Its spirit stagnates
From lifelisted.com: "So Why Won’t You Be Returning? I would describe my time living in Singapore as sterile. Nothing particularly bad happened, but it wasn’t particularly good either. Daily life was convenient, but it was only the bare minimum of living. I had everything I needed to be comfortable, but I didn’t have anything that inspired me. Even though there wasn’t a language barrier, I encountered a hefty communication barrier. In my experience, people were polite but conversations rarely moved past surface-level niceties. Of the conversations that I took part in and overheard, the vast majority of them were about work. I routinely watched people work 15 hours days and stress over strict deadlines. Yes it was living, and they were making progress, but it wasn’t holistic and people openly admitted to me that it wasn’t fulfilling. There are an incredible amount of amazing places in the world. I don’t want to waste my limited time and resources in places that doesn’t make me better." ----------- Anne, my trainer, remarked "could be worse, guys...." to the class upon hearing of our always-on-call, non-existent work/life balance. Yet she said it was a relief to be in Malaysia where "people actually enjoyed their leisure time". I commented on this post that it's "too much for our insomnia-addled brains to consider. we are numbed to the numbness. but it's ok : )" before realising that it perfectly encapsulates the quintessential singaporean way of living. Which is - that we are so tired from work, we just go with the flow, go through the motions without thinking, cause we are short of the time and the energy. we are smart, we know this, we are familiar with the nagging sense that there could be something more, but we have so much inertia to change things. partly due to 1) tiredness/ no time; 2) being used to this convenient-comfortable life Even I, having had much ambition to move out of this island before i hit the three-o (even just temporarily), am steadily losing the drive and the guts to do so. If I admit honestly to myself, there is nothing to complain about my life here. It is just so - COMFORTABLE -. rude shocks to life are kept to a minimum. _______ I see how all of us share so much, whether it be life experiences, social networks or hobbies. Precisely because we live in such a small space, we experience much of the same, resulting in overlapping memories and mindsets. We lament about work, but stay as workaholics (kiasu-ness is in our blood); we are sleep-deprived, only go home to watch tv every day; we are competitive, we dont rest; we are the best consumers; we love acquiring stuff and travelling, where in fact we all travel at least once a year and discuss places to go/ have beens. The common topics do! not! end! Albeit superficial ones as Danny pointed out. __abruptly stopping, i gtg sleep. (programmed like a robot)
