Daily Lessons from Life 22 November 2010 - Goodness gracious, what boorish conduct

"Goodness gracious, what boorish conduct - Mon, Nov 22, 2010 my paper

KINDNESS, or the lack of it, has long plagued Singapore and its people.

Though consideration and graciousness have, in one way or another, been highlighted as something for Singaporeans to work on for at least 20 years, a recent event made me think that we haven't come a long way in that area at all.

Nov 13 was World Kindness Day, and the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) marked it by encouraging Singaporeans to give a gerbera daisy to that special someone who has shown kindness to others.

People were eagerly waiting for the free daisy and some began to 'positioned' or push themselves into the queue to be 1st in line for the freebies! Some were demanding aggressively for the daisy from the volunteers as they had been waiting for a while and needed to be somewhere else fast!!"

One of the most influential person, and one with world renown tenacity, MM Lee, once remarked that Singapore will NOT see graciousness in his life time. This from a man who had seen it all, being there and done that. It was a surprise then for me to learn about that comment from him. A sign of resignation. A sign of 'there is nothing much I can do about it despite all the miracles that I had created for Singapore in the world stage'!!

Well, maybe he is right. Or maybe, we just did not try harder and earlier and at the right places!

Lessons for me are:

1. graciousness starts from home and school. Adults, especially those who had been 'corrupted' by the cut-throat competitive dog-eat-dog merciless world, can be ungracious but the kids and students MUST never be. They have to stand out from the adults, some could be their parents or elders in the family. Some could be their teachers;

2. parents and teachers MUST be the model for the kids and students. They must be gracious. They are the 1st line of contact with as close to the real world as the kids and students get to. They must put aside the pressure they faced in the cut-throat real world and insist in behaving graciously always when the kids and students are around;

3. Hopefully with action 1 and 2 being carried out, the kids and students will grow to be a bit more gracious than the earlier generation. When the kids and students step into the cut-throat real world, they will need to learn to block out the negative influence and stick to their gracious manner. Competing healthily is the norm. Not kia-su (or afraid-to-lose) attitude here. Just compete on equal terms and be generous to the so-called 'losers'.

This is another social engineering project for the government. Singaporeans can be gracious as long as we take it as a national project that required steadfast determination and consistent application for a long period of time. Maybe a generation or two for it to take root. Maybe MM Lee is right. He will not see graciousness in his life time but his grandchildren probably will!! :-)