Hadi's arrest and reform.

Let's start off with this lesson first: Never write off a life. 

Most are shocked by Hady's arrest. He had so much going for him. 

The 38-yr-old is currently being held in a drug rehabilitation centre. 

It reports that "he was hauled up at a land crossing in Singapore...(and) CNB officers are stationed at the land crossing and conduct specific checks when a suspected drug offence is involved."

This was a shock to many because Hady was not only our Singapore Idol, he was also Asian Idol. 

His singing career undoubtedly launched off after that with great fanfare. He went on to release two albums and won several awards at regional Malay music awards. 

Hady even became a youth mentor at a young age, forming FRHM Youth, "which organised religious classes and sports activities."

He had so much going for him at that time. 

He started an F&B business selling snacks and beverages in 2016 and was famous in social media. He even collaborated with Singapore first Idol, Taufik Batisah, to produce a joint album.

This is what Taufik Batisah said: "No matter what I pray for the best for him and his family and I do hope everyone will too."

Taufik's hope and prayer sum up what I mean by never write off a life. 

If the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice (MLK), then the arc of a man's life is long too, unfailingly lifelong, and it bends towards redemption. 

A man's life is three scores and ten (70) or more (if you are a woman, actuarially speaking), and such a trajectory comes with the expected rise and the fall, the smooth sailings and the hard knocks. 

While the world conveniently looks to a rise as success and a fall as failure, a redemptive mindset however sees both rise and fall in a life as a journey, with neither classified as success nor failure. 

The journey doesn't end with a fall, and it sure doesn't plateau after a rise (unless the heart stops beating). It goes on with whatever that a life has experienced and it moves forward from there with the growth and maturity the life has gained. 

We tend to forget that the most enduring rise comes after a serious fall, and there is always the risk that an easy rise is the prelude to an imminent fall. 

As such, how we rise matters much more than how we fall, because a careless or wanton rise may be the makings of heart-shattering fall. 

For this reason, we only undermine or sabotage our own growth and maturity when we treat success or failure as an end and terminate the journey prematurely and even unknowingly.

Ultimately we make our rise and fall meaningful because they are not polar ends of a stick. They are in fact the handle we hold on to in our journey of learning, growing, transforming and overcoming. 

There is therefore no greater collaboration than the collaboration of our many rises and falls to nudge us to growth. 

Alas, the issue with us is that we don't see it that way and are thus forever tormented by the convenient categories of success and failure that the world pigeonholes us into. 

Take poverty for example. It is said that poverty is an invention of civilisation. The rich are rich because they own so much, carry so much power and are adored by many. 

And the poor are poor because they own so little, struggling to make ends meet and shunned by many. 

But that's the script of this world, that is, the perception of the civilisation we have created. 

In truth, I believe there is no greater poverty than the poverty of character, of hope, of joy, of imagination and of love. As such, a rich man may have everything he desires around him but has nothing of substance within.

So, what is to be feared in this life's journey is not so much the poverty of possession, but the poverty that is a life that goes on living to enrich only himself, leaving a trail of broken lives behind. 

Likewise with a rise and a fall. The success and failure associated with it is also an invention of civilisation. The world tend to see a fall as a failure, but what if a fall is part of the journey of a determined rise, and a rise is however a future fall in disguise. 

When we see them as polar opposites, we tend to discriminate one against the other with extreme prejudice, and miss out on the full context of how they can collaborate together with flourishing results. 

In the end, I have learned to never write off a life. Even more than that, I have learned to always give space to a life to write his or her own story. That is, to start on a fresh page, to complete that page, to move on to the next chapter with the expected rises and falls, and to end with dignity, hope and character. If anything, that comes closest to being a successful life in my book. 

And most importantly, I have learned to always be the supplier of ink whenever I am called to provide so that I can be a small part of this unfolding and inspiring journey (or personal narrative) that takes a lifetime to fully bloom. 

So, I end with joining the heart of Taufik to pray and hope for the best in Hady's life, because his story is yet to be written in full. Cheerz.