Topic: Your friend, Lucy Lau, has won a major singing competition and has been offered a recording contract. She has also been offered a place at the police training school to become a policewoman. She cannot decide which offer to accept and has written to seek advice. Write a letter in reply advising her to accept the place as a police cadet and giving reasons why you feel that would be a better career choice for her. Sign your letter “Chris Wong”.
Letter to Lucy
Dear Lucy,
It has been a while since I received your last letter, and it’s so wonderful to hear the news that you won in the singing competition this time! After winning a valuable chance to get a recording contract, it’s normal and natural for you to be attracted by the this offer, and I can completely understand the dilemma you’re facing now owing to the other offer provided by the police training school. However, for the sake of your long-term career development, I’d advise you to accept the place as a police cadet, which I believe is more suitable for and beneficial to you.
To begin with, I think you’ll definitely agree with me that being a policewoman is much more likely to provide you a more stable and reliable occupation and income source. Being one of the civil servants employed directly by the government, not only can a policewoman ensure that she’ll have a decent salary to support her family’s everyday life, she can also be provided with plenty of opportunities for promotion, which are rare and precious in the local labour market. On the other hand, in spite of your unique talent in singing, no one can guarantee that the Hongkongers will be able to appreciate your sweet voice, and there have been numerous examples illustrating that the most gifted singers may not be the most popular. Besides such a great uncertainty in a singer’s career, you’ll also need to face the problem of having a really short time to develop and enjoy your career if you decide to accept the offer from the music company, since the public can get bored with one artist so easily that one can hardly enjoy success for a long time without being challenged or even replaced by newcomers in the entertainment industry. All these clearly imply that you’ll need to bear a significantly greater risk to become a singer.
In addition, the job as a policewoman also requires a much shorter working time and is therefore, less stressful. After joining the police force, you not only work in shifts, which is a much more predictable and regular working style, but also bear less work burden and enjoy a more relaxed life. On the contrary, the work in the entertainment industry is more time consuming as well as stressful, and is not that suitable for you. In addition to the irregular working hours that depend completely on the amount of work requested by the music company, a singer, being a celebrity, also has no alternative but to pay attention to her appearance as well as activities all the time, since there may be paparazzi, who can destroy the career of an artist with a few words in a magazine. Having been your friend for years, I’m very sure that such a stressful life is by no means what you expect and want to have in future.
More importantly, accepting the offer from the police training school can undoubtedly better protect the private lives of you and your family from being disturbed as well. If you choose to be an ordinary policewoman instead of a famous singer, there’s no need for you and your family to be afraid of being photographed secretly, nor will your daily life be reported and described graphically with pictures and photos on the papers. However, it’s a completely different case for a singer, who is continuously being captured by the powerful cameras of the paparazzi, and is always facing the totally false stories that are produced purely from the reporters’ imagination. Don’t you think that it’s simply too annoying and frightening to realize that somebody’s always watching you and recording your life?
Nevertheless, it’s totally understandable and natural that you are eager to turn your favourite hobby, singing, into your permanent career. However, you have to ask yourself, is a hobby equal to a career? It’s excellent if we can combine both of them into one, but it’s also necessary for us to make appropriate compromises when we find this dream doesn’t match very with the reality. In fact, although becoming a professional artist might not be so suitable for you, this doesn’t really mean that you’re going to abandon the hobby of singing. Instead, you can choose to be an amateur singer even if you decide to be a policewoman, and this allows you to enjoy singing occasionally, without any need to face and cope with the thorny problems of becoming a full-time singer.
Although personally I prefer the offer from the police, you’re the only one who can make the final decision for your own future. No matter which offer you choose to accept in the end, remember that I’m always supporting you, but don’t forget to write to me when you’ve got the final choice.
Best wishes,
Chris