Resilience

there was a letter in the Today papers 2 days ago. this guy was saying that he wrote in and called the town council to fix the lift which was going a bit slow. and all he got was the usual, "we are looking into it" crap. that in itself was bad enough, he says. what was worse was that he got spammed. he got emails and SMSes from the CC, MP's new year greetings, etc.

now this person says that it is no wonder that Singaporeans are apathetic, disillusioned about offering feedback, etc. given that not only are their feedback not taken seriously they get spammed.

i agree that the behaviour of the town council described is really not up to standard and the MP should be utterly ashamed that his town council is so inept. in fact, i think that the MP, in allowing what has happened to happen, has not done a good job.

however, i think that anyone who gets discouraged from engaging the government simply because of not getting the response that one desires and being spammed should utterly be ashamed of oneself. it simply shows a lack of resilience.

if people like LKY, GKS had given up at their equivalence of the slight hurdle tha this person faced, then Singapore might probably still be a backwater, third world nation. if Ghandi had given up in his equivalence of that small bump that this person had, then India might still be a British colony. if Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King had given up just because they got their equivalent of spam and perfunctory responses, the blacks in America would probably still be second rate people.

could it be that Singaporeans are too sheltered and pampered that we demand instant results and if we don't, we give up? where is our resilience? it would be this lack of resilience on our part that would allow a corrupt government to continue being in power despite being corrupt.