Book corners and rainy days: What brought Singapore joy in 2025

It all started when he discovered an old exercise book.

Mr Yap Tat Ming, 55, was spring-cleaning when he stumbled upon the childhood relic. Flipping through it, he saw the 1cm margins his Primary 4 teacher, Mrs Yeo, had asked her students to draw in their books.

There, she would write encouraging comments, draw a smiley face or paste a sticker. The catch? No margins, no comments.

This has nudged Mr Yap to similarly “draw margins” in his adult life – to set aside time to notice things he might otherwise race past.

In October 2025, The Straits Times launched our Finding Joy series and called for submissions spotlighting one thing that brought readers joy. Almost 100 submissions were received. Over 20 have been published as op-eds.

Each told its own unique tale, but four distinct themes resonated: the beauty of everyday things; the satisfaction of hard work; kinship and connections; and the act of creation.

It also emerged that joy sometimes sits alongside grief, struggle and growing pains. It can come from overcoming hardship, learning to accept what we cannot change, and finally being able to let go.

Collectively, these stories reveal something quiet but profound about the essence of joy. It comes not from external stimuli per se, but the inner work of understanding ourselves, our values, beliefs and aspirations that give our lives depth and colour.

It’s not a fleeting emotion, but a mindset and deliberate practice, one that requires attention to what we derive meaning and purpose from.

Sometimes, joy can reveal itself in unexpected ways. In the smallest things most easily overlooked in our hectic lives, there is beauty to be found – one that uplifts, encourages and soothes a tired soul.

That is exactly what Mr Yap discovered when he made the effort to intentionally weave breaks into his schedule.

“I built a 15-minute margin between two meetings in the Central Business District. This allowed me to stroll along the Singapore River,” wrote Mr Yap, a first vice-president at a foreign bank. “It was wonderful, savouring the peaceful atmosphere and breathing fresh air, while I admired the flowing river reflecting the bright blue sky.”

During the walk, he also discovered the smallest public statue he’d ever come across – an unexpected discovery that sparked wonder.

In our daily lives, we tend to rush from task to task, and the need to check off lists can follow us even when we’re on vacation. But when travel blogger Tom Lim and his wife Kate stepped back from doing that to make room for community and conversation, they were uplifted by simply living in the moment.

“In the past, when we travelled to a new destination, we would pack in as much as possible to maximise our time,” wrote Mr Lim, 42. But this time, while on a five-month trip spanning Europe, Africa, South America and the US, they decided to focus on reconnecting with friends living overseas instead.

“Because we allowed the time spent together (with our friends) to be the main intent, whatever we did together, even simple pleasures like dancing, became etched deeply in our minds.”

Such simple pleasures can be found even in the most mundane of daily things, as mum of three, Ms Sabrina Ng, 45, summed up poignantly as she detailed the beauty of rainy days, grey skies and cool air.

Ultimately, she reflected, “joy can be found everywhere, if only we pause to look, or feel”.

“What is key is to heighten our senses to spot our own joys, so that we can make a note of them, and consciously enjoy them again and again.”

When we find meaning and purpose in the work we do, and know that we do it well, our work becomes a labour of love.

In tough sectors and demanding occupations, reclaiming agency can give meaning to work.

“F&B is a thankless trade – long hours, low pay, nasty diners. But where else can you make a living bringing happiness to people day in and day out?” Mr Brandon Ho, 38, who works in the food and beverage industry, asked rhetorically.

He described the satisfaction of surprising diners with new dishes and conjuring nostalgia through familiar ones.

There is also meaning to be found in learning something new and pushing the boundaries of what we typically expect from ourselves. It can also be liberating to defy the notion that age slows you down.

Dr Michael Lum, for instance, picked up swimming as a hobby in 2022.

He’d observe other swimmers and pick up tips from them.

It took him 15 months to master the butterfly stroke. But Dr Lum, who would only say he is above the age of 60, takes pleasure not only from his accomplishments in the pool, but also the improvements in his health and body.

