Chan Chun Sing recently gave a speech at Temasek Poly's graduating ceremony.

In it, he gave his take on student's search for meaning in their jobs.

"In this world, we have many choices in life... we are often searching for something that will give us meaning. But we will often fail and then we will be disappointed,"

He further elaborated on his stance by bringing up an age old marital saying.

"Is it (more important) to marry the woman you love, or to love the woman you marry?"

Which in this context, his answer appeared to be to love the woman you marry.

His comments drew some ire from Facebook commenters.

Some took the analogy to involve their ministers as well.

While others couldn't quite get over that marriage analogy.

Some though acknowledged his point.

And invoked an obscure up and coming politician in America.

Rock you like a hurricane

Even human L'oreal Paris hair advertisement, and almost PAP candidate, Josephus Tan gave his 2 cents.

Here is his take, in case you can't read it.

"Well, the analogy is flawed. For starters, I think it's entirely subjective to the individual and not up to anybody to say which is more important.

Secondly, when you find meaning in what you do, you'll "naturally" give meaning to what you do. It's not artificial and more importantly, it negates any form of dissatisfaction in the long run. Trying to give meaning to what you do is as good as saying "You have a boring and dead end job but hey, accept it and make the best out of it!"

In my humble view, this makes you a productive person (at best) but definitely an unhappy person (to say the least) in the long run.

That said, I think the message of "Hey, let's make the best out of any given situation" is a good one but the analogy is just so wrong and sad at so many levels. Just my 2 cents' worth..."

Shades of grey.

Here's an article you should check out next:

We cycled through 700 years of Singapore history just to write this article

If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest updates.