Kevin Low

As I grow up, I begin to see more and more of the role that risk-taking hard in determining the success of people beyond being smart, sociable. And sometimes I wonder what risk tolerance really is. Or if we had seen it wrongly. Maybe it wasn’t about tolerating risks. Maybe taking risk was more about scratching an itch and there was this other resistance in us that helps to buffer that itch, and amp up the fear in us to prevent us from taking the risks.

In that image, taking risks itself can bring a reward to our minds, a certain catharsis to the hope that have been living in us. But we have to go through barriers, that are also within us in order to take the action. So then, if we try and be rational, we ask ‘Are the risks worth the while?’ So we look at the extrinsic rewards and see if it stacks up. That itself, will not allow us to get over the emotional, psychological barriers in place. We would say to ourselves, “Maybe I am wrong”. But the difference is whether that comes from the spirit of humility or doubt.

A spirit of humility lowers ourselves and reminds us that we don’t know everything, as much as we may seem to do many things confidently. Those confidence are built upon faith. When we sit on a chair, we have faith it holds our weight. When we refer to our previous experiences for comfort, we have faith in the order of nature or the universe that there’s some consistency in what we experience. And with that spirit, “Maybe I’m wrong” drives us to say, “that’s why we have to try it and find out”.

A spirit of doubt puts ourselves on the pedestal, it makes us think more highly of ourselves than we are. There’s this secret hidden self, saying ‘actually I know better, and things are going to get real bad’. Contrary to what we think about self-doubt, it is a form of arrogance in the status quo, an assumption that inaction has no consequences. And our doubts are actually dictating a specific expectation of the future that is not grounded. With that spirit, “Maybe I’m wrong” drives the conclusion, “so I should not do it”

Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s worth thinking through these.

Time to take your bonus and leave soon? It’s the great resignation playing out, and what is the story you’re telling yourself about your identity, your work and what this transition means for you? How does the departure interact with your history and experience? And how does this transition connect with your sense of purpose? Why is resigning a way for you to move forward?

For me, it was an opportunity to explore a different space. Not in terms of topics, or network, but context, perspective. But perhaps more importantly, my departure from public service felt like truly the first first time I wield the pen to my own story. I thought I was always living someone else’s story, that of the model Singaporean.

I was the one who didn’t behave that well but not too badly either as a student. What happened was I made it into a good school. I won’t lie: it made a difference. I wasn’t the teacher’s pet but didn’t give the teacher enough trouble that they were happy to spend time with me, invest in me and help me work things out. I wasn’t ever the top student but each time I was able to get into a better class, school or environment with my grades, I took the chance to push myself, often staying within top 10 or 20 but never first or second. I wasn’t in the most important CCAs nor represented the school in anything worthwhile – I briefly got selected for Chemistry Olympiad training but did not make the cut to be part of the school team.

By most counts I was a normal Singaporean; I didn’t become an officer in National Service or clock any spectacular achievement. But I managed to get a scholarship and that made me feel special. At least for a while. I met my wife whilst in college, proposed and got married well before 30. Probably where I fall short was buying a resale flat rather than BTO. It seemed a little like a foolish thing – we had to fork out more and got a house with less time on the lease. But we were happy, it suit our needs and values.

I went to work in a nice government agency and did what I was told to; performed well enough to be recognised in many ways. But it always felt like there was some transaction lurking behind: ‘do this and you will get that’; ‘meet this benchmark and enjoy that’. It was the same when thinking about housing, navigating the life in Singapore. We pretty just get nudged along in life. By the sticks and carrots, stars and dots.

So you can see why leaving that job, looking to establish oneself based on one’s own capabilities, and actually putting oneself in the marketplace is part of writing my own story. It was, to a large extent, a big part of taking ownership of how I wanted to chart my path ahead, and consider how I want to contribute to the world.

This is why I mentor and coach; and why I wrote Dream, Think & Act.

Part of the reason I wrote about my scholarship bond is because the results for A Levels in Singapore is coming out this upcoming week. And lots of students would be overjoyed as well as disappointed, readying themselves for the new challenge and new phase of life. Being conscious about the story we tell ourselves about the A Level results is important.

It is important because that is the story we take with us to college, to social circles. The Singapore-Cambridge exam results appears to be so important that it is captured alongside all other details about your personal life including your full name, driving license, marriage certificate, within your Singpass app. That is how permanent it can be as part of our identity. Even when my A Levels was almost half of my lifetime ago, it comes back to remind me if I had been a good or mediocre student.

For some the story can be painful: it could be about how a parent passed on and affected examination preparation. Or the first time one suffers a nervous breakdown in an examination hall and had to seek psychiatric letter to appeal the exam results. For others, it could be extreme joy, as the subjects which they’ve been scoring E, S or U up to prelim actually turned up with an ‘A’. Never mind how that happened – perhaps the prelim exam papers were set artificially hard in order to create that psychological urgency; or that marking to match the rubric during prelims failed to set the precocious genius apart from the rebel.

What is the story behind your A level results? What do you tell yourself about them? Does your story make you work harder subsequently, or does it discourage you? At the end of the day, the story becomes part of your life, which is infinitely more important than the grades. Because the grades becomes artefacts; pieces of evidence that your story was true, and it was what took hold of you. And the story is what causes me to hold up those imperfect grades in my Singpass app and take pride in what I’ve been able to go through.

