Singapore, a country that grew rapidly from a humble fishing village to a bustling cosmopolitan city, still holds its competitiveness in the past, even until today. The excellence that we have in all aspects of life due to our strong conviction to succeed is also shown in the character of great men and women who are making our country proud. Not only did Singapore uphold the magnificence of our flag flying high and free, but also the quality of its people.
Competition, despite its frenetic nature, needless to say spurs the drive of people to win. However, this drive may blossom into something more meaningful, bringing out the great resilience and tenacity of admirable athletes. The paralympic athletes of Singapore are an excellent example of these qualities as they still pursue their passion for the sports they love although they have lost the use of their hands and feet. This description fits an athlete Yip Pin Xiu, who lost the use of both of her legs due to muscular dystrophy, an incurable disease that wastes away one’s muscles, leading to an inability to move one’s legs. Despite this curse that will plague her for life,she participated in the Women’s S2 Paralympics Backstroke event in Rio, returning home to Singapore with a second gold medal. This demonstrates her admirable resilience and tenacity that no matter how life seems to have treated her unfairly, she still has the strength to achieve even the wildest of things such as swimming, let alone, earning Singapore a gold medal. Thus, competition is a good way to develop character as it brings out the most improbable feats that a person can make, showing their mental prowess of resilience and tenacity.
Another way that competition brings out the best character, or rather their expressive talent, is through the competition among various companies. In order for one’s company to stand out, this company has to come up with innovative solutions to meet its needs, hence bringing out the creative side of people. A company, AT&T, had decided to sponsor online creativity contests in order to obtain new original solutions and problems from the public in America.One of the creativity contests was The 2016 Inventor’s Challenge, participants had to end their invention ideas to AT&T in order to stand a chance to win tablets, accessories or even a visit to AT&T. This prompts the public who are interested to show off their creative capabilities to come up with an original solution to solve problems that are meaningful to them, yet at the same time, allows AT&T to adapt these ideas to solve problems in the market for example, sales, so that their company is able to stand out among the other solution providing companies. Thus, competition among companies allows such creativity contests to blossom, granting the public the freedom to showcase their innovative talents which makes the world a more meaningful place to live as problems slowly dissolve, one by one.
However,there goes the saying by David Sarnoff, “Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people”, which is unfortunately true in Singapore today. It is observable in our society today that competition allows “the cream of the crop” in education to shine, which plants the seeds of elitism in the soil of the education system. A student from the school of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) came across an email which asked for motivational stories from the university’s undergraduates , which unfortunately includes stories from students from well known and well to do families such as from politicians, famous professors and celebrities. The email thus questions the meaning of meritocracy that Singapore has been trying to uphold in its education system, let alone, its principle of governance,“Reward for Work, Work for Reward”. This, therefore, shows that competition is a detrimental way of developing character as it develops the wrong type of character, elitism, in the students of Singapore.
In spite of this event, the top schools of the country have been trying to break the elitist concept in the country. The principle of the top school in Singapore, Raffles Institution, gave a speech to his staff and students that Raffles Institution is considered a middle school, along with the heavier responsibility of students to serve the community due to their greater aptitude in comparison to the rest of the citizens in the country. Hence, this may cause a potential shift in their mindset that they should not be insulant, but rather open and willing to help the society move forward to a higher level.
Having seen the various perspectives of Singapore, my curtain call to leave you is that competition is a good way to develop character. Competition truly makes people shine their virtues, to let the world learn from them so as to create a better society.
Jason's World 