Selling their Souls to be Millionaires?

It is interesting indeed to read about 96% of 1,678 Malaysian youth surveyed by a local newspaper* believe that being a millionaire is a doable achievement. Nearly a third of them want to achieve their first million by the age of 31 t0 35. Ambitious indeed.

Out of a number of questions asked during the survey, one question which attracts my attention is regarding the means to be millionaires. When asked "Do you agree that you are willing to sacrifice the following in order to become a millionaire?" 9.5% of the youths surveyed responded with "Strongly agree"  to sacrifice ethics and morality, another 14.7% "Agree" while 32.8% was "Not sure". Only 43% of the respondents "Disagree" with the statement.

Since the target group consist of youth up to the age of 30, I am concern that our future leaders may not see ethics and morality as important, even when pursuing their private goals. Collectively, 57% of the surveyed youth are either willing to compromise ethics or morality or not sure whether they should stand by the universal good values.

Before yelling for the government to take actions, we should reflect what have we done, as a person or through organisations which we are affiliated with, in inculcating ethics and morality in the hearts and minds of young Malaysians. While having high aspirations is commendable, achieving goals at all cost may not be something that we would be proud of later.

As we progress together into a "High-Income Economy", we should not lose our sights on why we embark on the journey in the first place. I suppose at the end of the day, the whole thrust about increasing income levels in this country is enable its people to have great life without selling our souls to the devil.

* The statistics referred to in this posting is published in the hard copy version of the article.