Take 5 – 25 January 2016 by Mr Teo Peng Kee

Good morning school and welcome to the last week of January 2016. I would like to begin this week’s Take 5 with a story:

Once upon a time there was a poor couple who was celebrating their 60th birthday together. Suddenly, a fairy appeared in front of them and said: “The two of you have been really kind people doing a lot of good deeds for the past one year and I would like to reward you by granting you one birthday wish each.”

The wife replied: “I wished only that we will have more delicious food on our table today for this special occasion rather than this small birthday cake in front of us.”

The fairy replied: “That is easy.” And *puff!*, with a snap of her fingers all the different delicacies the wife could ever thought of appeared on the table.

The husband, after seeing what happened, glanced at his wife and quickly said to the fairy: “I wish to have a wife who is 40 years younger than me.”

The fairy paused for a while before eventually replying: “Ok, no problem.”

And *puff!*, the husband became 100 years old.

So what can we learn from this story?

Everyday all of you make decisions. No matter how important your next decision is, I hope that you will take note of these three points:

1) Be a careful decision-maker – not all choices will give you the exact results you want. Always spend some time to think rather than act on impulse. For this week, the Sec 1 CCA Auditions and ECG Learning Week will provide opportunities for many of you to decide and hopefully make an informed decision on which CCA or career path will suit you. Make the best out of these opportunities.

2) Be a responsible decision-maker – often the choices and decisions you make reflect your values and character as a person. Ask yourself, have you been living up to the school values of Discipline, Integrity, Resilience and Respect? If you always have these four core values at the back of your mind every day, making decisions should be a fast and straight forward process for you.

3) Be a far-sighted decision-maker – your life is the sum of all the choices you made along the way. If you choose to lead a life of indiscipline, taking the easy way out, giving up without trying, ignoring all the good advices given to you, etc, be prepared to live with the possible negative consequences next time as a young adult. I am sure all of you want to have a bright future and a good career. Start making decisions that will lead you there… right now.

Before I end my Take 5, I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank classes 3A and 4A for the absolutely outstanding elective modules showcase you guys put up last Friday. Please continue to display the values of discipline and resilience like how you did last week and we all look forward to more impressive things from you.

Wishing all a good week ahead. Thank you!