The Right Mistakes

“Today I am 22 years of age. I used to be a person who was working in the complex streets of Geylang and the black market. I was a gangster in three different criminal organizations. Robbery, assault, peddling drugs, extortion…At the end of everything I have done in the underworld, I have never brought goodness to anyone around me. People who know me and those who don’t, I have never given them something pleasant to smile about.” As a child, Joshua Foo seemed to have a particular affinity for trouble. Despite his best intentions, his actions and decisions always seemed to land him on the wrong side of the law. Without the support of a loving family, Joshua was drifting and furthermore, angry—and he didn’t know why. With his father in jail and his mother working tirelessly to provide for her only child, Joshua was left to his own to make sense of his world and fend for himself. The death of his beloved grandmother and constant teasing by peers over the absence of his father drove him to fill the void in his world with friends who gave him the support he never had, the security he never knew and worth he never felt. But this came with a price, and with eyes wide open, Joshua fell headlong into a secret, illegal world, where bravery and loyalty were valued above all. But eventually Joshua had to come face to face with the reality of his world and into confrontation with all that he had been running from. With piercing honesty and brazen boldness of youth, Joshua recounts his experiences of being in a gang, his brushes with law and examines the events that brought him there. What made him who he is today? Was it his own choices, or the choices of others? And does he have the agency to decide what he will become? More than just a shocking story of a boy losing his way, The Right Mistakes is about a boy trying to make sense of his life and change it for the better.