I read the Straits Times today. The heading "Retirement means death" and the sub-heading "Urging seniors to stay active" and that "those who lead sedentary lives after retirement die quickly". Pretty gloomy; but the message was strong. Don’t retire, work. People must remain active. Use all your faculties. Use them or lose. When a person retires, he must have a second career.
For many of us, at our age, we do have strong views on retirement. We have experience 45 years living on this earth.
Do you agree? What do you think? We can shout and we can complain. Many of us have a good feel of the situation each of us are in today, and maybe tomorrow. What can we do? What should we do? And, maybe as a club, what can we do?
Terence Seah
I wld nvr agree. U can fill up ur Retirement wif many many meaningful things 2 do n they r gd enuf 2 keep U going both mental n physical.
Unless U r prepared 2 stay home n rot doing nothing, U shd be taking gd control of ur life.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-W.H. Davies
Hi Yew Kwong,
Like voluntary work, right?
i think MM was referring to total retirement where you do hardly anything and have no more purpose in life.
But retirees, defined as those who cease employment, could still set for themselves meaningful & purposeful objectives, and continue to remain useful to society. However being your own boss means everyday you decide how you wish to spend your time and energy. This is the difficult part as it calls for self discipline , self motivation and some measure of creativity and initiative to achieve the objectives
Jasmine,
If my memory me right, your poem by W.H.Davies is incomplete. The next two lines are:
“No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows.”
I love the poem too!
Retirement to me means “Mens Sana Incopore Sano” (Develop a Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body)
With politicians, sometimes it is better to watch what they do than to listen to what they say.
He himself is living up the equivalent of a rich pension with a fancy title. He answers to no boss, not even to the electorate now. He creates his own work and his own agenda.
If you can do what he does, you will also have the luxury of calling it anything you like. You can even call it WORK and learn to love it.
If retirement means for you to lick more ass for less pay than your view of the world may not be quite so rosy. There is no right or wrong. But this is not what he does for his own retirement if you wish to call it that.
But the essence of the message is true. The spin is different. You should always allocate time to pursue your dreams, interests and passion even when you are young and building your career. And you should continue to do so when you retire from employment.
The difference is not in your “Play”. The difference is in your “Work”. Retirement basically means now you have more time to work for yourself than others.
You should always strive to develop better or equivalent income through direct or indirect investments. Then you should retire for yourself. Age is immaterial.
By thos definition, if you do not work to retire what are you working for? We end as we start.
“Play It Again, Sam”. Read his history again. Isn’t this exactly what he did with his life. Isn’t this what you should do with yours too.
“Work” is the four letter word not “Retire”. Yet there is no need to label. Life is what we make it, not call it. Always has been, always will be.
Ernie J. Zelinski (author of “Real Success Without a Real Job”, “How to Retire Happy”, “Wild, and Free”, and the international bestseller “The Joy of Not Working”) says “Retirement is the is the last opportunity for individuals to reinvent themselves, let go of the past, and find peace and happiness within.”
Lennox Lewis has this to say
“They should remember me as being the greatest boxer of my era and I did it with dignity, pride, honor. And also retired at the right time.” Never overstay your welcome.
We leave the famous last word to Shakespeare who said ‘All’s well that ends well.’ Invest well in your life. In your work as in your retirement. Then truly you too can say “My time here now ends extremely well.”
I hate to sound like an ad.
But isn’t retirement about reinvention and reinvestment in Life. If a senior club is not first about Investment, what is it about?
Come to think of it. Anything is better than to sound like an old foggy on steroids.
Hi Roland
Here’s the remaining rhyming couplets of this beautiful gem of a poem. Enjoy.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet,how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
-W.H. Davies
Let’s not live a poor life.
Its hard to appreciate a fraction of a title-less poem.
SHC is notorious for its line feed and punctuation. So bec areful how you post a poem. You can ruin good poetry by sticking it into a wrong structure.
Let’s play it again, Jass-Oz.
WH Davies on “Leisure”
WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Davies “Leisure” is not a clarion call for us to care less. It is to care more for ourselves and others.
And smell the flowers around you whilst at it.
The comment,”Retirement means death” scares the
hell of many retirees and those retiring soon.
