Kindness in A Life of Service
Reflections on World Kindness Day 2023
Kindness is a basic human value. Kindness measures the depth of our humanity in service to others in order to embolden and empower sustainable living at a comfortable and affordable standard of joyful living for our children and their grandchildren.
Kindness is more than the occasional random acts. In kindness is a human spirit of helpfulness, compassion, consideration, generosity, and behaving without expecting anything in return. For many, it is not a natural habit, but it can be cultivated. It takes practice and learning to feel, empathise, and understand another human being or living creature in growing appreciation of life’s unpredictability and vicissitudes.
At the heart of Confucianism is the concept of Ren (仁), often translated as “benevolence” or “humanity”. Ren advocates the cultivation of virtues such as kindness, compassion, and empathy, as guiding principles of daily living for interpersonal relationships and ethical conduct.
Humans cannot therefore escape the social, economic, cultural and environmental impact of our behaviors. Sustainable living involves every dimension of the interconnected human bio-ecosystem: social, economic, cultural and natural. It is the essential enduring capacity for the biosphere and human communities to coexist.
The essence of sustainability should be central to every personal decision you make at work, play or life. Various life crisis creates tremendous opportunities to embrace kindness in a personal strategy of sustainability at the core of your life. Such a personal life strategy with a sustainability purpose is a necessity, not an optional utopian ideal.
BEGINNING MY SUSTAINABILITY JOURNEY
I did not choose the life of service. I guess it must have grown gradually into me. My life journey of service began in the school’s Interact Club where I had joined to meet new friends and have the opportunities to participate in fun, meaningful service projects while developing leadership skills. We committed to a regime of regular weekly Friday visits to the School of the Blind @ Toa Payoh to tutor Mathematics to visually-impaired peers. The initial feelings of pity and sympathy were soon replaced by friendship bonds and growing appreciation of diversity, of our natural interdependence and differential physical conditions.
As a Red Cross Youth cadet, becoming eventually a commissioned student Assistant Cadet Officer in 4 years, more opportunities abounded to learn vital life-saving skills as well as visiting various social charitable organizations and gained important insights and invaluable up-close and personal experiences with the handicapped, spastic, paraplegic, aged and sick, which would otherwise have been a real impediment to a more complete understanding of society.
The subject of Literature planted the seeds of social activism and community building, leading to a life time of voluntary community service and international humanitarian mission work over the past 55+ years. My Literature teacher had recommended the book “Uhuru”, among many others, about the Kenyan freedom war that led me to the evils of South African and then-Rhodesian Apartheid systems. The book triggered a troubling but lingering sense of social consciousness and community responsibility inside me.
Community service began in me by chance as I was waiting to be released from the Singapore Armed Forces upon completion of compulsory national service in the military. I responded to a questionnaire by the People’s Association (PA) seeking feedback as to how to improve community facilities and amenities, as well as policies and rules to enhance neighbourliness and community bonding. I responded with numerous ideas and detailed suggestions as I have grown up in the community for the past 20+ years. I did not realize then that my youthful exuberance and imagination would launch me onto an awesome journey of joyful community service that spans over 35 years to-date.
At a subsequent town-hall meeting, I was surprised to be called out by my then Member of Parliament to chair the “Residents Committee” (RC) created specifically to mobilize residents to participate in the well-being and uplifting of the environment around my immediate neighbourhood. I remembered his words clearly as I queried him his choice. He replied: ”You have many ideas. Now, as RC Chairman, you can do something about them and make them happen.” I took his words as a challenge and accepted the appointment without any hesitation, mindful that to reject it would have simply made me part of the problems that I did identify instead of part of the solutions that they demanded.
