Why I like Roads

I like roads. To me, its not just roads. It means a lot more than just the physical aspect of it.

Roads are not just concrete pathways for the transportation or movement of people and goods from one place to another.

To me, roads symbolizes the uncertainties in the journeys we travel in life. Take for example, there are many different ways to get to one destination. You could choose the take the shortcut. But you may end up being stuck in a jam. Or you could take the lesser traveled path. The longer route. Yes, it may be longer and you may have to go through numerous exits, detours and traffic lights before you get there. Well, in life, there are shortcuts and longer routes. While shortcuts get you to the destination within a short period of time, it is, in my opinion, temporal. You only end up in one destination. What about the endless destinations that lies ahead of you? Hence, shortcuts are temporary solutions. They aren't always going to work. You may be lucky once or twice, but not forever. On the other hand, longer routes get you to multiple destinations. Yes, you may have to put in more effort, more work before getting to the supposedly end destination you had set out in mind. But it's all worth it. You get to appreciate what all those little destinations (before you reached the final one) mean. They may not be something very outstanding. But it's all these little 'destinations' that helped you reached the final destination.

And hence, that explains my blog name: The Endless Road. I don't know what the future entails. I don't know what lies ahead of me. I don't know who am I going to meet. I don't know what may happen in the future. But one thing I know. It's all these uncertainties that spurs me forward. That brings out the curiosity in me. It gets me excited about my future.

满足感

"He who knows has enough is rich. " - Lao Tzu

今天，上完了英文补习之后，我感触良多。这一堂课让我从另一个角度看待生活，也让我更加了解生活的意义。今天这一堂课，我们了解了这个看来很奇怪的题目：满足感。
满足感其实对每一个人来说都有不同的理解。有些人觉得，如果我有很多钱，我已经满足了，但是有些人却不这么认为。其实，满足感，是看你怎样看待它。对我来说，我觉得我已经很满足了，因为我有我所拥有的，例如，一个温暖的家，上学的机会等。

其实，也有些人认为我们是不可能完全满足的，因为当我们认为我们已经完成了这一个目标，另外个任务等待着我们。就好像一条漫长没有结头的路，当我们到了这个阶段，其实，路上还有几万个阶段等待我们去面对。人生就是那么复杂。

你对满足感是这么看待的呢？

漠不关心

台湾著名女歌手陈绮贞曾在《不在他方》写过这一句：
“人生是用来享受的，不是用来理解世界的。”

我觉得这句子虽简单，但常常被人忽略。

总觉得念书的时候常常遇到这问题，让自己有时候读得很痛苦。我时时刻刻想放弃，不管一切，想把桌子上的书本与纸张全撒在地上。主要原因是因为我无法理解某些东西，读了一万次也无法理解，无法牢记住（因为不懂得时候不就是去死背吗？）。

朋友常提醒我：“哎呀无所谓啦，放轻松吧。”

的确。朋友的这番话让我领悟到：世界有很多奇奇怪怪的东西，而且这世界是十分澳大的，一个人是无法知道所有的东西（因为如果人们知道全部的东西，我们就是神仙了。）。

我历史老师常告诉我们，人类做的东西，有时候是没有理智的，连专家都无法理解的。

人类就是那么奇怪的哦。

如果不能理解这奇怪的世界，那就别想太多，做其他有意义的事吧。

为何让自己那么痛苦呢？

去享受吧。

人生就只有一次。

要疯要狂，还不要快一点去享受吧。

（对不起，我已经很久没有用国语了，请体谅！）

Purpose

I admit that I'm really not a person who's really very committed about some things that I planned to do initially (ahem, like this blog), but the main purpose as to why I started this blog was to air my opinions and thoughts about my experiences that I have encountered so far throughout my life journey. 

The title of this post is just one word - purpose. 

Why purpose?

Let me just share about some things that I experienced about a month ago.

I remembered that it was the week before my Block Tests (my first official assessment this year). It was a really mundane afternoon and we were all waiting for my school's vice-principal to give a speech to our cohort. Honestly, I thought to myself, " I'm really tired and I really just want to go home and mug (Singlish for studying)." What did I not expect was that his words really changed my attitude towards studying. In Singapore, there is such a great emphasis on grades and everyone is so results-driven that it actually kills off the passion you have for the certain subject. Take myself as an example. I'm actually a History enthusiast but because of my constant failings in Year 1, I gradually lost almost all the passion I had for History at the start of Year 1. It was so bad that I almost gave up with Junior College (JC) and just wanted to run away from school! (Don't be too alarmed, I'm still in JC and struggling with Year 2 because giving up would be such a great disappointment to myself.) The VP told us a few things, in which one of the points he brought up was to not bother too much about the end results. I found this really inspiring, because I actually realized for the first time, that simply because I bothered too much about those digits and those alphabets that I gradually killed off the passion I have. I find this point really important, because the more you do not bother too much about the end results, the better you actually do well in it. Of course, it is still important to set realistic goals for yourself so that it motivates and pushes you to try harder and keep that momentum going. Another point that he brought up which I found it extremely useful, is to find that something that keeps you going, especially in something that you really dislike or abhor. Let's say that you really dislike Economics. Maybe find something that you appreciate in spite of all the negativity you have towards it. For example, you dislike Economics because of the numerous essays you have to write or the huge amount of content that you have to master. Why not take a step back and find something that you appreciate about it. Maybe like how you actually see Economics as something relevant to our everyday lives? While it may sound slightly confusing, my point is that even if you really dislike Economics, why not find that 1% that you appreciate about Economics and keep you going? It's not just for academics by the way, it applies to every single thing that you have to go through in your life. While escaping and avoiding may seem like a solution, the truth is that we can't really avoid things that we hate. So why not just face it and endure? 