Read TK’s #6 which has a lot of wisdom.
Lum Fook
Alamak, how can “retirement means death!”
Retirement means total freedom and happiness to continue and pursue dreams.
I retired at 45 after working 28 years in the petroleum industry. Those 28 years were memorable as we raised our family, looked after our parents till their last, completed heaps of charity projects, had heaps of friends and had much time to smell the flowers too. We started 3 small businesses 3 years before we retired so there’s a continuation of activities (including looking after the grandkid) after 45.
Today, 7 years after retirement, we have more time to smell the flowers, more charity work, run small business from home, run courses, attend courses, chat with family and friends, watch late movies, catch crabs, red wine…the lists goes on and we change agenda as we like…tis retirement?
Mary Lee (from Perth)
Hi KT
#10
I’m not from Australia.
Yes the line feed ‘straightened’ the couplets. Nevertheless because of good punctuation, the couplets are recognizable.
BTW, I’m curious. Why do you think the intention of the poet is to tell the reader to ‘care more for ourselves and others’? Please substantiate your statement/point with evidence from the text (i.e. which line(s); which word(s)..).
JassmineT
Mary @ #13
You are our role supermodel for retirement.
We should have a contest. The best SHC role supermodel of the year.
Why not? Afterall, they have the best entrepreneur, businessman awards etc etc. And it is much easier on these kids. Three to five years of a good batting record and you are in the running. You don’t even need to be all that good. All you need is some luck.
Compare that to a retiree who has to 30 plus years of track record to test. It’ll take more than fluke to wing that.
Jas @ #14
Hee hee. This is like literature test…
The focus is on the word “care”. It has two meanings which can be used interchangeably in the poem. One is as in “worry” and the second as in “love”. The former is used as the literal meaning in Leisure. The direct interpretation is if you have too much worries, you won’t have time to enjoy life.
The more modernistic interpretation would relate care to one of hedonistic love or self love. If we are so full of love of ourselves, we will have no space in our hearts to love anything else. Not other people nor other things which makes life whole and complete.
Now about the Book Circle, anybody for a real good read?
Hi KT,
I am retired so competition is not in my agenda. I would love to bake a bigger pie, create more opportunities, live simply, love more and whistle while you have teeth.
Mary Lee (from Perth)
Mary @ #17
You just dropped some points.
No teeth? You can still whistle in. Practise it now. We will all need it one day. If we live long enough.
What is this life ? Fools in a lair,
We have no time to pray when the lion at us it stares.
-In. C.(omplete) Cavities
The focus isnt “care” anymore but “scare”……scared like hell………..
“Play It Again, Sam”? No, Say It Again, KT.
When you hv a ship of greying kins whose number keeps on increasing, and when you dont wish to feed them or look after them, what do you do?
Smart you wont tell them to go and die.
Smart you will say, go & work; you feel young that way, gives you self worth, and you show them statistics that retirees will die very quickly if they cease to work.
Smart you knows how to combine persuasion with coercion, and add in a bit of ghost story.
However, all said, it’s necessary to keep both our mind and body active otherwise we might be taken by dementia or A;zeimer’s Disease, and when that happens, the condition cant be reversed.
I definitely disagree that “Retirement means Death”.
My teacher used to tell his students, “Boys, study hard, and you will have a good future.” I disagreed. There is no such thing as a bad future. If we fail in our studies, we just go into another future. I may not become a doctor; but I could be a satay hawker. Retirement is our future, and we have to place it squarely in our hands.
Unfortunately, i learn too slowly the future is not static. It’s not just longer lives. Costs and inflation just keep escalating. Medical fees, transportation, food, utilities, housing …. So, what do we do? Buy more insurance? Buy more annunities? Save another 10% of the monthly income? Buy long-term bonds? Get another property? Go to the races? Buy 4D? Try online trading? Go to the casino? Invest? Buy gold? Gosh, goosh, erh? Or, save, save some more, and more?
The future is tough for many. But, I dont believe complaining helps. I see many fighters. The guys who save a dollar here and a dollar there. The guys who see hope each weekend, with a 50 dollar bet on 6096 and another 50 dollar on 6906. The parents who’s kids are still small. And, families queuing to pay their utility bills, a day after due date.
