I’m Not Happier Because Life Got Better

Recently, I’ve noticed a strange undercurrent beneath otherwise normal days. At stoplights. During work. Standing in the kitchen, doing nothing in particular.

It’s not sadness or anxiety. It’s awareness. Of time. Of how quickly moments arrive and disappear. Of how rarely we notice them while they’re still here.

At first, I assumed this was just grief finding another way in. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Missing my dad still comes in waves, unexpected and inconvenient. Certain songs. Certain games. Certain silences.

But recently it’s been different. Thinking about death wasn’t pulling me backward. It was pulling me into the present.

At first, I thought that maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling the lesson every parent has told me about how fast it all goes. And with that comes urgency. Not the frantic kind. The quiet kind. The kind that asks a harder question:

Am I only enjoying my life because things are good right now?

Because if that’s true, it’s fragile. Temporary. Built on conditions that can change without asking your permission.

When you stop waiting for life to feel meaningful, you start noticing that meaning has been quietly accumulating all along.

This is quieter than that.

It’s the recognition that these might be the good old days. That this version of your life — imperfect, unresolved, unfinished — is not a warm-up act for something better. It is the thing.

And when you truly see that, something shifts.

You don’t just feel grateful in hindsight. You feel it in real time.

You notice the ordinary moments while they’re happening. You don’t rush past them so quickly. You stay a second longer. You listen instead of waiting to talk. You look up instead of down.

Presence sneaks in through the side door.

What surprised me most is that this didn’t arrive because life suddenly got easier. If anything, the opposite is true.

I have relationships that feel strained and unresolved — ones I care deeply about but haven’t figured out how to fix. I carry burdens that haven’t lifted. Physically, I’m dealing with aches and limitations I haven’t experienced in more than twenty years. Some days my body feels like it’s negotiating with me instead of working with me. 

So what changed? It wasn’t my circumstances.

It was my perspective.

After years marked by loss, disappointment, and a kind of quiet exhaustion, I’ve learned something I don’t think I could’ve learned any other way:

Hard seasons don’t just steal from you. They teach you what’s worth keeping.

The dark days sharpen the light ones. The sad days give happiness its contrast. Without them, joy becomes vague, something you chase instead of something you recognize when it’s sitting right in front of you.

And when things finally tilt even slightly in your favor, you’re ready. You don’t miss it. You don’t postpone your appreciation. You’re there for it.

That’s the paradox: presence doesn’t come from everything being okay. It comes from knowing everything won’t always be.

Once you accept that, even difficult days take on a different texture. They’re still hard. Still painful. Still frustrating.

But they’re alive.

When you stop waiting for life to feel meaningful, you start noticing that meaning has been quietly accumulating all along.

So is life suddenly great? Or have I simply learned to appreciate more of what I already have?

To choose looking up instead of down. To accept that today can still be my day, even if yesterday wasn’t.

To live with the understanding that tomorrow is promised to no one, which makes this moment — this conversation, this walk, — worth showing up for.

I don’t know if you get that kind of perspective without pain.

I hope you can.

But if pain is the price of presence, then the least we can do is treat it like a blue-chip stock: hold onto it long enough to see what it’s worth. Let it appreciate. Let it teach you how to live, not just to survive.

I don’t know what season you’re in right now. Maybe things are finally going your way. Maybe you’re in the middle of something that feels endless and unfair.

But I do know this: learning to appreciate what you have in the moment, not after it’s gone, has a way of making every moment feel a little more bearable. Sometimes even beautiful.

And that small shift — nothing flashy, nothing forced — might be all it takes for life to start feeling like it’s quietly, steadily, moving in your favor.

How old are you?

How old am I?
Well, let me explain it this way -

I'm old enough to feel an occasional twist of muscle, but young enough to tap my toes at the first sound of music.

I'm old enough to accept life's twists and turns, but young enough to challenge apathy or defeat.

I'm old enough to cherish memories, yet young enough to promote new experiences.

I'm old enough to value tradition, yet young enough to sponsor change.

I'm old enough to savor quiet hours, yet young enough to seek laughter and joy.

I'm old enough to have a few regrets, but young enough to use them as stepping stones toward progress.

I'm old enough to respect the accomplishment of science,  yet young enough to accept the simplicity of God.

Now let me ask you the same question, How old are you?

Living a life with no regrets

By Lee Wei Ling
 

About 20 years ago, when I was still of marriageable age, my father Lee Kuan Yew had a serious conversation with me one day. He told me that he and my mother would benefit if I remained single and took care of them in their old age. But I would be lonely if I remained unmarried.
I replied : “ Better lonely than be trapped in a loveless marriage.”

I have never regretted my decision.
Twenty years later, I am still single I still live with my father in my family home. But my priorites in life have changed somewhat.

Instead of frequent trips over-seas by myself, to attend medical conferences or to go on hikes, I only travel with my father nowadays.