I was on a scholarship from a Singapore government agency known as International Enterprise Singapore (IE Singapore) which has since been merged into Enterprise Singapore. The scholarship allowed me to attend my dream school, The London School of Economics, taking the dream course which I managed to get into, BSc Economics. It was almost poetry that the one who inspired this dream of mine is Dr Goh Keng Swee, the economic architect of Singapore.

He was one of our forefathers who had the idea of using scholarships to train our brightest minds and keeping them within government. And I shared his dream of crafting the economic strategies for Singapore, for our next century of growth and prosperity. So I was convinced the scholarship bond was no big deal for me; I would be happy to serve in an economic agency and in public service. After all, my objective for studying economics, and understanding the causes of things, was to serve in the government of my country!

Of course, serving in the government is a rather vague notion for someone fresh out of Junior College or two years of full time National Service. Influencing policy, interacting with brilliant civil servants and ministers would no doubt be a great experience for a fresh graduate.

What I underestimated was how difficult it was for me when I did not share the same conviction for ideas and actions that were translated into policies. It was really hard for me to continue my work when I did not appreciate the intellectual foundations they were build upon. I admit that policy decisions weren’t the easiest or most straight-forward things, and there would be trade-offs.

I eventually realised that after investing in people to have a great education and experience, the preference for the organisation or bureaucracy was still for you to be a cog, to be outstanding in ways you’re expected to. Being a good student was about sitting still, raising your hands before you speak, doing your homework, getting good grades. It wasn’t about thinking differently, challenging authority, breaking things. I like to joke that Philip Yeo broke enough things that most loopholes were mended after that.

It took me long to realise it because I had the chance to spend most of my scholarship bond serving in areas I was interested in, doing things I really believed in. That alignment is so important but not to be taken for granted. I count myself fortunate; but that would not be the case for everyone.

Today, I’d encourage students to consider only scholarships without bonds. Not because there are issues with these organisations but at the age of 18 or 20, unless your family is unable to afford a university education or to send you on exchange, those opportunities that a scholarship can afford you is probably not worth the weight of this missing option to just resign.

If you want to study overseas and your family can afford it, by all means. If your family cannot afford it, studying locally in Singapore is just as good if not better especially when there’s the option to go on exchange. And if you cannot afford the exchange, find work overseas, go on work holidays, hustle.

I’ve been thinking about being a human a lot. And wondering about our energy levels and supply as we go through each day, engage in different activities. What does it mean to live sustainably as a human. We have our ebbs and flows, just like wind energy and the sun. But they are sustainable; the sun will keep shining somehow and the wind will blow. They would come and they would go; you don’t know when or how much exactly, but roughly, we know.

Maybe we humans are built for that level of precision; it is perhaps unrealistic for us to try and compete with the robots, to be more productive, to be more efficient. We do perhaps because these attributes are more measurable. Why not we consider how we can be more creative, more imaginative? It’s probably not even comparable from one to another; not to suggest we can measure these. That multi-dimensional, unmeasurable attribute of real things in the world, in nature, is from God.

But maybe sometimes, we can be that biofuel, to be firing when there is a need for electricity, rather than just be generating power intermittently like the sun and the wind. Even though considered as a renewable, biofuels technically requires much more process, a highly interconnected circular economy system to capture and utilise the feedstock. So in order to fire with that regularity, we must still respect some kind of rhythm, some pattern of energy use.

What does your education teach you about cars? Usually nothing much. I never did the road safety course which are supposed to be conducted in every Singaporean school. I do not remember what happened but it is likely I was unwell the day my class went for the course. What I do remember is that there were people on bicycles, people who were pedestrians and then people driving little cars. Those driving the little cars were seen as the privileged ones.

I often hear that with a car, one feels free – perhaps that one can just drive anywhere. For me, I don’t like to drive and so the real value of a car to me, is that it’s basically a huge mobile cabinet or storage that I can bring around with me. I can put different attire in it and be able to change out more easily without having to lug a huge bag with me. And of course, this mobile storage actually can carry me with it.

But what are we really doing to the world as we indulge in the ‘freedom’ of driving around and moving a mobile cabinet around an urban space? We are holding a lot of urban possibilities hostage, while also causing pollution, emitting more carbon into the atmosphere, sustaining yet more businesses that are digging oil out of the ground. It is shameful, to say the least.

So what should we do about private transportation over short distance? I have some ideas, which can be implemented together in some cases:

• Charge people for driving within urban areas – charge them on a per km basis and with slight decreasing marginal costs.
• Don’t allow people to own cars, operate car rentals that work as part of the public transport network.
• Reduce and even eliminate the need for buildings to provide parking while putting a cap on parking charges.

Close more roads on weekends, allow weekend street markets to bloom.

The modern yes man is not the one who only says yes to the boss. He is the one who is saying yes to everyone but himself and his family. And at the end of the day, he burns out. We all are always craving for something additional, something incremental and new that we forget in doing so, we forgo the default that we have worked so hard to have in the past.

We worked hard to support, care, pursue the ones with love but work itself tend to overwhelm and get prioritised above those we care for. And of course we are telling ourselves the story that working is the way we love and care. That is the danger of boiling down our lives and identity down to a single parameter, be it money, career progression, a job title, or what we can own.

My faith has long warned me against that. God has blessed us with so much but we often end up focusing on distilling all that blessing down to a single parameter like money, and focusing on what we are missing, and thinking we haven’t had enough. It certainly doesn’t prevent me from falling back into the trap though. And I guess this post is here to remind myself.