COMMENTARY: Prakash Somosundram, a second-generation Singaporean, reflects on how we should always be hungry for new opportunities and growth. But Singapore should also being an inclusive society that accepts a diversity of individuals.

Mothership and The Birthday Collective are in collaboration to share a selection of essays from the 2017 edition of The Birthday Book.

The Birthday Book (which you can buy here) is a collection of essays about Singapore by 52 authors from various walks of life. These essays reflect on the narratives of their lives, that define them as well as Singapore's collective future.

"What they can never take from us" is an essay contributed by Prakash Somosundram, an entrepreneur in Singapore.

By Prakash Somosundram

As an entrepreneur, my work brings me to places near and far.

Wherever I visit I make it a point to speak to the locals and immerse myself in new experiences. I am always curious to find out what people do for a living and how they grow their families.

Even during my recent visit to Adelaide, I observed that the Asian restaurants there not only served great food, but they are also among the latest to close.

As I reflected upon it, I realised that some of the best Asian cuisine I have enjoyed has been outside their respective home countries. These businesses were started by enterprising restaurant owners who left their native lands with a hope of building a new life in a new country just so that their families can be comfortable.

This dream could only have been attained with hard work and dedication to their craft. Such an ability is commonly found in tenacious people—what I call the “immigrant mindset”.

The "immigrant mindset"

This is a mental model that brings out the best in us to ensure the survival of the fittest. Something that our forefathers had, in order to make Singapore their home.

No matter what our ancestry or ethnicity is, as citizens of Singapore, many of us would have hailed from elsewhere in the region, making us immigrants.

I am a second-generation Singaporean. My ancestry originates from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and my late grandfather came to Singapore to work at the railway station.

In the 1950s, he decided to return to his motherland with a few children, thus leaving behind my dad who came under the care of his elder sister.

However, upon heading back, my grandfather faced various challenges in raising his family on a farm followed by the years of suffering in a war-torn Sri Lanka.

I always am thankful that my dad stayed on in Singapore. Otherwise my life would have been extremely different and I might even have been forced to carry arms and join a war that I never believed in, or worse, not even experience the life expectancy that I am enjoying now.

This sense of gratitude, favour and blessing has always been the driving force that I harness throughout my life. In my journey as an entrepreneur, these blessings keep me going through every setback or failure that I have experienced.

It’s what I draw from in times of pain and despair.

Being mindful of our privilege

I am a proud father of two now and, as a parent, my motivation is to pass on this approach to life to the next generation so that we can continue calling Singapore our collective home.

Because I do, at times, believe that we, the people of Singapore, are not mindful of the privilege we have as citizens of this country.

Instead, we seem to have adopted a mindset of entitlement that the country has to do something for us in return.

Whenever we go through a challenging economic period, many business owners expect the government to offer handouts without asking themselves what they can do to help overcome these challenges.

Many start-ups build their businesses from one grant to another without ever considering the revenue that they will be achieving and the steps that they can take to organically grow their businesses.

Have we lost our fighting spirit? Will we blow it all away?

At times, I feel so blessed and protected to be a Singaporean but I worry we may have lost our fighting spirit. They say: “The first generation makes it, the second generation maintains it and the third generation blows it”.

Are we about to become the generation that will blow it all away?

I ask this boldly because we have foreign domestic workers who care for our houses and raise our kids, yet we struggle as a nation to increase their wages and give them an extra day off.

We are fortunate to have migrant workers give their lives to build the roofs over our heads and maintain our clean and green city, which gains us global recognition, but we find it hard to share public transport with them.

With the rapid adoption of technology, we have become the generation that shares what we eat with the world via Instagram but find it hard to share what we cook with our neighbours.

We need to be hungry and driven but also accepting

What we should never forget is the fact that racial harmony and meritocracy form the fabric of life in a multiracial island-state like Singapore.

If we remind ourselves that we are all descendants of immigrants and strive to maintain the fighting spirit of our forefathers, we can keep the Singapore dream burning.

In my opinion, it is this same fighting spirit that keeps the passion burning inside each entrepreneur striving to overcome his business challenges. With this immigrant mindset, we will also be more accepting of migrant workers, foreign domestic workers, foreign talent and new citizens.

We are a unit fighting with a unified purpose. A collaborative collective working in a cooperative.

It’s time to bring back the gotong royong spirit to help us enter the next phase of nation building. We need to be open-minded and inclusive to look for new opportunities, collaborate and leverage on others’ strengths and of course be hungry and driven.

We should also stand proud of our achievements, and venture to distant shores to export this unique strength.

Have an interesting perspective to share or a commentary to contribute? Write to us at [email protected].

If you happen to be in the education space and think this essay may be suitable as a resource (e.g. for English Language, General Paper or Social Studies lessons), The Birthday Collective has an initiative, "The Birthday Workbook", that includes discussion questions and learning activities based on The Birthday Book essays. You can sign up for its newsletter at bit.ly/TBBeduresource.

Top photo via Andrea Ang/Unsplash