I became in 1980 the youngest RC Chairman of the nascent PA community development initiative that would soon revolutionalise and modernise the way Singapore organises and manages its public housing precincts with increasing inclusiveness and popular participation in the following decades. For over 30 years, I served variously, and often concurrently, on the Central Singapore District Community Development Council, was the Chairman of Thomson Community Club Management Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Thomson Citizens Consultative Committee as well as other PA community-based committees. In 2002, I was recognised on the National Day 2002 Honours List and awarded the Public Service Medal (PBM) for community service by the President of Singapore. Beyond the nice gesture, the voluntary work of service continues unabated.
One day, I responded to the advertisement of an organization called “Samaritans of Singapore” for volunteers. I was a “stay-out” National Serviceman serving 2½ years of compulsory military service. After a series of “sensitivity-sessions” that eliminated more than 80% of eager prospectives, I began eventually to occupy a regular Saturday overnight duty spot, responding to callers wanting to talk anonymously to someone who would listen to personal issues, which may drive some to commit suicide. And when one whom I (and others) have been communicating with regularly actually committed suicide, I realized the awesome responsibility on our shoulders to be a “listening friend” to someone standing on the edge between hope and hopelessness, and between pain and relief. I recalled and remembered this incident vividly even as I too walked unto life’s narrow edge many years later. The eternal lesson of life’s precious gift is now deeply ingrained in my soul. Each life matters; and all life matter above all.
In the summer of 2006, I led a humanitarian medical mission into the midst of Timor Leste’s civil war. I was to return to Timor Leste with 6 other humanitarian missions before its return to peaceful social order.
During one mission, as I recalled Yanis’ (name unknown) little eyes — they were sunken, all white and punctuated with a tiny black dot where his pupil and iris should be. Barely a month old, he seemed malnourished and dehydrated from severe diarrhea resulting probably from consuming “unclean” milk from his mother’s poor personal hygiene. The doctors in my Medical Team checked him and their prognosis was that he would not survive the evening. There was nothing that we could do. Yanis was not responsive to the doctors’ probing as he lays sprawling in his mother’s arms. And they had walked nearly 5 hours to our medical station.
The poignant picture of Yanis serves a constant grim reminder of the need for more volunteers to serve and uplift their less fortunate fellow human beings. The call for sustainable urgent kindness action has never been louder.
Many times, have I addressed leadership cohorts and youth groups interested in philanthropy and service voluntarism and reminded them that one does not volunteer to serve only if time permits; rather, one volunteers upon realizing there are urgent and compelling needs of lots of people out there — the young, sick, old and vulnerable — to whom anyone of us can make a difference just by trying.
To many of us, it is understandable to feel that we are just one rather insignificant person in the world. Yet to Yanis’ mother, and so many others like her, you (and your fellow volunteers) are the world to them.
A year earlier before Timor Leste, in the Spring of 2005, I had join 150 volunteers on a large-scale humanitarian mission to Nias Island which was hit a massive earthquake just 3 months after the Tsunami of North Sumatra that devastated the Indonesian Province of Aceh and large parts of Thailand, among other countries. Following the mission, the Singapore Red Cross provided some funds for the construction of a Orphanage that was damaged by the earthquake. I was part of the team responsible for its successful development over the subsequent 3 years and the follow-up operations. The Tomorrow’s Hope Orphanage now has more than 40 children ages 6–18 years old.
In 2009, I led a team from my Hall of Residence 9 @ Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to Nias as part of their Overseas Community involvement Project (OCIP) for enhanced residential learning. Teams from Hall 9 and former Hall 9 regularly organize other teams to visit Tomorrow’s Hope Orphanage annually beyond 2009 making it the most sustainable OCIP in NTU confirming effective service learning in the participants.
NTU Hall of Residence 9 had already in 2007 won a Special Commendation for Humanitarian Work by our NTU Youth Mission to Timor Leste in Sep-Oct 2006.