Like my mother did when she was alive, I accompany him so that I can keep an eye on him and also keep him company. After my mother became too ill to travel, he missed having a family member with whom he could speak frankly after a long tiring day of meetings.

At the age of 88, and recently widowed, he is less vigorous now than he was before May 2008 when my mother suffered a stroke. Since then I have watched him getting more frail as he watched my mother suffer. After my mother passed away, his health deteriorated further before recovering about three months ago.

He is aware that he can no longer function at the pace he could just four years ago. But he still insists on travelling to all corners of the Earth if he thinks his trips might benefit Singapore.

We are at present on a 16-day trip around the world. The first stop was Istanbul for the JPMorgan International Advisory Council meeting. We then spent two days in the countryside near Paris to relax. Then it was on to Washington DC, where, in additon to meetings at the White House, he received the Ford’s Theatre Lincoln Medal.

As I am writing this on Thursday, we are in New York City where he has a dinner and a dialogue session with the Capital Group tonight, and Government of Singapore Investment Corporation meetings tomorrow. After that, we will spend the weekend at former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger’s country home in Connecticut. Influential Americans will be driving or flying in to meet my father over dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday.
Even for a healthy and fit man of 88, the above would be a formidable programme. For a recently widowed man who is still adjusting to the loss of his wife, and whose level of energy has been lowered, it is even more challenging.

But my father believes that we must carry on with life despite whatever personal setbacks we might suffer. If he can do something that might benefit Singapore, he will do so no matter what his age or the state of his health. For my part, I keep him company when he is not preoccupied with work, and I make sure he has enough rest.

Though I encourage him to exercise, I also dissuade him from over exerting himself. I remind him how he felt in May last year when, after returning from Tokyo, he delivered the eulogy at Dr Goh Keng Swee’s funeral the next day.

He had exercised too much in the two days preceding the funeral, against my advice. So naturally, he felt tired, and certainly looked tired on stage, as he delivered his tribute to an old and treasured comrade-in-arms. A few of my friends were worried by how he looked and messaged me to ask if my father was OK. Now when I advise him not to push too hard, he listens.

The irony is I did not take my own advice at one time and it was he who stopped me from over-exercising. Once, in 2001, while I was recovering from a fracture of my femur, he limited my swimming. He went as far as to ask a security officer to time how long I swam. If I exceeded the time my physician had precribed, even if it was just by a minute, he would give me a ticking off that evening.

Now the situation is reversed. But rather than finding it humorous, I feel sad about it.

Whether or not I am in the pink of health is of no consequence. I have no dependants, and Singapore will not suffer if am gone. Perhaps my patients may miss me, but my fellow doctors at the National Neuroscience Institiute can take over their care. But no one can fill my father’s role for Singapore.

We have an extremely competent Cabinet headed by an exceptionally intelligent and able prime minister who also happens to be my brother. But the life experience that my father has accumulated enabled him to analyse and offer solution to Singapore’s  problem that no one else can.

But I am getting maudlin. Both my father and I have had our fair share of luck, and fate has not been unfair to us. My father found a lifelong partner who was his best friend and wife. Together with a small group of like-minded comrades, he created a Singapore that by any standards would be considered a miracle.  He has led a rich, meaningful and purposeful life.
Growing old and dying occurs to all mortals, even those who once seemed like titanium. When all is said and done, my father – and I too, despite my bouts of ill health- have lived lives that we can look back on with no regrets. As he faces whatever remains of his life, my father’s attitiude can be summed up by these lines in Robbert Frost’s poem Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening :  

 

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

When are you too old for anything?

The answer is NEVER!
I thought about this when I remember a conversation with my elder brother. He was 32 when he got divorced. He told me,"I'm 32, you think I'll be able to attract a woman again?"
I was flabbergasted.
I gave him the example of our father, who remarried and managed to father our step-brother at the age of 62.
So, I replied,"well, you have 30 years to break our dad's record.".
Since then, my brother has remarried. TWICE.
Also, for those who think you're too old to start a business or for work, think again.
Sam Walton started Walmart when he was FORTY FIVE (usually people in Malaysia are looking to "retire" 10 years after that age) and became a billionaire 10 years later.

Q. When is "too old"? At what age do we give up?

A. At 100, Grandma Moses was still painting.

At 98, Titian painted "Battle of Lepants"

At 93, George Bernard Shaw wrote "Farfetched Fables."

At 91, Samon de Valera served as president of Ireland.

At 90, Pablo Picasso still drew and engraved.

At 89, Arthur Rubinstein gave a recital in Carnegie Hall.

At 88, Pablo Casals still performed cello concerts.

At 82, Winston Churchill wrote the four-volume work, "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples"

At 82, Leo Tolstoy wrote "I Cannot Be Silent"

At 82, Goethe finished "Faust"

At 81, Benjamin Franklin engineered the diplomacy that led to the adoption of the US Constitution.


Your age is in your HEART and SPIRIT.