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Finding Joy
On the road to nowhere, a spiritual experience changed everything
Depression had me in its grip, but one day, for seemingly no reason, the world suddenly looked brighter.
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The writer realised that realised that because her perception of life had changed, her response to it had changed as well.
ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
Zhang Ruihe
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By any measure, 2004 was a terrible year. I was 27, newly broken up after an unhappy relationship. Yet, leaving the relationship didn’t make me happier, either. At work, I’d been drafted into an “elite” team tasked with pioneering a new initiative I didn’t believe in. My form class at the time was the most notorious in their cohort.
It was also the year of my father’s failed brain surgery. He’d gone into the operation walking; he came out half-paralysed. My parents’ relationship had already been strained and distant, and family life became very difficult.
