Start Where You Stand
Be the hero in our own story.
It was inevitable. People I talk to eventually pounce with the question: why bother with Sarawak? Small population, half of it scattered across the interior. Disconnected from the world’s main shipping lanes. Oil running out. Less pay, less opportunity. A brain drain that seems unstoppable. And now, with fuel prices where they are, even the flight home costs a small fortune.
My honest answer: what I actually wanted was to live in London in the early 2000s. London then was intoxicating. Tate Modern had just opened inside an old power station. The City was minting money. Every third conversation was about ideas, art or ambition, and every accent on the Tube came from a different continent. It felt like the world was being decided there, and everyone in the room knew it.
But the UK was never mine to belong to. I would always be a tourist of some kind. A Malaysian in London is an embarrassing cliché, without even the glamour value of an Englishman in New York. So I made Kuala Lumpur my home instead. That was a different era. Sarawak, back then, was stuck in a time bubble: pleasant, familiar and in no particular hurry to go anywhere.
Sarawak today is different. I am not one to gush, but vision and leadership at the top do make a difference, and Abang Jo has supplied both.
Still, Kuching is not London. It is not even Kuala Lumpur. It might be the traffic fumes affecting my brain function, but I keep asking: why not? Why can’t Kuching be exhilarating, edgy, glamorous, welcoming, intellectual, dynamic, rich, young and energetic? Why can’t it carry itself with a touch of the right kind of snobbery, the quiet exclusivity of a mature and confident city?
The answer, I suspect, has less to do with what Kuching lacks and more to do with where we choose to spend our energy.
Every morning, we wake to another crisis.
A war on one continent. A new disease on another. Political turmoil, climate change, a cancelled red card, economic uncertainty, corruption, corruption, corruption. Artificial intelligence coming for our jobs or helping scammers to steal your money. Another species edging towards extinction. (How does the Malayan tiger still exist??)
The world seems to demand our outrage twenty-four hours a day.
There is nothing wrong with caring. A society that stops caring is a society in decline. (Some of us have stopped caring by burying our noses doom-scrolling the day away.)
The problem is that our capacity to act has not grown at the same pace as our awareness.
Stephen Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, drew a distinction between our Circle of Concern and our Circle of Influence. Our concerns are almost limitless: wars, global markets, international politics, events thousands of kilometres away. Our influence is far smaller. It consists of the people we lead, the organisations we build, the communities we serve and the decisions we make every day.
Most of us pour our emotional energy into the first circle and almost none into the second. That is a recipe that is not going to make any bread. It is a recipe for frustration.
Real change almost always begins locally. Instead of asking, “What is wrong with the world?”, ask, “What can I improve today?” Mentor a young entrepreneur. Build a better workplace. Help a struggling family. Grow a business that creates good jobs.
Here is the interesting part. People who focus on their Circle of Influence usually find that it expands. Businesses grow. Networks widen. Ideas spread. Leadership compounds.
The reverse is also true. Outrage disconnected from action changes nothing, no matter how loud it gets.
What does this mean for Sarawak?
We have no shortage of concerns. Education still needs strengthening. Healthcare access in rural areas remains uneven. We need more entrepreneurs, more researchers, more engineers, more investors and more globally competitive companies.
We talk about becoming a renewable energy powerhouse, a regional AI hub, a centre for advanced manufacturing and a gateway to Borneo. None of that will be achieved by social media arguments. It will be achieved by thousands of people quietly doing their jobs better than yesterday.
A teacher who inspires one more student. An engineer who solves one difficult problem. A business owner who hires five more people. A researcher whose discovery becomes a commercial product. A civil servant who makes one process faster. A journalist who asks better questions.
None of these actions makes international headlines. Together, they transform a nation.
Of course, all this positive thinking can glaze cynical and tired eyes over quite quickly. But that is precisely where the challenge lies. Trudging on despite the weight of cynicism. Finding light despite the gentle lure of the evening mist. Reaching out to hold and guide another person’s hand, even when you are not too sure of your own footing.
No one is coming to save us. There is no hero in this version of Disneyland we say we want to build.
Or maybe there is. Maybe you and I have been the heroes all along.
The world will always have problems beyond our control. Sarawak has opportunities well within our reach. Our greatest responsibility is not to carry the weight of the entire world, but to improve the corner of it entrusted to us.
History is rarely changed by those who worried the most. It is changed by those who built the most.
