My life in Bangkok has been getting monotonous, I think stepping out and leaving for 2 months has given me a clearer picture of what needs to be done. Not just this time though, for future reference as well, if I become unhappy with my progress, chances are a change of scenery is part of the solution.

Enough stewing on the problem has given me a solution to the social problem I’ve been wrestling with. For the past 2 days, I’ve been conducting in person surveys on university students to get a comparative feel of the socioeconomic background of students and how that correlates to their English skill level across several universities in Bangkok. Surveying serves several purposes:

• I’ve found myself pondering as of late whether I made the right decision of working ar the CFO Group for a year rather than being a door to door salesman for financial advisory services at Edward Jones. Being a salesman would have been scary, but I feel it would have helped me be a more well rounded person. No point pondering how, the best course of action is to start approaching people and learning how to handle social situations from surveying.
• Learning how to deal with rejection is also a major objective
• Being able to sustain conversations, getting other people actively engaged and experimenting with what works and what doesn’t is also huge.
• I’ve also been looking to produce more useful content to build my personal brand. A great way to do that is to publish case studies on my surroundings based on raw data I gather in the field.
• And lastly, It’ll help me care a lot less what other people think of me.

Quite honestly, I feel a lot less uncertain and anxious about social situations than I did in the past. When I’m surveying people in English where the language is rarely spoken people stop and stare . And frankly I don’t care. Part of it I think is because I’m used to being stared at by when I’m lecturing classes. And by the same token, public speaking doesn’t bother me much when I’m certain what I’m doing. I suppose that’s the point of it all, put myself in all sorts of social situations so that when push comes to shove, I’m able to meet the objectives I set for myself when it involves people during times it matters most.

Kingston S. Lim

November 6, 2019

Bangkok Thailand