When I wake up every morning, I dread having to get out of my bed. People all around me tell me that I am fortunate to have shelter over my head, food on the table and a comfortable and safe environment. But still I can’t help the whimper of exhaustion from slipping in, and the fountain of frustration from welling up inside of me. Teenagers in Singapore have it good, I admit so, but that doesn’t mean that their lives are close to ideal, or that they aren’t faced with a plethora of concerns and worries that weigh down their daily lives.
Singapore is a pleasant city to live in, clean to the point of obsessive, full of greenery and generally safe. Yet at the same time, it is also one of the most competitive and driven places in the world. There exist a perpetual rush, from the home to the workplace, to achieve the highly desired “5 Cs: Car, Condominium, Credit card, Club and Career”, to reach the top of the corporate ladder, or simply to be the very best. The chronic problem with Singapore is that its always rushing to get somewhere, time that is wasted is time that you’ll be regretting later. You should always go the extra mile or twenty because if you don’t, you would lose out to your neighbors. This “Kiasu” mentality, or loosely translated, the fear of losing, has permeated every level of Singaporean life, including the lives of teenagers.
Sure enough, most teenagers in Singapore face the generic teenager stresses, such as relationship stresses, the pressure imposed by the change of expectations due to the transition towards adulthood, but for the majority of the population, the predominant stress is the fear of becoming a social failure, of not achieving enough As to get into the school of their choice, of being looked down by their peers in the future because of mistakes they make now. It is scary to contemplate, but many youths have an unhealthy fear of failure.
While I applaud the ministry of education’s attempt at providing appropriate education for different academic capabilities of students, its sad to note that its laudable efforts has seemed to backfire in the face of Singaporean Kiasuism. As quipped in the popular social commentary “I Not Stupid”, people are obsessed with academic grading and getting into “Institutes of Technical Education” or ITEs for short has been seen as social suicide, or “It’s the End” for teenagers.
In a society that is often quick to judge, and not particularly discerning about their judgments, teenagers in Singapore
Related posts:
- Desiclassifieds offers Free Classifieds, Free Ads, Free advertisements ... rental, online movie rental, rental, vacation rental, online dvd rental, dvd movie online rental, budget car rental.
•WebsiteAds:
This is cyber world and netizens instead of... - How do people around the world relax? ... on the buses that common courtesy lacks nowadays adding to the stress level.
So how do we cope with things? Mainly, in Singapore, space is at a premium...