Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong delivered 2016's National Day Rally speech this evening (Aug 21) selling Singaporeans a vision for tomorrow.

This speech is probably the longest to date where he asks us to believe that we can achieve goals that we have set.

After over 3 hours (including 1 hour where he had to rest after feeling faint from dehydration), PM Lee concluded his speech with a story of a question posed to him at a dialogue. He was asked: "If God appeared before you and offered you three wishes for Singapore, what would you ask for?"

PM Lee said he was taken aback but replied after giving it some thought.

He said that if we were to wish for "material things", we would regret it because after "you've got it, consumed it, enjoyed it, you would not be satisfied. You would want more."

First wish

Instead his first wish was for Singapore to be blessed with "divine discontent". What he meant was that Singaporeans would be "always not quite satisfied with what we have" and always "driven to do better".

Second wish

Next, he wished that Singaporeans would have the wisdom to "count our blessings". He wants for Singaporeans to know how "precious" Singapore is.

This perhaps harks back to PM Lee's comment during GE2015 that Singapore is a "unicorn" among countries. He said that Singapore is "one of a kind, miraculous animal. There's no other unicorn in the world. And it works well, it has unique solutions and the rest of the world is not sure what to make of it."

This was why we had this during the National Day Parade this year:

He hoped that Singaporeans can know how to enjoy what we have and to protect it.

He concluded, saying that if these two wishes are fulfilled, he said, "I think that is enough" to a three-second applause by the audience.

He said that Singaporeans can then "keep Singapore special and building something special in Singapore for many more years".

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