The Most Insecure Person in the Room

The Livestream

Recently I watched a Meta employee livestream while waiting to find out if he was included in the sixth round of layoffs. He just sat there. Anxious. Waiting for a decision he had no part in making.

I kept thinking: that could be me.

I am a fresh graduate. If I had taken the "safe" path into corporate, would I be sitting in that same position five or six years from now? Waiting for someone I have never met to decide whether my family eats?

在时代的革新浪潮下，多数人都显得那么的卑微，那么的渺小，那么的无助。

The Drug

I almost went that route.

In Sydney, working at my university as a Social Media Strategist and Student Life Officer, I was earning more than most fresh graduates back in Malaysia. More than some Senior Associates. More than people managing teams.

I lived frugally. Saved hard. Invested. Before I even graduated, I had crossed my first 100k.

And I started to crave the biweekly payslip. Like a drug. Every two weeks, I would watch the number land in my account and feel something close to peace.

I remember thinking: actually, 打工 also not bad weh.

Why take the risk to build something when I could earn like this, compound it, and live comfortably?

What My Dad Said

I grew up in a family where my dad runs a business. He has never stepped foot inside a corporate office. So for a long time, I had no real framework for what "job security" even looked like.

What I was told instead: nothing is truly secure. Only yourself.

And also: you can work for others, but treat it as experience. Learn from them, so one day you can build your own.

I understood those words. I just did not feel them yet.

Covid

Then came COVID-19.

全城封锁. Every business shuttered. Everyone told to stay home.

My dad's company was bleeding. Six figures going out every month. Salaries, utilities, factory overheads. Zero revenue coming in. Cash flow on the edge of collapse. Many competitors did not survive. The same fate was very possible for us.

He did not lay anyone off.

80 employees. 80 families. Every paycheque, on time.

And then he did something I only understood much later. He drove to the factory alone. Operated behind closed doors. Risked police fines. Kept the business moving quietly, carefully, because he knew: if it stopped, 80 families lost their income.

He was not fearless. He was terrified. But he made a decision anyway.

The Flip

Here is what I keep thinking about.

During COVID, the most insecure person in that story was my dad.

The employees had the most security. Paycheques on time. Jobs still there. No personal risk.

My dad had nothing guaranteed. Every single day was a bet he was making with his own hands.

The most insecure person in that story was my dad. And yet he was the most secure person in the room.

Because his security was never in the circumstances. It was never in the cash flow, or the market, or whether the government would let him operate. It lived inside him. In his willingness to make a decision when there were no good options left.

What This Means Now

The Meta employee on that livestream was not insecure because he worked in corporate. He was not insecure because AI is replacing jobs.

He was insecure because the decision that determined his life was sitting in someone else's hands.

A friend of mine, fresh graduate, was let go less than three months into his first job. Not because he performed poorly. Because someone decided the company needed to reduce costs. He did everything right. It did not matter.

AI is accelerating this. What used to take months, teams, years of experience can now be compressed. Businesses will adapt, because businesses are built to survive.

Look at the Industrial Revolution. Factory workers destroyed machines in protest. The world did not stop. The people who adapted found new ground. The people who only resisted got left behind.

I do not think the answer is: do not get a job. I do not think the answer is even: start a business. Because businesses fail too. My dad almost lost his during COVID.

The answer is simpler and harder than either of those.

Become the kind of person who makes decisions when there are no good options. Because the world will always give you a moment where none of your choices are clean. Where the right move is terrifying and uncertain. Where waiting for someone else to decide feels easier, but leaves you smaller.

Real security is not the job. Real security is not the business.

Real security is the person you become in the absence of good choices.