Sometimes it really gets to you — you see your friends get attached, married, apply for housing, have kids and you think to yourself,
“wouldn’t that be a much easier road to contentment?”
It’s probably not the best thing to proclaim but I guess I’ve always been pretty lazy. I usually work hard to find the easiest and/ or fastest way out of my assignments so in terms of convenience, the Singaporean Dream always seemed like a very alluring, easy option.
Study hard, get a good job, find a nice partner (or not), own a home, invest in something, go for holidays twice a year, (maybe) have some (fur)kids (and when you do, be sure to have them take over your social media :P), and voila! A great, fulfilling life hopefully happily ever after.
I’ve been fed that narrative through many positive examples: my parents have been married for aaaaages, own a decent flat, brought me up fine, while too many friends are pairing up (too many because I forked out too much money for a lot of your pair-up rituals and they barely even concern me but hey I’m happi for u :P) and of course, they seem really happy on social media doing things together. I’d like to think that the Singaporean media and our public policies also pulled no punches with promoting and making it very conducive to subscribe to the Singaporean Dream; so for the most part, as far as what I’ve observed goes, I think it’s awesome!
The disconcerting thing about aspiring towards the Singaporean Dream though, is it really isn’t as linear as I thought it’d be, and definitely not that all-encompassing.
Along the way things happen and change: you fall in and out of love, you develop alternative, lofty dreams of your own that scare you as much as they excite you, you meet like-minded people whose ambitions are as great as yours, but their trajectories will ironically diverge from you as you all aspire towards different goals. You realise that while Singapore is great, the world is huge with many other ways of life… And as soon as you know it, the Singaporean Dream no longer suffices and perhaps also in some other ways, doesn’t align with you anymore.
You come to an awakening that your life is far, far different from a typical 喜临门 or 荷兰村 plot where if you toil hard enough, the Sun shines again, everything magically resolves itself by episode 25 or 100, the villains get their comeuppance, everybody congratulates each other and live happily ever after. (As much as I understand that these are really just stupid soap operas, you unwittingly buy in to some of their ideals when you watch enough of them.)
I guess my point is: the dissonance between the Singaporean Dream narrative in my head and my reality has been pretty hard to stomach lately, and I don’t know how to feel about it. As amazing as it sounds to settle down/ find companionship, buy a house and call it a day, you begrudgingly hold back because you understand that (1) it’s really unfair to subject someone to your own volatilities while you chase your dreams or sort your priorities out, (2) the dream-chasers you’re attracted to and you might all find it more convenient to chase your dreams separately and (3) you’ve heard too many horror stories of failed partnerships.
I have no motivational banger to end this entry because I have no clue. I can only hope that in time, my (and your, if you find yourself in the same predicament) priorities get straightened, that we have the courage (again) to commit ourselves to a project or someone who enjoys your company as much as you enjoy theirs and ultimately reach contentment, Singaporean Dream or not.
bohsupremo 