Retirement does not mean death. Not everybody has a golden spoon, a few big nice bungalows, a private ATM or gets to have a salary after 55. And, for many, to beat death, I guess we have to continue working, hopefully at half gear, squeeze and stretch that dollar, make it go an extra mile, while keeping healthy and enjoying what we missed in the last 45 years.
i will have to fight retirement, if it means Death.
Terence Seah
Tim @ #19 / Terence @ # 20
Its hard to find an agenda for action when we cannot find common goals.
No matter how many times Harry plays it again, he’s not our role model. Its like the master telling his slave how he should live his life. “Work till you die ! “.
We should find a role model/spokesman for the ideal lifestyle that we, as seniors, feel that one should aspire. It is easy. A committee will scan through the profiles of members and shortlist. At the D&D, a vote is called and the winner for the year announced.
It is not just a flesh parade in a beauty contest. It will help us as a group to focus on values and good practices. What makes a retirement good?
“PEOPLE LOSE THEIR HEALTH TO MAKE MONEY…..AND THEN LOSE THEIR MONEY TO RESTORE hEALTH.”
I think the key is still moderation… by just doing the best you can in life without killing yourself.
As long as you are comfortable, no need to go after those 5 Cs…and then end up acquiring the 6th C.
Contentment and peace of mind is the goal for every retiree at whatever age.
Just my 2 cents worth…………….Jie
Jie @ #22
Even if you keep healthy whilst making money it may still not be enough.
Health deteriorates for many over time whether you make money or not. It is an inverse relationship unlike money. Money grows over time.
Wasn’t such a problem before. But with current medical costs, even if you saved the same nest egg as before, the rate of accumulation is not likely to meet your espected escalation in medical costs, after insurance and before 5C’s, if you live long enough.
But the biggest problem is apathy and morale. Even if people is motivated to do something about it, they are not confident of being able to change anything. So they tell each oter to “take one step at a time”. Even if each step steps closer to the inevitable.
So it has been written in history may times. If the volcano erupt, don’t wait like those in Pompeii to be buried in mud. Take action.
Damned the garang guni man for coming early to collect my ST of y’sday & so i cant quote in full what Harry was reported to hv said.
In essence, his point was : So what if Pak was corrupt? So what if he had benefitted his family & cronies, and stashed away $ for himself? Looked at how much prosperity he has brought to his country & people?
Will you bet on someone saying smthg similar of him when his curtain too comes down? Will look at the odds b4 I bet……
I hv been faithful & passionate to my job, patient with folks who were prepared to learn but the volatile me suffered no fools who, when they cdnt convince, tried to confuse. Be he the Chairman, be he the MD, I minced no words.
Not an aye aye man, I might hv been on song running my own practice fr day 1 but words from my folks thwarted that. Fate?
Tho taking life easy now, I aint lying down. Yes, Terence is right, we’ll fight the odds & obstacles, however seemingly insurmountable, there’re opportunities out there.
But when I hv used up my last chip and that’s really no bullet left to shoot, or a slipper to throw, I’ll spend a day or 2 re-doing my will & cpf nomination……..then adious……..
Wait for no providence, hand-outs. Depend on oneself but when one is in a position to help another in need but not saying it, dont hesitate. The satisfaction of seeing someone getting re-charged and goes on to fight another day which might turn hisfate round altogether, is worth more than the $14 billion paid for a stake in ubs……….
Tim @ #24
If you gotta go, you gotta go.
Thomas Jefferson has this to say to people who cling on well after their time.
“There is a usefulness of time when a man should go, and not occupy too long the ground to which others have a right to advance.”
It is Robert M. Herhold who reminds us that men, truly famous, has more to teach us in dying well than in living great.
“It is too bad that dying is the last thing we do, because it could teach us so much about living.”
Mozart praises “Death is the true and best friend of humanity…the key which unlocks the door to our true state of happiness.”
…because as Ralph Waldo Emerson reasons
”Death seems to me so often a relief, a rendering up of responsibility, a quitting of many vexatious trifles.”
To some, the final passage is the ultimate experience. All of us can take this trip but once. If we can reflect and write about dying whilst experiencing it in detail, it can make our time here worthwhile.
