For fellow Singaporeans at home and around the world, the past week has been an exciting one. I fondly remember the days in 2011 and 2015 texting with old friends, wrapping up my work early and rushing off in excitement to get to experience again the lively scenes of political rallies. The night doesn’t end without a long discussion on how the outcome of polls will be like over a nice big pot of bak kut teh and teh-o-kosong at a random kopitiam.
Fast forward to 2020, here I am in a distant Hong Kong village amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, watching the elections live on CNA. I must say this is quite an experience. Even as I am far away from home, I participate actively in Whatsapp groups with friends who share the same passion in being the 5-yearly political analysts, exchanging memes and articles that gets all of us talking. With all that, I am reminded that I am a true blue Singaporean, born and bred in the little red dot I call home.
Regretfully, it is logistically impossible for me to vote this round (My bad, I registered as an overseas voter too late). However, I say this with a little tinge of silly pride, having endured the pain and suffering for staying awake untill 4am at my age. I am proud of the outcome of the Elections and it is my belief that the results has made us stronger as a whole.
I believe that in every society there must be progressive change, even in a system as stable as ours. It is what makes us better people, some people or media may perceive change as instability, let them think that way, at least where I am concerned, we have achieved change together with the introduction of minimal variation this round. To me, that is the best of both worlds.
The new generation of voters are now more knowledgeable and savvy, it is a good sign in a knowledge-based economy that they are now able to crtically think to make and influence decisions early. It is an indication that our society is evolving, unlike us who grew up in an era where we are better off doing what we are told to do, they are now better empowered to make decisions over how our story should progress, what we should be doing is to continue to adapt and evolve. The only constant, is change.
These following are random important points I made for my personal notes from following the elections, they are not directed at any events in particular:
1. If you are going to be ambitious, be humble and don’t be mean to others, no matter your achievements
2. Always be fair to others, but don’t expect others to be fair to you
3. Accept that we are not the people who came before us, and we should not expect the ones that come after us to be the same.
4. If self actualisation is more important than resources, take the route less traveled
5. Be patient, tough times don’t last, tough people do
6. Be open to alternate views, or one day you might become the alternate view
7. It is important to step back a little sometimes, to listen and see what our environment is telling us
8. Always be thankful, what may seem so little to you may mean the world for someone else
9. Failure is only failure if you stop trying, it is an opportunity to understand the mechanisms to make things right
10. The biggest change is what is forced upon us from the pandemic, if even elections can be online, why not working from home?
Change is always an opportunity to improve, the moment we stop doing that, we are done for. There is no such thing as failure, a bad outcome or a lousy report card for any Singaporean or for any of the political parties. Those are just perceptions that cloud our abilities to transform. Let us assess our takeaways from this event, solve problems, overcome our weaknesses and amplify our strengths. The pandemic is temporary, we will get through this together.
Majulah Singapura.
This is my first personal post on this blog site, please overlook the bad writing and emotional outbursts, I will continue to change and improve.