Why do I have to go to school / the XP will not come to you!

Like many parents, I've had days when my kids just don't want to go to school. When they were really small, sometimes there'd be a meltdown, with shrieks and tears. 

As they grew older, toddler hysteria "matured" into grumpiness and complaining, especially as schoolwork became a bigger and bigger part of life.

I remember lying down one evening with my son after a tiring day at school. 

"D, why do you think you have to go to school?" 

"To get good results."

"Why do you need good results?"

"To get to a good class"

"Why do you need to get to a good class?"

"To get to a good school"

"Why do you need to get to a good school?

"To get a good job"

"Why do you need a good job?"

"To buy things like house and car"

"What about Bill Gates or Steve Jobs' children? They will probably have more money than they can ever spend. Why do they need to go to school?"

"... I dunno. Why?"

The same line of questioning applies to how we feel about work. Sure, most of us need to work to provide for ourselves and our families. But then why do the fabulously rich still work? 

The likes of Elon Musk, Carlos Slim, Warren Buffett... why would they need to work? Buffett's long-time billionaire business partner Charlie Munger worked till he recently passed on at the age of 99!

Providing for ourselves and our families is important. But clearly, that isn't all there is to it. 

Maybe one other reason is simply fulfilment, or a sense of achievement. That's important too I suppose. It gives a sense of purpose and significance. 

I liken it to playing a board game or computer game. From a single-player perspective, there's a sense of fulfilment from racking up a "high score", not very different from when we play Space Invaders, or make it to the next level of Super Mario. 

The motive is even stronger from a multi-player perspective, which is why people get mad about their grades/pay when comparing themselves against others, even if their own grades/pay are great on a standalone basis. 

There's a sense of achievement from beating others, of having a higher score, whether in the form of grades or rank or pay. 

But in the end it's just a game we play in our own heads. Trying to beat ourselves, or beat others. Seems a bit pointless don't you think?

What other reason could there be to go to school, or go to work?

I would suggest a simple answer - to be helpful to others. At some point, providing for yourself and your family is done. It's enough. 

At some point, competition with yourself or others is done. Either you've won, or you've realised you can't win. I mean, most of us are never going to win an Olympic medal, or become CEO or Prime Minister or Emperor of the Known Universe or wherever it ends!

But everyone can always be helpful to someone else. Young or old. Famous or unknown. High up or low down. That purpose always endures. 

In this broken world of mal-distributed resources, unexpected disaster and loneliness-in-a-crowd, there is an endless need for help.

So we go to school or work to learn or do or make something that will help someone. We learn to be doctors to save lives (hopefully), lawyers to uphold justice (well, hopefully), bankers to fund businesses so people can have good jobs (well, uh, really hopefully)

We become engineers to make lives better and easier with technology, artisans to add to the beauty of the world, cooks to feed the hungry, drivers to get people where they need to be, cleaners to help people not to fall sick from their environment, teachers to build the next generation.

It's not just the work itself. Let's suppose the work is not really meaningful. Maybe our employer performs a service that simply isn't very useful to the world, or our boss has set a boring and routine task for us. I mean, not every company or boss has great ideas, and not every vocation is necessarily super fulfilling. Even then - we can still go to school or work and be helpful to our colleagues. 

Whether the work is amazing or boring, we go to school or work and we become friends, we counsel, we advise, we coach and mentor. We encourage each other when things are tough. We stiffen each other's resolve to do the right thing by setting good examples. We go out for lunch or coffee. We laugh together when things go right, or even when things go wrong - some problems are so crazy, they're painfully funny!

When things get too much, because there's so much pressure, or there's a loved one who's sick at home, or simply because we've taken an "L" when we were hoping for a "W". Win or lose, we're there for each other.

I don't claim to be particularly good at all this. But I do think that this is the truly enduring purpose of work and school. 

The Bible explains that the foremost commandment is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. And the second command is like the first - to love our neighbour as ourselves.

But how do we put ourselves in a position to love our neighbour? 

Some people are people magnets. They attract others, they get along, they find ways to interact, they naturally make themselves useful.

I think most of us are not like that. Certainly not me.

So, how? 

A month or two ago, I was talking to my son about this, and I love his analogy. As usual, in computer game terms.

The XP (experience points) will not come to you. You have to go out and farm it.

You have to fight level 1. Then level 2. Then levels 3, 4, 5. Then lose at level 5. Go back to level 3 or 4. Grind at level 3 or 4 until you've levelled up. Then fight level 5 again.

So volunteer. Make the choice to sit down next to your colleague or friend who's going through a hard time, even if we don't have any words to say. Farm level 1. 

In the church, make the choice to serve as cell leader, worship leader, children's ministry leader, usher, prayer team. You will do it badly at first. It's ok. I've been cell leader for years. I'm still getting it wrong. Farm level 1.

In our neighbourhood, make the choice to go out and serve the poor, the homeless, the widow, and the lonely in Singapore and even beyond. This too, we will do badly at first. In our work with our various projects in Singapore and overseas, we have made mistake after mistake. We still get it wrong, but we're better than we were before.

We'll never get good at anything, other than by doing it badly at first.

The XP will not come to us. We have to go out and farm it!

And as we consistently make that choice to go out and just do it, we'll start to see our purpose fulfilled. Not just feeding ourselves, not even just a sense of achievement, but actually being useful to others. Making others succeed. 

Every time our measure of success is other people's success, our points of success and fulfilment multiply. And it totally makes sense - because that's what we're really made for. Our instruction manual is geared towards this. It's what it says on the box we came in :)

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

The most important commandment is this... Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbour as yourself. Mark 12:29-31