Life is mostly about being in the right place at the right time most of the time. Sometimes you are being dealt a wrong hand and given lemons. You then have to learn to make lemonade to make the best of the situation.
Queen Elizabeth’s passing this week is a celebration of the life she had. She was born into royalty and had to figure out the way she wanted to run it. It was never an easy position to be held in such high esteem and be blamed for anything that could go wrong under her watch. Her immediate family issues certainly didn’t help, coupled with the long history of British colonization and the decline of the once great empire during her 70 years as queen. But she had a good life and made the best of it anyway, regardless of the rocks and stones being thrown at her.
That is the topic of discussion this week. Each and every one of us should give thanks for what we have been served and count our blessings every day. It provides a sense of peace and contentment while removing the jealousy of comparison with others that poisons the soul.
We celebrate small happiness events every day and this prolongs our overall well-being happiness index. I wake up every morning and determine the thing that would be the highlight of my day. It could be a morning jog, a lunch with friends or just having a beer while watching the sunset. Big happiness events, like buying a car, come too infrequently. You have to work hard to achieve them and hence small happiness works well to fill in the time gaps. It helps to prolong my overall feel good happiness. My motto in life is to stay healthy and happy all the time.
I have been lucky in life for the chances I was given. I choose not to dwell in the negatives but to celebrate the positives, to embrace them wholeheartedly. Our tiny little red dot of a country gained independence in 1965 and one man’s (LKY) steely resolve managed to pull us from a dirt-poor nation into a first-world country within one generation.
I was born in 1966 and was able to ride the 50+ years of the most profound rise and economic development of Singapore. From school to my work career, I have benefited from the strong long-term planning of this tiny nation. It has risen from nothing to become one of the top countries in the world, bar none. Even China’s leaders had consulted with LKY for direction to eventually craft their socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.
My birth timing was perfect. I was able to ride the wave of development growth and the opportunities that were presented to my generation. We rise with the tide as the world evolved. Our country had nimbly navigated the waves that bashed us, turning obstacles into growth opportunities by planning many steps ahead.
1974 oil crisis? Develop the oil refinery industry here and start to buy gold as a foreign reserve hedge. 1987 financial market crash? Make us a top financial centre where MNCs want to set up regional headquarters here. 1997 Asia financial crisis? Make us the centre of strong legal infrastructure where ASEAN countries prefer to litigate here. Crypto winter now? Plan to become the leading government to push for standards for crypto advancement rather than banning this potential future trend.
S’pore proved to the world that it can always punch way above its weight for any issues of global importance. Even superpowers periodically check in on our views to try to get an unbias opinion and advise. And I am so lucky to be born here, so comfortable that I never had the urge to work overseas LOL. The downside? This became a negative for us citizens as we had hardly have any overseas work exposure.
Given that I was born so near the 1965 independence date, I can see the stark economic differences between people than are just slightly older than me who did not fully enjoy the growth as much as my generation. There is a lady who operates a prawn noodle shop in Ghim Moh hawker centre that I frequent every Sat morning for breakfast. She is very smart and can articulate well. She is only slightly older than me, perhaps no more than 10 years.
Yet she is happy for what she had achieved, coming from humble beginnings in the 1950s where having a full belly was a daily blessing. From that low base, she had experience the prosperity that feels huge for her. With more education, she could have gone much further. But yet she is contented with what she has now.
I was a 1960s baby who came in at the right time where education was available to all who wants to learn. University became a possibility and not just a piped dream. Career opportunities in the recently developed financial sector in the late 1980s swept us all into the economic expansion phase miracle.
Our lives had very different trajecktories and outcomes because of our different born dates. Yet we are both thankful for our daily blessings as we give thanks to a healthy family and the ability of our children to realise their dreams. The country has provided for us and we should pay it forward by providing guidance to the younger generation, in the hope that they want to leverage on our past experience.
Bottomline, our brief times on Mother earth is what we make of it. You may be handed a silver spoon or lemons at the beginning and the future outcomes can be vastly different. External factors can also nuture your path as you seize opportunties that pass you by.
I just had my school reunion recently and I am amazed at how differently we all turned out at mid-age now. We could never imagine individuals carving out careers into different fields that were totally unexpected when we were 18 year old teenagers. We can only cherish the old times and the nostalgia now while celebrating our milestones as we head towards our next halftime journey.
Let’s all give thanks and count our blessings every day.
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