Your life is over. It is gone. You are dead. Having died, you are now free to live.

Therefore, forget yourself. Forget your “reputation”. Acknowledge that it’s something we cling on to so as to give ourselves a sense of importance.

Forget the person that you’re “supposed to become” because the only person that you’ll ever be, is yourself.

Forget your hang-ups because year by year, month by month, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute and second by second – each unit of time is bringing us closer to the final hurrah.

Forget the fact that we’re all supposed to “grow up” and hunker down to “real life”. Who determines what’s real anyway?

Forget life expectancy. We’re told that the average life expectancy of the average Singaporean is 80 years old. A friend’s friend recently passed away in a car accident – she was only 19.

Forget all that.

Instead, take time to play. Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remaining sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.

Free yourself from expectations. Life in all its glorious messiness is unpredictable. We can’t and don’t have a right to expect.

Above all, be present. Don’t let your voice become a mouthpiece for popular opinion. It is far too easy to go with the flow. Unfortunately, the waves might sweep us into to the ocean where it might be difficult to find our way back to shore.

Lastly, remember to breath – for what is life, but a series of breaths?

Keep The Faith

- excerpts from “Life and how to survive it.”, NTU convocation address by Adrian Tan.

Tags: adrian tan, career, commencement speech, graduation, life, ntu