One of the major social issue we all Singaporeans face is the immense stress and the inability to cope with stress. Firstly, from my point of view, we must meet high expectations set by our parents, teacher and school. Our society have this idea that if you are poor at studying and have bad results, you are deemed to be unsuccessful in life. I believe this particular issue have raised many concerns to the government and even parents themselves. For example, the government have included Physical Education into our curriculum time so as to relieve stress. Additionally, there was once a huge public debate on whether excessive tuition for the kids was necessary to get good results in school. That debate had allowed parents to put further thought into enrolling their kids into tuition and stressing their kids.
As a teenager myself, I am not able to do big things like change the policy or spark a huge debate, but within my small social circle I do help to raise the awareness about the immense stress we students face. For example, I do share with my family members about the consequence of putting immense stress on their children. I once made my mother drop the idea of creating expectations for my younger brother and instead, he shall set his expectations on his own, so it is reasonable.
Through this project, I have learnt a lot about myself. I realised that sometimes I am harsh with my words and I may hurt people’s feeling without realising it. I think being straightforward and saying things without thinking is a bad habit. Hence, from then on, I will think before I speak. Process what I am going to say, think about whether what I am going to say will affect others negatively or hurt their feelings. By taking this approach, I will be able to kick off this bad habit. Hence, in future group work, without this bad habit, I will be able to work more efficiently and effectively with my group to achieve a common goal.