Happy birthday Singapore

Happy birthday, Singapore.

It’s been a great 46 years. I’ve worked so hard for you. I’ve given you my all—through a decade of school, through two years of compulsory military conscription, through another decade of working in public service.

I think I’ve done enough.
I think I’m done.

Things look shiny now. Many things we built that we can be proud of. Things that many people are in awe of when they come to Singapore. That’s good.

But that’s not for me anymore.

The better we get at looking great, being great, the less we seem to get each other. The country, the system becomes the goal. The collective over the individual, especially at the margins. No heart. Just KPIs.

Every year, something from my childhood gets torn down. Every anchor to my past, dismantled, bit by bit. Till there’s nothing left to remember by. Every year, it gets noisier, busier, more stressful, less calm.

Home feels less like home every year.

It didn’t fit properly to start with. Now it just way oversized for me. And I feel homesick for a home that I was never born in.

So I think I’m done now.
It’s not you. It’s me.
You keep doing you.
I have to go be me now.

Happy birthday, Singapore.