Colour of Your Work

I’d an exciting discussion with Terence recently on careers and associated elements. It began with his SMS messages and my follow-up replies…

Terence: Doing a little revision on my own. Is “Lecturing” also under “WOOD” like teaching? How about the subject “ECONOMICS”? Please enlighten me…

Terence: A young friend with Root 5 may be choosing Psychology study next year. Is “Psychology” under “Human Culture” which is WOOD element?

Ron: Wood is about education and doing humanitarian acts and health care. Psychology can be Wood but could incline towards Earth because of emotional balance counselling.

Terence: Psychiatry could be likely Wood as it incline towards Health care. Am I right?

Ron: Psychiatry is about mental harmony, so it’s more likely associated with Metal.

Ron: Actually depends on specific scope as it can be Wood or Earth as well.

Terence: If he chooses to teach, then it’s clearly Wood; Science and Research, it’ll then be Metal; Consultancy, then it’ll be Earth. I believe that is what you mean, am I right?

With the technological advancement in today’s healthcare and instructional techniques, it is no longer a straightforward and easy way to decide the specific element associated to a certain career type. Today’s job scope could include different roles and tasks needing different “cross boundaries” skill sets and knowledge. A nursing staff may take the role of a nurse, caregiver, and counsellor.

It used to be easy to associate teaching career with Wood element because of the nature and simple scope of teaching, especially decades ago. For example, we can use the imagining technique to associate Wood with teaching. We could correlate “paper” materials to school notes, pencils and wooden rulers; “growth” to nurturing, gradual learning and ideals; “foundation and planning” to continuing learning on fundamentals and principles; expansion to the reaching out movements in different directions like the leaves and tree branches; and perseverance to the resilience and tenacity of grass.  The teaching scope today is different from the teaching scope of yesteryears because of multitasking and overlapping of job responsibilities.

I’ve included sample career types on Page 146/147 of my book “Elements of Numbers: Fast and Easy Character Profiling” as general guidelines where you can associate to certain elements. On Page 147/147, I’ve also explained the need to understand a person’s job scope and their role in the organisation. I’ve quoted an example of a financial controller working in a furniture company and asked if you could associate the career type to the Metal or Wood element. Check Page 148 of my book for more information.

So, do we associate “Lecturing” with the Wood element? It’s normal if you think Wood is not the right element as it all depends on what metaphysics methods or systems you are using. In this article, I’m correlating the career with the Five Elements using the Elements of Number (EON) method. An electronics teacher discussing on the latest electronics innovations to students in university classrooms may be different from a specialist trainer discussing on the latest mechanicaltronics projects to colleagues in a production factory. While the person could be employed to teach as lecturers, teachers, trainers, or other educational roles, the organisation they’re working is different. And the associated element would be different too. For general assumption, we can associate lecturing with the Wood element if we put all other mentioned factors aside.

What about “economics”? Huh, what’s that? According to this Wikipedia link, “Economics is the social science that analyses the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.” Can we associate that with the Wood element? How about the study of financial or political economics? Can we associate that with Metal?  The word “economic” is too general, too vague to allow us to distinguish if it’s associated to Wood or Metal element. Or for that matter, it could even be Fire or Earth if the job covers “fire economics” according to this separate Wikipedia link. To simplify matters, we can associate “economics” to the Metal element because of its financial correlations.

Psychology and Psychiatry = Wood?  “Psychology” is about understanding the mental characteristics of a person while “Psychiatry” is about dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. From here, can we assume that “Psychology = Metal” and “Psychiatry = Wood/Metal”? Why then did I mention the Earth element? Well, from the EON perspectives, psychology is about understanding human behaviours and normalising a person’s mental thoughts, and then applying harmonising techniques to help a person control or balance their emotional thoughts.  We can associate Psychology with number 5 (Earth).

Terence’s last question was interesting as he asked “If he chooses to teach, then it’s clearly Wood; Science and Research, it’ll then be Metal; Consultancy, then it’ll be Earth. I believe that is what you mean, am I right?”

The answers are obvious. I’ll leave it to you to decide. If necessary, try to read this article a few times or check out my book. I’d love to hear your views on whether Terence’s conclusion is correct or wrong? Let me know. Send your views to my email at SunTzu2796@gmail.com now.

Regards, Ron WZ Sun