Cooling off day

It's cooling-off day for General Election 2015! Tomorrow shall be the polling day, and it's the first time in my life, I'm going to vote! For the past few days, we have been listening to different issues raised in the rally, it's time to reflect rationally, and make a choice wisely.

No doubt, I firmly believe that be it the ruling party or the opposition parties, as well as most Singaporeans, are truly concern about Singapore, and we all share a common goal - to have a better Singapore, a successful Singapore, for tomorrow and the far future.

I am 24 years old. I spent the first seventeen years of my life in Singapore. I am raised in Singapore and had my primary and secondary education in Singapore. For the next seven years, I spent my life overseas, completing my tertiary education, as well as internship. While staying overseas, I am still concern about Singapore, taking note about the changes every half year when I am back in Singapore for vacation. I listen to my friends and relatives, I read the news online to get updated about Singapore.

I have realized that the food are getting expensive each time I come back. I might have paid the same price for the food, but the amount given have shrunk. There were couple of times I suspected if I'm in Singapore, because I was surrounded by foreigners in the trains, and I am served by foreigners in hawker centers and shops. I have to top up my ezlink card more regularly than before with the same traveling frequency on public transport.

Well, I am born in an average family. Not wealthy, but we don't have live from hand to mouth. My dad is a Chinese Physician, working hard to earn a living to support family of six. My mom is a housewife, taking care of the four children, and also controlling the family's budgets, savings and expenditure, ensuring that at least we have sufficient money for the kids to school, we have food to eat, and we can afford the bills. We hardly spent lavishly. But I count myself as a fortunate citizen of Singapore.

Perhaps I have been living in my own world, unaware about the voices of different group of people. There are people who are struggling to live. Most of my friends are on the average either. I have a few close friends, who are really living in hardship that they have to worry about the family's income, and work part time during school days to support their family.

Election is the period of time I get to hear the different voices of other Singapore Citizens. For every policy, there are people who are against it, and there are people who are sitting in the shade, enjoying the advantages. Therefore the opposition parties are voicing them out during the rallies. In a democratic society, it's good that there are people voicing out the problems they are facing. However, I don't feel comfortable when they started accusing the ruling party, giving over exaggerating criticism senselessly. Neither do I like hearing the ruling party giving unfair negative remarks on the oppositions.

Be it the ruling party or the opposition parties, the ones who win the heart of the citizens are the ones who truly love and care for the people, who can take action wisely, and not talking bad about the others.If we truly love Singapore, if we truly love our family and friends, if we love our future generations, if we love ourselves, we should think wisely. Be a civilized citizen. Perhaps we have inclination towards certain party, but don't just agree blindly to whatever they say. Some are the truth, but some don't make sense. We have to distinguish.

The opposition parties might have pointed out the problems we are now facing, and triggered the anger of those who are affected. These people are fighting for better rights. Should we push the blames to the government? Are we also responsible for these problems too? Some could have think that "These people make commitments to us before elections, we vote for them, and we pay the town councils, we pay the government. We work very hard, and we have family to take care of. They are responsible to fulfill their promise."

I attempted to put myself in the government's shoes. When I was the president of the alumni club of my high school, my fellow committee members and I spent so much of our time discussing issues to serve our alumni, yet there are always activists who would disagree with everything. When I invited them to serve in the committee, they refused. When I was working in a school, I participated in several meetings. The principals, the directors, the teachers have spent so much time discussing about the school issues, discussing about the needs of the students, discussing the solution to help them. They implement new rules and regulations, they organize events. It's never easy to come up with one, because there are pros and cons. So they revise each one of them again and again, before announcing it, to ensure everyone is well taken care of. But once it is announced there are definitely voices of disagreement. There are also problems. It is not easy coordinating a small community, so it is even harder to implement policies for the country, because it affects 6.9 millions of people.

If you have travelled to other countries, you will realize that a perfect country doesn't exist. There are countries with low cost of living, but the wages for bachelor degree holder is one third of Singapore's. Some countries are given more freedom of speech, but the people show no respect to their government. Some countries have holistic healthcare insurance system.

I feel more than grateful for what I have gotten from the nation.

All the best Singapore.