Competence

There is a purpose for everyone on this earth; I think that incompetence is manifested in a person because he or she is

1. In the wrong job. Think of the cliched circle doing the job of a square.

2. Tries too hard. Everything, even the simplest becomes a real effort. When you start making things hard for yourself, you tend to screw up more. I speak this from personal experience

3. Trying to be someone they aspire to rather than to be themselves. While it is ok to aspire to be like another person, you will not achieve anything beyond mediocrity if you neglect a talent you have just because you think it is "useless" while striving to seem "talented" in an area that you are not, just because you idolise the success of that person you think you want to be. For example, while I might have a real interest in painting, I will not try to compete with other talented artists because I know I will never be the kind of artist that is as good as I would like to be if I want to concentrate my ambition on a particular endeavour. Trying to force myself to be like them will only make me insecure, which will lead to petty jealousies,politicking (if I manage to achieve a level of power), and suppression of other rising talents whom I know will overshadow me to hide that insecurity. I think that is what is happening in most of the world today.


When the world values a particular talent more than another, everyone strives to capitalise on the former talent, sadly neglecting the other talents that are just as important, but are kept under the radar just because the fad or trend of that time do not seem to value that particular aptitude or ability just as much.

To take a very obvious example. Malaysia has many IT graduates but many of whom are incapable of performing their work in this area they're supposedly "trained" in to a level of basic competency, and are thus unemployable. If they managed to get employed, are so inefficient in their work that they ended up wasting more time than actually working. Why? Because many, in their ignorance of self, their ability and their talents, had jumped into the bandwagon, thinking that it would mean automatic acquisition of aptitude and thus security of employment. Sadly, adults who should know better are just as blind to this, as many themselves are satisfied with their mediocre lives and hence think that there is no need to be better, and do something you have a stronger chance of being good at.


Is that the reason why we keepc complaining about the incompetent people we meet at work, who for all you know, would had been very competent had they been given the proper guidance when they were younger, and had took on roles they are better in rather than "falling" into a role for lack of self-knowledge or ignorance of choics. Maybe we never learn to value all the different talents as well as we should because our skewed perceptions are propagated and reproduced in every generation.