a plea to my generation

Oh look, the girls in front of me are from River Valley. Good school. High PSLE scores. Smart people.

Dear girls, dear girls, I hope you do the things that you love, and that you choose to love what you do. I hope you find the things you do to be enriching. I hope you reflect, and that your experiences build you to become better people, to make the world a better place. Let everything you do teach you something valuable. Don't see school and work as a dread, only to find escape in the other things - let school and work be your joy! Love the things you have to do. Crescent taught me tremendously much, my time at ACJC was fantastic, and at Yale-NUS I'm having the time of my life, both in and outside the classroom. If you love what you do you'll never work a day, and life is too short and unpredictable to feel trapped. Don't let negative experiences go to waste either - let them give you depth, and the capacity for compassion. Again, reflect. Let the way you see the world and yourself change and change again.

Think about these things. Don't simply go through the motion. The depth of reflection and philosophy is infinite, and so precious, and it gives your life meaning.

Dear girls, I hope you find meaning in everything you do. Don't just engage in mindless chasing. We Singaporeans do love to chase - grades, money, all things bright and shiny; we blindly chase and chase, we clamber desperately, and miss the main point: the journey. Whether it's part-timing at Subway or mugging for your exams, I hope you do not discount the process and look only to the end-goal, because we never really reach the end. Just a few months, and it will all be over. Just a year more and I'm out of this place. All too soon you will wonder where the years have gone.