Something's wrong?

Had some sort of a short pep talk with a friend earlier. It's not so much of a prep me up type of talk, more of a you should do more and wake your idea type of talk. It's a little demoralising of course but this is Singapore, where it's easier to be contented and to play by the social rules.

The talk reminded me of a little line someone, now half hibernating in Canada, said to me on MSN once: "The system in Singapore makes you feel lousy about yourself". This is easily evident in the examples my pep-talk friend cited: in an previous interview he attended, the interviewers scrutinised his results since his 'A' Levels, and easily found out he had repeated his 'A's based on the year his Chinese 'AO' results were reported in. Furthermore, compared to my peers, I am 2 years behind most of them, never mind what reasons. And I reckon most employers won't give two hoots about why and how you fail to keep up with the system. As long as you did at some point in your life, you are effectively a defect. I would think.

But nevertheless, it will be indeed self defeating to keep on thinking in negative terms like this. So I guess I will add a little deviation: "The system in Singapore can make you feel lousy about yourself, but you can choose to make yourself feel better".