It's been almost 1 year since I enlisted, so that means 10 more months till I ORD! 1 year might seem like a really long time, yet there's way too many things that I wish to do. I used to dread how long more it is till I end NS, but lately I've found a comfortable balance for leisure and work that is making my time here more worthwhile (I hope).
I won't bother going into the details of my NS journey (you can always ask me if you want to know more) since it isn't anything spectacular, but I want to just log down my thoughts on what I've seen and experienced so far.
Personally, the most important thing NS made me realise is the extent to which my parents supported me - fetching me to Pasir Ris every week and cooking my favourite meals when I book out; they valued my convienience over their inconvenience, and I'm sure that almost all parents do the same. Asian families are generally worse at expressing love and gratitude than Western families, but I really appreciate my parents so much more now. The two weeks confinement period was definitely when I missed them the most - calling them everyday and hearing their voices made the shitty days a little bit better. Of course, I'm aware how lucky I am to have both parents around with me, and if you also belong with me in this group, then let's show more love to our parents while we still have the chance.
Flaming/burning/roasting (many more words that mean the same thing) can be all fun with your friends; indeed, embarrassing them is harmless and we tend to know where the line is. Yet, these lines are often crossed in NS and people with some unusual behaviours get bullied pretty badly. Toxicity spreads like a plague: once one guy starts to trash-talk a certain person, everyone else is influenced and picks on the same person. The compilation of eccentric behaviours of that 'poor soul' just seems to get longer. I'm by no means a saint who stood up for these 'poor souls' (yes, I've seen more than one in my NS journey so far), and occasionally I even partook in the flaming just because it was fun. Really? Yi Xi flaming someone? Sounds unbelievable right? But yes, the one thing you don't want to do among a bunch of strangers is to stand out. And I mean standing out because you try to support the 'poor soul(s)'. In all honesty, some of these guys really deserve the hate they get, because they are insanely selfish and refuse to change despite advice from others. But most of them don't deserve the sheer amount of hate they get. Yeah, they can be selfish at times but are not complete a**holes. I only realised how toxic I've become towards the end of BMT, when a sectionmate said," You seem to flame and swear a lot more than at the start of BMT." Undoubtedly, the toxicity seemed like tentacles insidiously reaching out to me, tightening its grasp the harder I struggle.
Part of the reason why I'm writing about this is because I feel guilty towards some of these 'poor souls', most of whom I have not really put in the effort to talk to them. When someone says that 'XXX is screwed up', it sets a negative impression we have of 'XXX', vis-à-vis when we talk to a stranger without any prior impression; in the latter situation, we will likely be more open in the conversation. Upon realising my increase in toxicity, I've been actively trying to focus more on the positive things in life and in people. What I've found the most helpful is definitely a gratitude journal - writing 3 things that I am grateful for that happened in the day (feel free to try it and see if you become more optimistic!). Of course, it's a work in progress and I've been trying to engage more with the 'poor souls' to make my own judgement of them. And in general, I've started complaining less and just accepting some things the way they are; more time is wasted and nothing gets done by just complaining.
Perhaps, the culture in the SAF breeds toxicity: complaining about the sianness of wasting two years, regulars exploiting NSFs, swearing every sentence, etc. The caveat here is that running a large governmental and bureaucratic organisation like the SAF is really complex, and parallels can be drawn to toxic workplace culture in the private sector. Without any experience in the private sector, I can't say much about toxic workplace culture beyond what I heard from my parents. But what I've realised in the past few years is that humans really behave differently when in a group than when alone. While conforming to the norms of the majority is a commonplace behaviour and can be perfectly fine, it becomes more serious when toxic behaviours are unchallenged. Why is this so? To maintain our amicable relationship with the group? Afraid to have differing views from the majority? I'm not sure whether this is true for you guys, but when I'm alone, I tend to be more considerate of others. I attribute it to the pressure from the toxic friends, because I don't want to ruin our friendship. They can still be nice people, and are generally just toxic to specific people. In such cases, mediating a talk between the 'poor soul' and the toxic friend(s) would be vastly beneficial, possibly alleviating the situation.
Toxicity is here to stay, with it being promulgated through the widespread reach of the Internet. Humans have always discriminated people who do not share the same culture or beliefs. Despite this, I believe that it is still possible to gain perspective from the diversity of people. Imagine if every single human learnt from all 7.4 billion people in the world, we would certainly be able to overcome any obstacles facing humanity. Who knows, Mars could have been occupied by us by now. 😲
Till next time!
Yi Xi :D
P.S.
