In an industrialized and metropolitan country like Singapore, people with natural talents aren’t hard to come across. Almost everyone you meet here has at least one unique skill that they call their own. These skills often vary from the arts to sciences or even academics.

Living in such an advanced and competitive environment also means that many of us find ourselves stuck in the middle of deciding between the arts and academics. For a long 14 years, I had adopted the mindset that the best type of success comes from academic excellence. After all, with the immense academic pressure placed on students, what’s the point of investing time in the arts?

However, to truly understand this question, it’s important to reflect on the role art plays in my community and how it has impacted me personally. I used to be the type of person who would spend long hours at my desk, meticulously trying to grasp every single bit of knowledge that seemed even moderately important, all to avoid “falling behind.” When people told me I needed a hobby, I would dismiss the idea, believing that these “hobbies” couldn’t possibly be more important than my grades. If I failed academically, I would feel like a disappointment — not to others, but to myself.

But deep down, I’ve always known I had a long-running passion for the arts. Paintings have always fascinated me because, unlike textbooks or my medical school dreams, there isn’t a fixed or socially accepted way to approach them. The swish of a paintbrush or the intricate image formed by the graphite from a pencil, turning vision into reality, isn’t something that can be aced with the perfect answer from a textbook. Yet, for ages, I was afraid to express this passion out loud because I feared the future — specifically, not becoming a doctor, the career of my choice.

Slowly, as I’ve met like-minded people, I’ve realised that there is a whole community of people who once thought like me. They, too, were afraid to prioritize their passions over their grades. But they eventually realized it isn’t the future they should be worrying about — it’s the present, and how to spend their time meaningfully. As time passed, I’ve learned how to immerse myself in the artistic community.

Art has since become a significant part of my community, in both my school, neighborhood, and the people in my orbit, serving as a source of expression, creativity, and balance in an otherwise fast-paced and competitive society.