And that has made all the difference...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both -- The Road Not Taken, Robest Frost

I always thought that in uni, I would be all fired up and driven and all, and have a clear direction of where I'm going and who I would be. I lived like that for a while, in college.

Looking back, I am left very amazed by who I was in college. I wonder if I was really determined to succeed, or that it was either work hard, or become miserable by being so far away from home. I marvel at that determination, and more importantly, that conviction that Economics is what I am meant to do in life.  

Because these days, I wonder. 

I wonder why. Why Economics, really? Why not something more, I dunno, useful? Why not engineering? Why not medicine? Why not architecture? Why not even logistics and supply chain? 

Why, of all subjects, did I choose one where people can't seem to be sure about what they're supposed to study, and no one can ever know enough to not be surprised by another market crash? Why a subject with the prospect of a job that involves sitting in a room and look at numbers and numbers and numbers? 

Why do I dread lab work so badly? Why couldn't I see that that is where invention takes place, where the world of nature and human met? Why did I shun engineering because I am told it won't lead to anything good? 

Do I still like Economics? Yes, I do and I think I always will. But I just feel rather helpless lately, compared to those people in the emerging fields of clean tech, whether in environmental engineering or other fields. 

Economics has answers to everything, but only given the right conditions. 

Just look at the attempt to introduce cap-and-trade in the US. Look at Copenhagen. Look at that real time, global-size tragedy of the commons. 

I used to tell myself that I will help speed up the process of saving the world from climate change through economics. Somehow. I even wrote in my personal statement that money is the language that the whole world speaks, and thus economics must hold the key to solving problems of the world. 

Nowadays I despair. Sometimes. That I chose a subject that seems so wimpy and helpless while people in engineering produces one innovation after another. I shudder away from the thought that I may have wasted my education and pure-science background. I hide from the thought of what if; what if I had chosen engineering instead? What if I could have contributed much more had I chosen science as my path?

But I come from a practical family. I am not going to allow myself waste time wondering. I will do my best anyway, even if those thoughts haunt me still.