I wanted very much to blog it on here, since this blog contains all of my, uh, thoughts on such issues. But I thought it'd be cool to try out blogging on VSCO for once.
http://momoandmumu.vsco.co/journal/misogyny-hate

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I briefly questioned our attitude towards work during the hectic prelim exam period. I remember bemoaning the unhealthy obsession with unsustainable quantities.

This article reminded me of exactly that. I highly recommend that you skim through the article, because it does raise some interesting points that people often overlook. However, it's only partially relevant to what I'm going to discuss later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/sunday/a-toxic-work-world.html

Overwhelmingly, we hear "study hard" instead of "study smart". In and of itself, that work attitude is problematic. Sure, I've met many adults and teachers who have told us to study smart. But I'm betting that message just went straight over most students' heads, including mine.

I was quite horrified when I realised this around a few weeks ago. I think among my friends I've always been amongst the few (uh, I think I'm being quite shameless here. let me clarify. my perfectionist tendencies stop me from doing too many redundant things. and i have a very strong focus on things that i don't understand. like a laser beam. ekekeke. so that, in my opinion, helped me to be more efficient in studying. because i made sure that i understood everything i encountered (except in the rare scenarios when i really could not comprehend).) who aimed to maximise output from my studying time. And even then, I never /truly understood/ the importance of being efficient. I only knew.. around a quarter of it. Whenever adults told me to "study smart", I'd always respond, "yeah I know". Nah, I actually didn't see why they said that.

When I first made the realisation that I should not ever had a fixation on QUANTITY, I was horrified. I realised I wasted so much /time/ on quantity rather than quality. A shift away from quantity would have allowed me to enjoy lots of time savings. In the past, governments and institutions have /tried/ and failed to push us in that direction. Most policy-makers have overlooked our greatest weapon -- efficiency.

It's easier said than done to teach efficiency. I know. But if we could succeed in brainwashing kids into mindlessly spamming practices, I think we could teach kids to work more efficiently. I have no doubt that efficiency is partly innate, like many other abilities, but it still can be trained.

Imagine a workforce filled with productive, output-maximising workers. Everyone would feel happier. I'd feel much happier when I'm more productive, since it necessarily means I'd have more leisure time (assuming that I am not a workaholic). For this shift to work, we'd have to keep our unhealthy obsession with work in check at the same time.

But solving this is difficult at nearly every possible level. Parents. Educators. The government. Honestly I doubt we'd radically change our mindset in the near future. Heh.

This "quantity at all costs" belief is unsustainable. You can't expect people to endlessly increase their work hours to boost economic growth. Firstly, it's not possible. Secondly, the economic gains probably wouldn't compensate for the growing social problems.

I still have around 5 more years to spend in school. And I fully intend to be an efficient and happier learner. 6 years of unhappiness are more than enough. (I didn't say 12 because I didn't study much in primary school.)

We need to consciously remind ourselves and our future children to work smartly.

Of course, even this radical change alone wouldn't reverse the trend towards diminishing work-life balance. Our expectations of employees and students have to change accordingly too.