Pakistan 2010 introduced me to yet another dimension into the international matrix of human co-operation for a more effective universal response to human sufferings and natural disasters. Man-made poverty from relentless corporate exploitation to privatise profits whilst socializing costs complicates national development effort and handicap effective response to alleviate the toll of human suffering and lives. Unprecedented floods devastated Pakistani and North Indian mountainous villages within a matter of hours. Raging swollen rivers and muddy glacial currents swept away more than 300,000 men, women and children without warning. The final toll was more than 11 million. And when I arrived 6 weeks later as part of a Christian humanitarian relief team to follow-up and support the work of our Welfare Organisation partners on site, I discovered that the situation was much worse than were covered by the world press and media. Later analysis would confirm that it was no “act of God”, but that the erratic weather was the cumulative effect of climate change from excessive carbon emissions, massive deforestation, and corrupt governmental neglect of responsible infrastructure. It strengthens my commitment to be a loud advocate for sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development.
These are now the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development aimed at ending poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.
Many of the SDGs focus on the importance of environmental sustainability. The urgency to conserve and rehabilitate Planet Earth reflects the inevitability of imminent disastrous climate change resulting from indiscriminate past and current human development activities.
LIVING WITH SUSTAINABILITY PURPOSE
My odyssey into sustainability over the past 25 years has been an awesome wonderful journey to many parts of the world on various conferences and projects, meeting numerous talented like-minded professionals and helpers to leave indelible marks on the communities we supported and the agencies whom we partnered and worked with. The business created included renewable energy, green buildings, eco-townships, electric vehicles and sustainability.
Living with sustainability purpose describes a Kindness advocacy and action-based lifestyle that basically facilitates, promotes and reduces human environmental footprint and handprint even as we conserve our personal and societal use of Earth’s natural resources. Alone, it can however be daunting especially when you see that others around you are not doing the same. Remember that you are not alone, trust me. My life with a sustainability purpose has persuasive powers as I join millions of others around the world who have dedicated themselves to making a similar impactful difference.
SDG17 (Partnership for the Goals) gives me the most joy and satisfaction in joint projects with like-minded sustainability professionals. Personal projects in SDG4 (Quality Education), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG13 (Climate Action), SDG14 (Life Below Water), and SDG16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) are great opportunities with embedded kindness elements. I have also led many medical missions on SDG3 (Good Health and Well-Being) that also empower great joy.
Like-minded sustainability activists have also realized that green alone is not broad enough or sufficient platform to support true sustainability purpose without embracing other social, economic and cultural issues as defined by the 17 SDGs. Become the transformational change that you hope or seek to happen.
Be mindful that we are living in a connected universe and within a common existential eco-system where everything is connected to everything else. From food to waste, everything must go somewhere in a circular economy and Nature knows best that “there ain’t such a thing as a free lunch or anything”. We are paying for those “free” lunches with real human sufferings in the 17 SDG areas.
Sustainability mindfulness is grounded on our consciousness to align thought and behavior about the consequences of connectedness. Sustainability mindfulness produces positive energy outflows as we engage and embrace the constant stress in our daily life resulting from the imbalance of resource allocation. Sustainability mindfulness is anchored on kindness as the driving force.
After the 2008 Szechuan earthquake, I was invited as a Sustainability Advisor and joined over three hundred Chinese as well as international experts and decision-makers from government, business, civil society, and academia over 8–13th May 2012 for the launch of the Inaugural Hanwang Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing and in Deyang, Sichuan Province. More than just a forum, the event marked the formation of a permanent platform for collaborative action, following two years of preparation in China and abroad. Unprecedented for its mission and scale, it was founded on a trusted international community of partners and drew upon a significant depth of experience with the aim of carrying out transformative projects both within China and abroad.
Emphasising compassion, sharing, teamwork and co-operation, the Hanwang approach builds on this spirit of responsibility and resilience in the face of momentous challenges. It promotes a society-wide approach to sustainable development, focusing on generating initiatives that positively impact the economy, the environment and society as a whole. It is such a privilege to meet and join so many like-minded people mobilized to realise the Hanwang vision of a sustainable, ethical and resilient society.