In almost three years, he has gone from being barely able to swim three-quarters of the breadth of a pool to regularly swimming 23 laps in a 50m Olympic-length pool in one session.

The best part? Knowing that his journey is not over because he is pacing himself.

“I refuse to learn everything at once; otherwise, there are no more challenges left,” Dr Lum wrote.

Life can sometimes feel overwhelming, but facing setbacks can reveal one’s own resilience.

Take Ms Joleen Tan, 43, who had to move houses five times across Singapore over the past six years.

The construction of her new home was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing her family of four to rent while waiting for its completion. The pandemic rental crunch, lease cycles, and even an unexpected collective sale meant they could not stay settled for long.

Through the chaos and sheer physical labour involved in packing and moving over and over again, they realised they were, in fact, capable of more than they had initially thought.

“With each move, we went from ‘how can we possibly manage this’ to ‘we’ve done it before, we can do it again’,” Ms Tan wrote.

It’s natural to hope for mutual, unconditional love and support from those closest to us, but family ties and friendships have their ups and downs.

As the main caregiver of his 82-year-old mother, Mr Lau Wai Leong admitted that he can get triggered by her behaviour at times. She can be cantankerous, fussy with food or be impatient, particularly when playing mahjong.

Then one day, an epiphany struck him: It was not about winning the argument.

“Accepting people or things as they are is simple, effortless and non-conditional,” said Mr Lau, 56.

Making peace, he discovered, came with a massive upside – his mother reciprocating his mellower behaviour. So easily do we forget that love is a give-and-take, and sometimes, when you lose, you actually win.

Sometimes, even a small act of thoughtfulness can have a huge impact when it’s needed most.

Stay-home dad Kelvin Seah, 55, felt heartened when he received a gift in the mail from a friend.

Months before, he had mentioned to that friend that he was interested in memoirs. He was touched that she remembered and took the trouble to pick out a book she thought he would enjoy.

“I felt heard during a time I didn’t feel like I was, so it proved a much-needed encouragement that came unsolicited,” Mr Seah said.

There is also the pleasure of simply spending quality time with a loved one. When Ms Lee Seow Ser, 52, took her friend, who is deaf and blind, to East Coast Park at sunrise, they connected in a whole new way.

Using her friend’s refreshable braille display device, she described the surroundings and guided her friend to move her fingers to mimic the shape of the patterns of light in the sky. She delighted in her friend’s powerful sense of intuition and spatial awareness.

The outing made such an impact on Ms Lee’s friend that she went home and wrote a poem about it. But for Ms Lee, it was in observing her friend’s enjoyment of the sunrise and being there with her in that moment that stirred her heart.

“Through this simple act and an outing that cost little, I found myself in a humble position to empathise, empower others, and connect authentically and purposefully,” she reflected.

Human connections are especially meaningful during life’s hardest moments.

Ms Pang Huey Ling, 54, discovered just that amid the grief of losing her father, who died more than a decade ago.

Being at his deathbed allowed her family to share their memories of him and what they loved most about him.

“In all my growing years, my parents were not demonstrative people – no hugs, no kisses, no verbal ‘I love you’s’,” Ms Pang wrote. “On his deathbed, as we celebrated his life and joked about him running his last ‘marathon’ – he was an avid runner – my mother sang him a song.

“It is probably hard, if not impossible, to feel joy when we are grieving a loved one, but if we give ourselves time, space and a little kindness… nuggets of joy will find us in the most unexpected ways.”

Although they seem like polar opposites, joy and grief can coexist, she realised. It is just a matter of accepting this simple truth.

Mr Vasu Menon, 62, also experienced this when his mother, affectionately called Amma, passed away in June at the age of 93.

In an op-ed for The Straits Times, Mr Menon, who is the head of investment strategy at OCBC Bank, recalls a “different kind of joy” after her passing, in recalling his favourite moments with her and knowing that she continues to live on in his memory.

