were going to give in to that.

I saw Chan, on television, say something like, “eight out of ten get through; you think you are going to be one of the eight”. They made a calculation, took a risk and now have borne the consequences.

Guidance of the young

My mistake

In 1971, I made the biggest mistake of my life:  I enrolled in a Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Queensland. That might not strike everyone as a mistake, but it was. That error has shaped my life. I have never escaped it.

So why was enrolling in engineering such a bad mistake, and why did I make it?

Well, I confused my interests with my abilities.  Let me repeat that as it is so important - I confused my interests with my abilities.

Positive thinkers, motivational gurus, assert that one achieve anything if one is determined enough. Anything. Rubbish. Utter rubbish. These charlatans should be shot for peddling such arrant nonsense.

However, they did not cause my problems, as I never took much notice of them anyway.

I loved science. I loved technology. I still do. I read science. I do online courses. But I was, and am, no good at science.  At school, I struggled with science and maths. I worked like a dog - for ordinary results.

My best subjects were History, English and Geography. So why enrol in electrical engineering?  Crazy.  I should have enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts majoring in History. History is, after all, my ruling passion.

But I was young, immature inexperienced. I was the first person in my family to go to university in five million years.  I had no one ahead of me to guide me, to say “No, you’re on the wrong path”. I was lost, out of my depth.

At the time, I decided that I would do engineering as a career, and keep history as a hobby. That seemed sensible, but it was so wrong. 

If I had chosen Arts and History,  would I really have been better off in the long run?  I don’t know. Certainly - by doing engineering -  I have not been successful in life.  I have not gotten to a point at which I am satisfied. Certainly.

But there is no guarantee that I would have been better off doing Arts.  None whatsoever. But maybe - just maybe - I would have been.  At least, I would have been in with a chance.   Engineering was no chance.

I was motivated to succeed at engineering but motivation is not enough. One has to have ability, and I did  not.

That is the same in any field. You might want to be a top tennis player.  Well, if you have not got the talent - tough. You will not get to Wimbledon, no matter how determined you are.

Avoidance?

How could this error, enrolling  in engineering, been averted?  Very easily:  by career counselling at school. A thirty minute discussion with an experienced counsellor, in 1970, and I would never have done engineering. Never.

I emphasise “experienced”:  life experience as much as any other.  We do not need someone who went to school, went to university and then got a job as a counsellor.

Career counselling did not happen to me. Such a counsellor was not readily available. Nor did it occur to me, then, that I needed counselling.

And it is not just at school that counselling and guidance are needed, but in the few years after that, and perhaps longer. Looking beyond my personal experience,I have long seen this need for guidance of young people, and seen the failures that could have been avoided with counselling.

Dashed hopes of the young

My son Stephen went to ADFA, the Australian Defence Force Academy, to become an army officer.  He has now gone on to the Royal Military College, Duntroon. When Stephen started at ADFA, he and all the others had such golden hopes, hopes of golden careers. All expected to graduate.  Well, sadly, some of the youngsters have have fallen by the wayside.

Some were unsuited, some just not good enough. Some sustained injuries. For others, it was just bad luck. Or too much drinking.  Many will regret the way things did not turn out until the day they die.

I hate seeing the young disappointed, their hopes and dreams dashed.  Bitter disappointment, so often undeserved, is normal in life. Disappointment can last forever.

When Stephen tells me of these friends and fellow cadets,  I often think how a bit of counselling - formal counselling - might have helped.  Some would have sorted out their problems while others would have come to understand that they were not suited.

Engineering crops up in these stories. Some cadets enrol in engineering and find it all too much, and end up dropping out.  Yet they might have, if they had been counselled, chosen a different degree, and had good careers as officers. Anyone going into engineering anywhere, not just at ADFA, needs guidance. Only certain people are suited to engineering.

Yes, tell them

When I was working at Queensland University, in the nineties, on the train home I used to talk to an acquaintance, a mining engineering lecturer. He said that lecturers could see that some students were unsuited but that they did not know if they, the lecturers, should say anything to them.

“Yes, for God’s sake, yes”, I said. “Speak to them.”   I wish someone had spoken to me.

Mentor

Enrolling in engineering was a mistake. Not getting out was another one. I was stuck but could not see what to do. It did not help that it took me a long time to give up hope altogether. And I did not want to leave university. I liked it. It was my world. And leave to where? Where would I live once I left my residential college at the university? How would I get a job? What job? I lacked confidence and experience in these matters. Ideally, I would have switched to Arts, but would have lost my Commonwealth Scholarship for at least a year.

I needed someone to take me aside, make me understand  that I needed to cut my losses, maybe just quit university there and then.

But I had no mentor, and that is what we often needed, a mentor.  The ancient Greeks realised that a young man needs an experienced older man to advise, explain and guide.

Yes, guide them

Some say we should not try to tell young people what to do, should not try to guide them. Let them  make their own decisions, learn from their own mistakes. No. Mistakes can be so expensive, can last decades, even forever.

Why pay that price? Why? Why make mistakes one does not have to?

For many decisions, young people do not have the experience to make important decisions. They have not been alive enough to accumulate that experience. Their brains are not even fully mature until about twenty-five.

I want to see more young people have better lives, not wasted lived like mine. I want to see fewer people doing degrees that they never use, wasting their time and public money. I usually dislike nanny state managing of all problems but, I investment in career - and life - counselling at school, and in the years afterwards, would reduce the number of people wasting their time and lives.

So, young people need formal counselling,  guidance and mentoring.

Introverts and introvertism

A friend of mine, in my Toastmasters Club, had been an Area Governor. Area is the level immediately above club. He said that one of the good things of the role was that it exposed him to some people at the very top of the Toastmasters organisation and, at that level, there are some very intelligent, very professional people. Just recently, at a TM event, I listened to a talk by such a person.

He spoke of introverts and extroverts, but especially the former. Introverts and extroverts, are misunderstood. Extroverts are seen as gregarious, socially activate people, while introverts are seen as quiet, under-skilled, shy people. That is not the difference.

The difference is what is going on in their heads. In the case of introverts, a lot is going on in there. Whole universes exist between an introvert’s ears. Introverts read which is where the universes come from. The speaker was too polite to say that rather less, or less of substance, is going on in an extrovert’s head. The extroverts need social interaction; it is oxygen to them. An introvert is not averse to social interaction, but is not so dependent on it, and does not need it all the time. An introvert needs solitude, some of the time.

Introverts are not less socially skilled than an extrovert. They may be better in that introverts may actually listen to you. Introverts like low key social environments. An introvert will enjoy a drink and a talk with friends (and hate the TV and music in pubs and restaurants). Introverts dislike parties. Introverts love them.

Some people are not one thing or the other. They are called ambiverts.

In the twentieth century, extroverts came to dominate. Extrovertism became the orthodoxy: one needs to be outgoing, leaders need to be charismatic, …

The speaker, at this Toastmasters event, recommended a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts  in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. The author is Susan Cain. There is also an interesting TED talk at http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/susan-cain-ted-talk-2014-quiet-revolution/