Moving onto another story. Just a while ago, I chanced upon this rather interesting Facebook post that made me recall about an incident when I was in Primary 3. To sum up the Facebook post, it was about this guy (I'm assuming he's a teaching intern or a relief teacher. I'm not really sure about his true identity!) who was teaching in a Secondary 1 Normal Academic Class. From his post, he mentioned about how these students were really disinterested in studies and basically they all hated each other. He then decided to conduct this simple experiment, in which he got them to close their eyes and he would simply ask random questions like "I hate Mathematics", "Do you like Kendama?" and "My favourite YouTube Channel is Night Owl Cinematics" etc. Through this experiment, it actually brought them closer as the students realized that they actually had some common interests and that served to ease some of the initial tensions that they had. He then moved on and asked this question on whether anyone lost a loved one before and half of the class stood up, each relating their own stories. It was honestly heartbreaking when I read this, because behind some of their usual smiling faces, it suddenly felt like some of these faces that they appeared to have were just a masks of their own actual feelings. It was then I remembered a really memorable and fond incident back when I was in Primary 3. Some background about myself. I was honestly not the brightest student when I was in P3 and was placed in a rather below average class where I knew of classmates who had family issues or some sort of personal issues. Like the above mentioned Sec 1 class, quite a lot of us hated each other and there were so much tensions that there would be backstabbing and arguments on a rather regular basis. During a drama lesson one day, my drama teacher decided to ask us this question, in which he asked about our honest and genuine opinions towards our own family. I remembered that it was a rather depressing moment because when some of my classmates shared about their opinions, they actually broke down and it was simply devastating. This guy stood up and told all of us that he didn't really like his family because he always felt inferior to his more academically inclined cousin and that his own parents always compared him to his smarter cousin, which made him angry and upset. Can you imagine? We were only 9 years old. Seriously, in a so-called first world country that we live in, despite the supposedly top-notch education that we receive, it seems to appear to me that we are only concerned with the end results, the numbers that we attain after each assessment and the schools that we attend. It seems to appear to me that we are not concerned about the feelings of our own people. It seems to appear to me that from a young age, all that matter are those freaking useless numbers or alphabets that is supposedly a determinant of our future. I have always been strongly opinionated about our education system (Yes, I acknowledged the changes that the government has done, which I felt were really needed. ) But, there's definitely more to it. Policies definitely do need further updates and revamps, in which an important aspect of it is to reduce the obsession we have towards the numbers and alphabets that we attain after every assessment. But I admit that it's not easy because this requires a mindset change, which is a long-term effort. If only we change our mindset, maybe, in the near future, we won't be just nurturing a bunch of book-smart people, but a society of considerate and loving citizens who are able to excel in their respective fields, regardless of whether they had done well in school. 

With this, I hope you find your purpose.

(Feel free to engage in a respectful discourse below in the comments should you have any other views. Thank you.)

Mental Health and Why it Matters

On 19 December 2017, renowned K-pop idol singer and songwriter, Kim Jonghyun, committed suicide, at the age of 27. Upon further inspection, it was noted that he suffered from depression, in which in the end, after struggling tremendously with it, finally decided to take his own life.

Soon after, news articles about his death started flooding my entire social media news feed, from Facebook to Instagram. I was utterly shocked and saddened to receive this really terrible news.

After all, Jonghyun's musical compositions and works inspired me A LOT, especially during my finals when I was 16. Ironic as it sounds, his musical works were meant to heal people's wounds and give them strength when they were faced with adversities in life when in fact, the one who needed the most comfort and healing was none other than the composer himself.

Following his death, I decided that I had to take some sort of action - be it small or big - to increase awareness of mental health education in Singapore. Now, you may ask, what's with the relation of his death to Singapore? Like South Korea, Singapore is also an extremely stressful society, in many aspects, such as work and education. While South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, Singapore is nowhere better, in terms of the number of teenage suicides, which has been the high side over these few years. I decided to publish my article to the Straits Times Forum to increase awareness of mental health education in Singapore (you can read it here: http://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/teach-mental-health-in-schools).

While there are currently exisiting programmes to educate the youths about sex education, I personally feel that mental health education is also equally important and therefore there is a need to introduce some kind of educational programme to teach the vulnerable young ones that it is perfectly okay to speak about how they feel towards something. Furthermore, mental health is seen as a rather taboo topic, especially in conservative societies like Singapore, in which people fear talking about it because it is perceived to be a sign of weakness.

While I acknowledge that school counsellors and teachers are available in schools for students to open up about their feelings should they need help, I strongly feel that these measures are insufficient and that a more concrete kind of educational programme should be implemented. This is so that the youths, especially those studying in rather stressful environments, can be more open about their feelings and if symptoms of mental illnesses persist, they can be aware of the available avenues out there for them to seek help.

Certainly, more has to be done to raise awareness about mental health in Singapore, but if the relevant authorities and organisations start taking action, perhaps Singapore can be a much more happier society.

This disclaimer informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.