He remembers driving Amma, who in her last years needed to use a wheelchair, to see the Deepavali and Christmas light-ups. “I can still hear her oohing and aahing at the festive lighting,” he wrote.

In a world where many jobs involve processing information, analysing data or coordinating action, there is meaning to having a creative outlet, to bring ideas to life by making something beautiful.

It comes from the striving, the effort and the journey, rather than the destination.

Ms Ding Yuanyuan, 39, keeps old letters in a box in her closet, cherishing both the memories they bring and the effort behind each one.

“Writing a physical letter demands time, planning and reflection,” she wrote. “This deliberate effort implicitly conveys to the recipients that they are highly valued, a sentiment often lost in instant e-mails or text messages.”

Writing may be slow and time-consuming, but it offers delayed gratification and an authentic connection through each person’s distinctive handwriting – smudges and crossed-out words included.

But in the destination, too, there is pleasure: the joy of watching something beautiful come to life.

Mr Wong Yan Jun, 44, wrote of the delight of colourising some old photos of his parents taken in their youthful days in the early 1970s.

Colourising the photos, he said, was his family’s way of trying to get as close to his parents’ lived experiences as possible. His parents could “literally feel their life stories unfolding through these colourised pictorial representations”.

“I can see in them so much zest, hope and anticipation in the life journeys to come,” Mr Wong wrote.

Joy can also come in the impact our creations have on others, as Mr Christopher Khoo, 61, a resident pianist at a hospital, sees first-hand regularly, as his music brings delight to patients and caregivers.

Once, he recalled, an elderly woman sang along to a song he played. “She was simply thrilled when I played You Raise Me Up,” he wrote. “Her voice soared higher and higher, albeit slightly off pitch, and she raised her arms in exuberance.”

General practitioner Colin Lim, 60, also knows the satisfaction of sharing something he created with others.

He created a small community book corner in 2019 – with a little wooden bookcase shaped like a beach house around the corner from his clinic. All he had hoped for was then was that it would not fall victim to vandalism.

But what truly brought him joy was seeing how book-loving members of the community collectively took ownership of the corner, toting books in, repairing broken shelves and expanding the collection.

“I have little doubt that if I were not around, the book corner would continue on the kindness and generosity of the community,” Dr Lim wrote.

Seeing how far the book corner has come, he said, still gives him “a little frisson”. It is in that sense of satisfaction and delight in starting something that has grown and evolved that joy resides.

In a society that prizes achievement, efficiency and speed, we’re reminded that the richest parts of life emerge when we slow down and create connections with one another.

We can cultivate joy by spending time with loved ones, by truly listening, in loving without expectations, in exercising generosity of spirit, practising gratitude, and nurturing an appreciation for the small and big things around us.

Just as important is how we respond to joy that is out there and receive it.

One thing is certain: This demands intentionality.

When we consciously seek out pockets of joy, it becomes a stabilising force in a turbulent year fraught with wars and geopolitical tensions, worries about the cost of living, technological advances and climate change.

Joy, wrote Miss Lynnette Chu, is not something we stumble upon in isolation – it is something we build together.

“We operate under this scarcity mindset, as if joy is finite, as if celebrating one person’s breakthrough somehow diminishes another’s.”

But joy, wrote Miss Chu, who is in her 20s, does not diminish when it shines more brightly in one place.

“When you share good news with someone who genuinely celebrates with you, the joy does not just double, it transforms.

“It creates something exponentially greater than the sum of its parts.”

This is exactly what Mr Kiang Kai Lun, 39, discovered when his child was born in September.

He walked down the corridors of the maternity hospital, thinking: Everyone in that building was sharing a slice of joy from the birth of a newborn – be it the customer service associates at the registration counters, to the midwives and the doctors who bring new life into this world.

“Finding joy is synonymous with sharing joy, for what is the point of celebrating one’s achievements in life, if one is alone at the end of it?”

Finding Joy is an Opinion series about the things that bring us satisfaction, fulfilment and meaning. Read more in the series here.