The most humbling service experience took place in Vietnam where in 2002, I was engaged by the UN International Labour Organisation (ILO) as its International HRM Consultant to the Government of Vietnam to facilitate their desire for harmonious industrial relations through a conducive tripartite infrastructure for social dialogue and collective bargaining. The work so enthralled the Vietnamese government and key industry participants that they implored the World Bank to incorporate the subsequent ILO Industrial Relations (IR) Project action plans into their US$500m Comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy (CPRS) aimed at its overall national development.
The ILO Vietnamese IR Project is now a classic case study of how capacity building and capability development in modern industrial relations mechanisms eg. trade unions, collective bargaining, conflict resolutions, and tripartite social dialogue are relevant and value-adding even for emergent socialist market economies. It was certainly professionally most challenging and daunting as I teamed with a senior ILO professional as my co-consultant in this ground-breaking breakthrough. My services continued to be engaged by the ILO on various IR and social dialogue projects in Vietnam as well as China, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka for nearly 8 more years.
It should be noted that issues of poverty and the decent work agenda are inter-twined and related, making them major global corporate social responsibility (CSR) concerns of my business excellence.
As a Director of PEACE (Policy & Economic Alliance Caring of Earth), a non-governmental organization with Special Consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2022, Dr Michael Heng PBM represents PEACE as an Actor at the United Nations (UN) Decade on Ecosystem Restoration Committee which addresses environment, forestry, food, and agricultural issues in conjunction with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
On 23 October 2023, he received the PEACE Merit Award in recognition of services in the advocacy and promotion of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy and issues.
To me as a sustainability advocate and CSR consultant is a natural extension in the journey along the life of service, and they exist concurrently with my professional expert domains in people and talent development. On World CSR Day 2012, I was conferred the CSR Leadership Award in recognition of contributions which has made a difference to people and the community. This was followed by the Global CSR Leadership Award at the Global CSR Summit 2012. A year later at the Philip Kotler’s World Marketing Summit 2013, I also received a CSR Leadership Excellence Award. In 2019, I was conferred the Earth Care Award for “leadership in a business enterprise who promotes innovative eco-friendly alternatives for sustainable development”.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
The ripple effects of a kind act goes much further than anyone can imagine. It is a ray of sunshine into someone’s life that makes his/her world a much better place. We learn kindness, and make it our habit, by practising, instead of watching or reading about it. Intentional and unconscious kindness becomes you when continual unceasing practice builds empathy, listening, compassion, and sympathy into spontaneous reflex actions in all things that you do. Kindness drives the power of love to overcome the love for power that lies at the root of social injustice, social corruption, inequality, racism, discrimination, war, violence, slavery, exploitation, and greed.
Kindness is the language of the human heart;
In every language, it’s understood,
In every act, big and small,
Kindness needs no words,
It speaks loudly in action
As it gently embraces the soul
With a helping hand and smile.
Kindness is a gentle force,
Driven by human essence
In a world often dark and cold
Dispelling fear, loneliness
And hopelessness
With a guiding light so bright
To embrace all in comfort and grace.
The magic of kindness never fails;
Like the morning sun it always shines
To warm the day when skies are grey
With smiles that guide the calm
Through gestures and helping hands
Of love, empathy, and compassion
Powering the patience of a listening ear.
The kindness of strangers is a beacon
Of the love they give without expecting return;
Darkness fades as kindness approaches
With a force of loving goodness
In grand humility and touches that heal;
Mending wounds that life has placed
On its path of potholes and pitfalls
To heal all hurts, loss, and sores
And soothe the aches, pain, and scars.
Kindness bridges the divide
Reaching out to the hope afar
From the harsh reality afore;
Kindness spins endless threads
To repair the tapestry of life
Restoring it to victorious hope
And defines new futures to all forlorn.
O kindness, you wear no crown,
No grand titles, and has many norms;
Your essence is love in action,
Your language so sweet and clear
In all manners of thought and deed.
In your grace, we find boundless strength
To grasp beyond reach for the glory
Of humankind that defines
The legacy of humanity’s hope,
In the greater love that binds us all.
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