Inspirational Video: The Singapore Gift

"Being rich is not about how much you have, but about how much you can give."

Why This Video Rubbed My Friend the Wrong Way

Many of you already know this thought-provoking short film as "the video that makes you cry." I showed it to one of my friends and when it ended, I asked him for his thoughts.  With a surprisingly conflicted expression, he explained that, while he valued the core message, he didn't appreciate the fact that the father placed a higher value on others, above his own son. He quoted President McKay, "No success can compensate for failure in the home." He recounted the oft-referenced moral dilemma of the father who worked the switch at a train junction and was forced to chose between saving his son's life and the lives of the many passengers on the train.  The father's perceived character flaw prevented my friend from focusing on the primary message.

My Rebuttal

I love complex, flawed, authentic characters. (E.g. BBC's Sherlock, Avatar's Zuko, Pirate's Captain Jack Sparrow, Justified's Raylan Givens, most lead characters in Scorsese films)  However, the father in this story should be listed among these.  He was a simple, hard-working man.  His major character flaw—being too selfless.

Reading President Eyring's March Ensign sermon on service taught me that when we truly understand the principle of selflessness, our natures are changed.  Once our hearts have been changed, our behaviors flow naturally from our new dispositions.  When we both know and understand the doctrine of service, we waste and wear out our lives in the service of others (Mosiah 5:2).  "But the father is mean and neglectful," you might think.  "I saw it with my own eyes and I heard it with my own ears!" I would argue that no, you didn't.  The father loved his son—but perhaps not in the ways his son expected.  The son's chief hope in life was to escape financially poverty that he perceived himself in.  Their family's near destitution was a witness to the son that his father did not care for him.  Why did the boy feel this way?  We can't say.  Perhaps their family underwent some trauma that messed the boy up emotionally. We just don't have enough information from the seven-minute peek we have into their lives.  But I can say that this is not a unique experience.  Many parents and children can empathize with this sort of communication-sick, dysfunctional relationship.  I believe the film's director was aware of this universal issue and offers healing to other patient and hopeful parents, and attempts to open the eyes of children whose understanding of their parents' teachings have not yet come to fruition.  It is the contrast between the son's skewed perception of his father's love (or lack there of) and the reality of the situation (revealed later) that motivates such a powerful emotional response from the viewer.

For those of you who still see the father as the part-time villain, let's explore why you were manipulated to feel that way.  The boy is the storyteller in this story; he has the control.  The boy recalls for us two, poignant incidents from the his formative years, which paint his father as both unloving, and as having confused priorities. These two isolated incidents, as seen from a child's eyes, could easily be taken at face value and misconstrued by a naive viewer.  As far as we know, we may not be only misinterpreting the situation—we may not even be seeing what actually happened.  And even if things did occur as depicted, our perceptions are skewed by American conceptualizations of culture, we don't know the situational context surrounding the events, we don't know the father's motives, we don't know if it was a representative of a pattern of behavior, etc.  The one thing we know for sure is that the son's resentment of his father taints everything we see as viewers. When examined from any other perspective than the boy's, we witness a father who desperately loves his son and has proven to be one of a select few who actually live a service-centered life. The father's love for his son was evidenced by his time spent teaching him, cheerfully offering his son what money he had, and longing to spend time together.  If you are still holding onto the criticism that the father should have spent more time with the son, remember who it was who declined the invitation home for the holidays.

Regarding the criticism that the father had confused priorities, making an evaluation of the father's priorities is a matter of opinion.  But the fact that he lived a service-centered life cannot be disputed.  He worked and gained money only to bless the lives of the less fortunate.  When he worked, he did so with the proper motivation—in order to give both temporally and spiritually without recognition.

I am confident that my interpretation of the story could be a correct one.  My only question is, why did the father find it prudent to give money to a charity (in his son's name) without telling his son about it?  Had he tried before?  Was it a cultural reason? Are children in Singapore not expected to feel to give in their youth?  Was the father's hope to help his son develop a habit of self-sacrifice by "paying taxes" at a young age?  Or was it all just for the sake of dramatic storytelling?

Take-Away Lessons:

• Film directors are sneaky.  They don't always reveal things as they truly are.  (See Memento, unless you don't watch rated-R movies and don't have an edited copy.)
• Kids think they know what's best for themselves and for the rest of the world.  They don't. We all learn and develop over the course of our entire lives.
• Parents, regardless of their good intentions, fail at times.  No one acts perfectly.  That's why, when we are offended, it is a good practice to consider the intentions of our offenders' hearts. (e.g. fellow drivers)
• Don't wait until you are an adult to learn for yourself the benefits of giving. Try it out today!
• Accumulation of wealth brings a level of emotional security and affords immediate gratifications. It can also lead you to resent (and eventually hate) your father.
• Personal sacrifice in the service of others means giving up something you desire, for something of greater worth, not only for you, but also for others. Giving to others yields lasting happiness.  If you want to be happy forever, become a giver.

Additional Scriptures on Service and Giving:

• Mosiah 2:17 — Who are you serving when you give to others?
• Mosiah 4:11-16 —How are we to regard those in need?
• Matthew 22:39 — Does God have any commandments about service?
• Matthew 25:40 —  Who are you serving when you give to others?
• James 1:27 —What is pure religion?