The Praised Takahina

I remember my NS officer asked me once when I was still a recruit, "What do you think we can improve in the army?"

I said, "We have enough people scolding and criticizing, how about praising people for a change?"

The motive behind people scolding is simple enough; it is to directly tell people how angry/unhappy you are about something about the people and you want that to change that. It normally happens only for people who cares about that person.

The motive about people praising others is also simple enough; to direct tell a person how happy you are about something and you don't want that to change, if not change, then improve it. The only difference that is seems to happen more for people who don't know that much about that person or ain't that close with that person. I'll elaborate later.

My NS officer took note, and agreed. Indeed, after that I saw a slight change in his methods, having more praising for people who have done well. On National Geographic Channel, they have a documentary on NS, with the TV crew following through the whole platoon all the way as they experience NS. There is scolding naturally, but I see a whole lot more praising as compared to my experience. Whether it is really my platoon sucks, or the show is just a whole lot of "wayanging" I don't know. But it is an indirect evidence that praising is positive, if not they would not "encourage" that on TV.

I don't think I need to talk anymore about scolding, we scold the PAP so much it's almost a characteristic of Singaporeans to foreigners, similar to how Japan has the culture of changing their PM almost every half a year. But what about praising? Praising is not a culture cultivated in Singapore or most Asian countries. But for western countries do they praise? Of course, they praise their God everyday.

I remember there was once I had a recording session for a SOMA student in her band as the drummer. The guitarist is a Caucasian, very friendly and somewhat of a perfectionist who liked to re-record, re-record and re-record all the way till the depths of the night. I myself did a piece of an original, created something totally out from nothing except to know the feel of the song, tempo that the student wanted and how to best make it clean for others to come in. The Caucasian praised me, something that got me quite surprised. Not the student, not the sound engineer, but the guitar, the guitarist who is so particular with his own sound. In a sense, I know that my piece is just ordinary at best and needs no praising whatsoever, in fact the guitarist can even play drums better than me, that's how good he is. But still he praised me. In fact, he didn't just praise me, but almost everyone else in the group on the points which he thinks are good. Naturally other than praising, he also stated out on whoever has mistakes and where to improve on.

As long as I remembered, that is the first time someone had praised me face to face directly. I know people had said good and bad things about my drumming, either with or without me knowing. I know full well my own mistakes and in a sense I know full well my good points.

However as I got to play long enough, the praising stops and comes in place are criticisms and things people tell you where you can improve. Of course I'm happen with constructive opinions, they help you improve and you can get better. But eventually the confidence level grows low as all you hear are criticisms regardless constructive or not, and not good opinions.

Praising seems to occur mostly when you don't know that person well enough. Initially when you just started out doing something with an unknown person, both sides do not know the capabilities of each other, so if your standard goes above their expectation, you get praised. Eventually as you continued long enough, the praising stops as you get closer to each other and in return is constructive opinions that would want you to improve.

Think about it, when you're with a stranger or someone you don't know well, you praise that person more than you scold that person. When PAP first started people were all praises for them, but now it's all scoldings for them.

The Singapore culture, seemingly lacks of praising, like really positive praising because we get used to the good things we experienced. Positive praising as in not just a casual praise we say, but really to the details on why you think it's good. Is it because we don't do anything well enough deserving of people's praise? No, look at how PAP manages to bring back Singapore's economy in a matter of a year. US, Japan and many many other countries are still stuck, yet Singapore is already back and overtaking countries in this economic crisis, something worthy of praise.

Although I have never said I'm a PAP supporter, neither am I a PAP hater. I look objectively at how things turn out and PAP has done both good and bad moves, for that their good things are worthy of praise and should be praised, rather than only being constantly scrutinized for the bad moves they have did.

When you're worthy of being praised, you should be praised. When you deserve to be scolded, you should be scolded. As simple as that, and sadly Singapore only seems to observe the latter part of that phrase.

Every person have different ways of being felt appreciated, or to feel confident. Some people generate confidence themselves, some people need de-stressing to feel confident, some people need praises and compliments to feel confident.

Takahina lately has felt weary, with his school, his hobby, his work, and I'm pretty sure it happens to a lot of people as well as these everyday things gets to you. You can get tons of High Distinction in school work and still no one would compliment for the hard work you put in, all you get in return is just a simple "not bad." You can try your best in your hobbies and be overshadowed by someone more flashy about it. You can do your best in your work, but your boss would still come over and complain to you about that little mistake that you carelessly missed. All these makes you feel unappreciated, not cherished, losing in confidence and insecure. Because anytime, anyone can come over and take away your position that you fought for.

I'm sure, we get a lot of that in our everyday life. The notion of not feeling appreciated for the hard work we put in. And maybe compare us Asians to Caucasians, that could be 1 deciding factor why they seem more successful and confident than us, cause they have that culture of praising people when they deserved to be.

I stopped studying for a while, to write this note, cause Takahina has been feeling such lately, not only about himself, but about society as a whole.

Singapore and Singaporeans won't be worthy of praise, until they learn how to praise others.