In these 10 more months, I hope to think more about life and rediscover my direction in life. Reading, studying, writing and volunteering (depends on the COVID situation) are my goals for this time. Please tell me if y'all have any cool things that I could possibly do :)
I won't bother going into the details of my NS journey (you can always ask me if you want to know more) since it isn't anything spectacular, but I want to just log down my thoughts on what I've seen and experienced so far.
Personally, the most important thing NS made me realise is the extent to which my parents supported me - fetching me to Pasir Ris every week and cooking my favourite meals when I book out; they valued my convienience over their inconvenience, and I'm sure that almost all parents do the same. Asian families are generally worse at expressing love and gratitude than Western families, but I really appreciate my parents so much more now. The two weeks confinement period was definitely when I missed them the most - calling them everyday and hearing their voices made the shitty days a little bit better. Of course, I'm aware how lucky I am to have both parents around with me, and if you also belong with me in this group, then let's show more love to our parents while we still have the chance.
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| Look at that sweaty uniform :P |
Flaming/burning/roasting (many more words that mean the same thing) can be all fun with your friends; indeed, embarrassing them is harmless and we tend to know where the line is. Yet, these lines are often crossed in NS and people with some unusual behaviours get bullied pretty badly. Toxicity spreads like a plague: once one guy starts to trash-talk a certain person, everyone else is influenced and picks on the same person. The compilation of eccentric behaviours of that 'poor soul' just seems to get longer. I'm by no means a saint who stood up for these 'poor souls' (yes, I've seen more than one in my NS journey so far), and occasionally I even partook in the flaming just because it was fun. Really? Yi Xi flaming someone? Sounds unbelievable right? But yes, the one thing you don't want to do among a bunch of strangers is to stand out. And I mean standing out because you try to support the 'poor soul(s)'. In all honesty, some of these guys really deserve the hate they get, because they are insanely selfish and refuse to change despite advice from others. But most of them don't deserve the sheer amount of hate they get. Yeah, they can be selfish at times but are not complete a**holes. I only realised how toxic I've become towards the end of BMT, when a sectionmate said," You seem to flame and swear a lot more than at the start of BMT." Undoubtedly, the toxicity seemed like tentacles insidiously reaching out to me, tightening its grasp the harder I struggle.
Part of the reason why I'm writing about this is because I feel guilty towards some of these 'poor souls', most of whom I have not really put in the effort to talk to them. When someone says that 'XXX is screwed up', it sets a negative impression we have of 'XXX', vis-à-vis when we talk to a stranger without any prior impression; in the latter situation, we will likely be more open in the conversation. Upon realising my increase in toxicity, I've been actively trying to focus more on the positive things in life and in people. What I've found the most helpful is definitely a gratitude journal - writing 3 things that I am grateful for that happened in the day (feel free to try it and see if you become more optimistic!). Of course, it's a work in progress and I've been trying to engage more with the 'poor souls' to make my own judgement of them. And in general, I've started complaining less and just accepting some things the way they are; more time is wasted and nothing gets done by just complaining.
Perhaps, the culture in the SAF breeds toxicity: complaining about the sianness of wasting two years, regulars exploiting NSFs, swearing every sentence, etc. The caveat here is that running a large governmental and bureaucratic organisation like the SAF is really complex, and parallels can be drawn to toxic workplace culture in the private sector. Without any experience in the private sector, I can't say much about toxic workplace culture beyond what I heard from my parents. But what I've realised in the past few years is that humans really behave differently when in a group than when alone. While conforming to the norms of the majority is a commonplace behaviour and can be perfectly fine, it becomes more serious when toxic behaviours are unchallenged. Why is this so? To maintain our amicable relationship with the group? Afraid to have differing views from the majority? I'm not sure whether this is true for you guys, but when I'm alone, I tend to be more considerate of others. I attribute it to the pressure from the toxic friends, because I don't want to ruin our friendship. They can still be nice people, and are generally just toxic to specific people. In such cases, mediating a talk between the 'poor soul' and the toxic friend(s) would be vastly beneficial, possibly alleviating the situation.
Toxicity is here to stay, with it being promulgated through the widespread reach of the Internet. Humans have always discriminated people who do not share the same culture or beliefs. Despite this, I believe that it is still possible to gain perspective from the diversity of people. Imagine if every single human learnt from all 7.4 billion people in the world, we would certainly be able to overcome any obstacles facing humanity. Who knows, Mars could have been occupied by us by now. 😲
Till next time!
Yi Xi :D
P.S.
In these 10 more months, I hope to think more about life and rediscover my direction in life. Reading, studying, writing and volunteering (depends on the COVID situation) are my goals for this time. Please tell me if y'all have any cool things that I could possibly do :)
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