Submitted by Nick Tan

The smell of good coffee was unmistakeable  Overpowering almost, as I sat in a cubicle of a Café at Orchard ION. Hearing the clanking of cups on plates and spoons in shakes, I wondered how I got here in the first place.

I was supposed to meet up with a friend before going to a language class at 5.30pm. I left the house at 1pm for an appointment with a doctor and was left with the decision of what to in the 4 hours in between.

In those 4 hours, I managed to get on the wrong train towards the east, find myself lost and walking 3 clicks around Somerset (thanks Google maps!) and finally plonking my weary ass inside a relatively expensive café’s cubicle at ION.  

And they say Singapore is a boring place.

Now, for how I figuratively got to this point in my life.

I’m not sure if being 23 is young, cause I sure as hell still feel like a 15 year old kid exploring the “outside” world for the first time.  And if you got anything about me from the first few paragraphs, I’m a really bad explorer – so I’m not going anywhere far soon.

On a relative note, here’s one of my favourite quotes by Tolkien – “Not all who wander are lost.” Read that how you will, but I mainly use it to justify me being a direction-deficient fool.

I concluded the first stage of my military life (ORD LO!) just shy of 2 months ago so “Civilian” life, to me, was still a bit new. Not having to wake up to 5BX and a receive my daily offering of lor mai kai plus chicken pau was a blessing and the presence of lovely individuals from the opposite sex was greatly appreciated after two long years.

Eventually the concept of “No choice what, what to do?” anchored itself onto the mindset of most NSFs.

I’m stuck in limbo of choices, like every other Singaporean son who has to commit 2 years of his life to his country. I decided to further my studies, but to be honest, I don’t think I’m up to the challenge of university and it just seemed like “the way to go”.  

NS really throws existing perspectives out of the window.

So, I ordered a tall glass of ice royal milk tea and French toast with butter, sugar and cream. I expected nothing much, just overpriced edible food. It didn’t help that the tea cost a whopping $7 and I had to pay a service charge.

I sat there in regret, staring quietly at my “tall” glass of $7 milk tea in a singularly occupied two person cubicle, waiting for what would be an equally disappointing French toast.

Have decisions I’ve made so far been always on a whim? Did I ever really plan out what I wanted to do beyond just “doing it”? Has every decision I made end up unintentionally costing as much as this glass of milk tea?

I realized how impulsive I was, or rather, how stubborn I was in doing things. I was here because I asked for my doctor’s appointment to be at 1pm; I was here because I decided to stubbornly trust my phone’s GPS ; I was here, in this café, because I just wanted a place, any place to sit down.

“Poor planning,” I told myself.

The French toast came not too soon after the holy grail of $7 tea. It came on a hot plate, with a small pitcher of syrup on the side and a sizeable dollop of cream over the golden fluffy pillows of bread. It scored well in the looks department, but taste was another obstacle this dish had to surmount.

As I bit into the bread, I was overcame with what I would best describe as an expression of joy – imagine our local artistes trying out local food fare and giving that “MMMM” expression, but actually legit.

My mind was filled with “Holy S***, this is the best thing my mouth has ever encountered” but I could only keep to myself in this situation. Before I could slam the glass of milk tea onto the ground for “ANOTHER!” like Thor, I calmed down and realized it was probably just the sugar and cream.

It was then I decided that maybe – just maybe – poor planning can sometimes lead to unexpected results. This didn’t mean that I shouldn’t plan at all, but maybe my poorly construed plan of buying $20 worth of food when I’m dangerously close to being broke wasn’t that much of a bad idea. Not if you get life-changing toast in exchange.

Experience has a value attached to it as well.

When we’re young, what shapes our views the most is our education system. Looking back, I’ve realized that our education system is rather skimpy on choices – either you study hard or you study harder.

PSLEs – Fail or score poorly here, you’re “doomed” to a bad school. A bad start leads to a “bad” or “worse” finish.

Enter secondary school – The system repeats itself

So then, as teens we study.

“Aaaa..Freedom.” You’d think as you finish your last paper. Nope, now here are your four choices: JC/ Poly/ ITE/ Work.

There is just no rest from this single challenge for us to progress academically.

There simply is no real “choice” when you’re young.

However, a poorly planned choice, is still a choice nonetheless – it doesn’t diminish the value you get from working or pursuing different academic routes before you decide, “Hey, I should be doing X instead.”

Our NMP Kuik Shiao-Yin did say this in a recent interview about choices in Singaporean education – “Yes, I think what a better approach to this is not to say I have no choice, but to own the choices that we have made and to be at peace with them, and to have reasoned it out for yourself why you made this choice. Then I think you are able to be happy.”

And I agree, that if we are able to roll with the punches that come with bad decision making (on an individual basis at least), we would be a much happier people. With that, I continued enjoying my french toast and tea.