Pritam Singh - Don't be a jerk.

What can you learn from the opposition MP in his speech at a graduation ceremony at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences?

Well, Pritam Singh seemed to have started with a confession. He said that he "wasn't a straight-A student. For years, he struggled to cross each successive hurdle in the education system."

He added: "I fumbled badly at the Primary School Leaving Examination, entering the Normal stream in secondary school, and really bumbled my way into junior college and university."

When he got into the Arts and Social Science faculty, he said he felt like he had "hit the lottery".

The Aljunied GRC MP eventually won the Straits Steamship Prize in 1999, "awarded to the top history and political science undergraduate of each cohort."

I have two lessons here captured in Pritam's words about success and life.

The first is what he said. "But make no mistake about it, when you are through that door (education), all bets are off. I hear this more and more at all workplaces - a degree is only as good as your work, attitude and diligence."

And second, he said this. "And as you climb the ladder of success, be nice to people along the way. Because you may meet the same people on the way down."

If you put the two lessons together, you get what I would call "don't be a life's jerk". Pardon the straight talk. 

You see, you can be rich and be a jerk about it, and you can be poor and yes, end up a jerk too. 

The dictionary defines a jerk as a contemptibly foolish person. 

And rich or poor, or somewhere in the struggling middle, you can be foolish and contemptibly so about it. 

When Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, offered to save the boys trapped in a cave with a self-designed, state-of-the-art miniaturised submarine and was told that it was "not practical," he was not happy. He fumed in fact.

He even called one of the cave rescuers a paedophile. Unsurprisingly, it was reported that the value of his company Tesla fell by millions after that remark. 

And recently, when Kim Kardashian's sister, Kylie Jenner, was tipped to soon cross over the billionaire dollar mark when her net worth was estimated by Forbes to be US$800m, the New York Daily tweeted this: 

"19-year-old Kylie Jenner is worth $900 million and on pace to become the youngest self-made billionaire ever. What are you doing with your life?"

The response? 

Well, in an article written by Christine Emba today, she wrote that it was "deadpan", with one that reads: "I am a priest." 

And another reply came from a former refugee turned clinical neuroscientist PhD holder. Still a number of them replied by saying that they "were mothers raising special-needs kids, and millennials just struggling to get by."

Alas, not everything that gives us meaning and character come from having deep pockets and topping Forbes' list. 

In the end, I think the greatest lesson (or aim) in life is not about raking in the dough, or chasing that elusive dream, or beating the competitors to stay at the top, or winning accolades and fame from all quarters of society. 

You can do all that, and yet be a jerk about it, that is, contemptibly foolish. And the world lacks no examples of how such jerks look like. 

Mind you, it cuts both ways and being in poverty does not give you tribal immunity against being a jerk. 

You can be crying, wailing and self-pitying over spilled, stale and stinking milk all your life because you just refuse to clean the shit you have partly contributed to and leave the heated kitchen once and for all to make something decent and noble out of your life. 

Let me end by saying this: I generally avoid a religious person. 

You can be religious in many ways without ascribing to a religion. The common thread (or rusty barbwire) that runs through all religious person is that he or she claims to know everything or has found the answer. 

It is basically an arrived-state-of-mind. The journey of learning has thus ended for such as this. 

For me an atheist can be religious when he boasts to you that he is dead sure there is no god. A preacher can be religious when he claims that only god endorses his thoughts. And a politician can be religious when he refuses to listen to the people (or listens condescendingly or patronisingly), or thinks he knows the answer to all their problems. 

This is different from a person who in my book is spiritual. 

Unlike a religious person, a spiritual person is a pilgrim, learning as he is travelling from one place to another, one phrase of life to another, and one growth to another. 

A spiritual person never arrived (or even implies it) because one lifetime is just too short to know much, not to mention to audaciously claim to know everything there is to know about knowing everything.

And I find an enduring affinity with a spiritual person because when we acknowledge our ignorance in the infinite scheme of things, we come together in the same and common journey of learning, of humility, of character, of fallibility and of correction. 

It is a journey that is mutually enriching because there is no ladder of superiority to boast about. There is also no scale of achievement to split society or class divide to stereotype, stigmatise and discriminate.

It is just a flat and equal cobblestone pathway for the both of us to walk, learn and grow. Cheerz.