Is it just me, or is life in Singapore starting to feel like a copy-paste script running on repeat?
Every single weekday plays out exactly the same way.
Alarm goes off at 7:00 AM. Wake up feeling like I got hit by a bus. Walk to the MRT platform, wait for three trains to pass before I can finally squeeze inside. Shoulder-to-shoulder with 50 other exhausted Singaporeans, all staring blankly into their phones trying to ignore how uncomfortably close we are to one another.
Reach the office. Sit in front of a monitor for 8 to 9 hours dealing with endless emails, unnecessary teams calls, and managers asking for updates on tasks that were just assigned an hour ago.
6:30 PM comes around. Time for round two of the transit sardine simulator. Squeeze back onto the train, transfer to a feeder bus, walk back to the HDB block, and dabao dinner from the local hawker centre.
By the time shower and dinner are done, it’s already 8:30 PM.
You look at the clock and realize you have maybe 2 to 3 hours of “own time” before you need to sleep to survive tomorrow. Half the time, you’re too brain-dead to do anything meaningful, so you just doomscroll TikTok or watch random YouTube videos until your eyes force themselves shut.
Which brings me to my main point… how the hell are people in SG managing to have kids?
Where does the time come from? Where does the energy come from? After work, I barely have enough battery left to sustain a basic conversation with my partner, let alone raise a human being. The thought of adding middle-of-the-night feedings, childcare drop-offs at 7 AM, tuition center logistics, and financial stress into this routine makes my head spin.
Every time I hear the government talking about boost total fertility rate or giving out baby bonuses, I just think… money isn’t even the only bottleneck here. It’s the utter lack of time and emotional bandwidth. The system is designed to squeeze 120% out of your waking hours for GDP, leaving you with zero reserve capacity for actual life.
Are the couples with kids just surviving on sheer willpower and infinite coffee? Or does everyone rely 100% on infant care and helpers just to avoid complete mental breakdown?
Really feeling the burnout today. Anyone else feeling this endless NPC cycle? How do you guys cope?