Patience lah.......

I really don't understand why Singaporeans are so intolerant. Maybe it is the highly stressed environment we live in but still....

Take Sunday morning at the Tampines Park Connector. A group of us had been up all night just below one of the HDB flat cheering the runners participating in the Sundown Marathon. This lady came down about 7am to complain that we had disturbed her sleep with our clapping and cheering. I admit we were a bit noisy at times with our cheering and clapping but then how do you give support to the runners if we don't cheer them? I admit I was a bit pissed off by her accusing tone and did not apologise but instead 'suaned' her and told her that I was surprised she only heard us from around 5am when we were in fact doing it since 10pm.

Similarly I remembered at my late father's funeral some years ago, almost on a daily basis, we had the police turning up nightly at the wake to investigate complaint of noise from the ceremony. Of course the ceremony at times overshot the so called 'legal cut-off' time but such things are unavoidable and it's not like this type of things happen on a daily basis. So why can't we live and bear it.

Just last week, someone wrote to the papers to complain about joggers and runners disturbing his/her walk in Macritchie Reservoir and suggesting that joggers and runners should be confined to certain part of the Reservoir. Err seriously is it really a big problem to give way to runners or is the path there really so narrow that the space cannot be shared?

For me, without fail, every weekend afternoon, I am subject to the incessant drumming by a lion dance clan practicising from the factory across the road, the nightly karoake session also from the factory across the road and finally a dog from upstair barking somehow almost always in the middle of the night. I thought of complaining to some authority sometimes when the noise get so irritating that I can't sleep but in the end what the heck, I just live and let live.

I think it all boils down to someone has a preconceived idea of his/her own personal space and God forbids if you accidentally intrude into this personal space, be it sleeping time, home and presumably rest time or most commonly, driving time. In Singapore where we live cheek to jowl, I really think it is nigh impossible to have a 100% personal space without somebody intruding into it be it accidental or intentional. So let us be nice to each other and more tolerant especially during special occasions when you may be disturbed by the clash of the cymbals, or inconvenienced by road closure because one day you will be the one causing the inconviences or benefiting from it.