Dear Nicole Seah,
I refer to your self reflection piece: "NICOLE SEAH: GROUND ZERO"
Long time no see, this is Alex Tan previously from SPP. I read about your little revelation and would like to share my part what happened after the GE2011. Like you, I was the youngest candidate in GE2011 and I’m now 26. There are a lot of expectations from us young politicians and it is indeed suffocating hearing advice from different well-intended people.
But unlike you, I resigned from SPP and do not wish to commit myself to the party, because that means a lot of walkabouts, meeting the people, writing stances, expressing opinions and basically just doing anything to get popularity. Hah. It’s a drag, and honestly I am not a committed person like you and I’ve tried for a month or so, it’s tiring. We are not elected MPs, we don’t draw a salary and everything we do is out of goodwill. Simply put in, we are just like volunteers.
But like volunteering, we could only afford spare time and resources. I notice you have made it a full time job with a tuition centre and NSP matters. Like you, I teach tuition too, but I charge a fee and it is at my own leisurely time. Perhaps it boils down to our primary purpose, for mine is just to remove the PAP out of power, contesting in GE2016 or not does not matters to me; whereas for you, is to get voted in by next election.
I received a lot of threats and tonnes of trolling too, from both pro-PAP supporters, Opposition supporters and even foreigners.
I even have stalkers befriending me, downloading all of my photos and creating a fake profile to make seditious comments:
All these are people with their political agenda trying to affect us mentally. You could ignore these threats because most of them amount to nothing at the end of the day.
For my personal life, I faced the same problems as you when I date Singapore girls. They all know what I’ve been up to and the topic will just go round and round about current affairs and politics. I realized that soon enough and chose to date a foreign girl. And it was great, she befriended me and love me as a person. We got engaged last year and we are planning to leave for Australia.
When it comes to employment, I encounter many differences with people and threw resignation letters changing between 3 competitors of the same engineering industry just in 2013 alone. Now I am comfortable with my current one, and it surpasses in terms of remuneration and relations as compared to the other companies. You should never stop seeking to settle down. Since hire and fire is part of Singapore’s employment culture, job hopping and moving to greener pastures should be the natural response.
For politics, I choose writing. I believe Singaporeans will change if they are exposed to both emotional and rationale articles in addition to the traditional way of walkabouts and meeting the people to garner support. However, despite the different approach we have taken, both of us have the common goal of wanting Singapore to be a better place for Singaporeans. I have instead dedicated my time in constantly writing articles for The Real Singapore despite not being paid a single cent as well. 2013 is great for me because I am getting my degree and driving license soon too, but it wasn’t that smooth. I had my brief period of unemployment, like 3 weeks, and at the same time my mom was on wheelchair for 2.5 months over a fall and I had my exams to clear. Throughout the difficult period I just soldiered on, and it worked out.
Keep calm and carry on doggedly. Everything will fall right in place. You might have seen this video from Steve Jobs but it never fails to inspire me everytime. 2016 is within sight, the ground is very bitter now, go for a SMC, and you will become a MP sooner than you think.
“Sometimes life can hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I convince myself the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You got to find what you love.”
~Steve Jobs
Alex Tan Zhixiang
*The author is a former member of the SPP and he contested in Ang Mo Kio GRC in GE2011.