Tim @ #24
Let us take a clsoer look at your last thought.
Playing big does not make any investment better. It just pushes a lot of eggs into one rickety basket. It is the risk of return and ROI that makes an investment good or bad.
Why bet big then? When one can buy a number of blue chips across the world for the same return with lower risks. It is just easier and makes our invesment officers lazier.
Rather than managing a basket of good stocks and diversifying the risks, we make one big gamble. There is less reports to read and write. Whilst waiting for the one horse to come in, there is more time to attend to cocktails, seminars and golf. Is this the celebrated work-life balance that everybody’s talking about. Are we asked to work to death so that they can have a life to live?
$14 billion can solve a lot of problems for many. Why pay all that good money to rescue a foreign bank in a crisis created in a greater part by the very inept management who we are trying to rescue. And then pay the same management golden handshakes worth hundreds of million.
Why don’t we support our own companies especially those venturing abroad (like what the Korean and Japanese government did successfully for their multinationals) or those in Social Enterprises.
Anyone remember Micropolis? Did anyone get as much as one hard disk when we blew $340 million on that turkey. What do you think we’ll get back if this turkey turns turtle.
Take Old Chang Kee for example. Their franchise program ran into trouble. They need more firepower and they are going into an IPO for a mere $200K to help it turn into a global force. Why don’t we put in $1 million; no say, $10 million in it and guarantee to make it fly. If it flops, at least we’ll have curry puffs for the rest of our natural lives. Same with hundreds of worthy local companies. We can help all to fly for a fraction of the $14 billion.
The local employment generated by 1,000 SMEs would itself be a worthy social and public enterprise. How many new old foggies can UBS employ? They are probably drawing up their prosription list right now for their restructuring excercise.
Why is rescuing one flagging foreign bank worth more than a 1,000 healthy SMEs in Singapore that can each turn gold for the want of very little effort?
The son has been telling all : so what if we’re a kiasu people? Eyes glinting pride.
Poor his father, what else can he say than to conceded that he wont ever get to see graciousness in his lifetime?
Without graciousness, it’s a dog eat dog world out there. Thomas Jefferson, if he lives today & here, will say smthg obscene. Can Robert M. Herhold be any less obscene with his reminder? And Mozart, he’s not ging to prsise – how to – but prise open the merlion’s mouth so that it has a big mouth for all to see.
(Heeee, tim’s knn pales in comparison)
Investment, the euphemism for making money by all means, with all means, to my mind, has to be either “go big” if you hv the capital – like lending to ubs, or do it small, like tim tim liu, spending say $355 tonite to bait a 300-400 % returns.
(Haha, sure, I am totally with you on yr appraisal of investment officers, taking cock & swinging tails at cocktail parties)
Micropolis? Sure. If $340 million then it has to be in USD cos my memory bank tells me that it’s SGD500m plus.
Old Chang Kee reminds me of our very own hero. Sim W H was a household name; now, fallen and kids asked me, Hoo who?
All said, it’s always engaging to engage you……..I like it, esp our gripe with social issues.
2008 won a starter prize on the last 4-D draw of 2007. My butty, humsuplo, wd hv won $125k if I hadnt stopped him. His reduced bet of $300 paid $75k. He was dead sure that with the drumming up of a good year in 2008 – and so what is inflation – the number sure open one, and it did.
The world’s 2 biggest banks – ubs, citigroup – are wallowing in the aftermath of the CDOs. A pall hangs over the US economy. Credit squeeze * general tightening of the Chinese economy, in this backdrop, can be an overkill.
In this light, where do we the little red dot go from here?
For me, it’s the investment houses all over our own heartlands.
0218 for tomorrow…………any taker?
Tim @ #27
We sank $14B into a bank caught in a credit crisis the aftermath of which is not over; and in the wake of a US recession.
How smart can that be?
Our market intelligence unit must either be chasing the wrong tails at cocktails or too drunk to tell the difference.
Take a leaf from the bloodbath at EMI. To turnaround, they are saving money by cutting 6,000 jobs. The prime cuts are the overstaffed talent scouts – the same happy cocktail circuit warriors.
There is not enough capital depth in the heartlands for private equity. But you are on the right track.
Instead of investment houses, you will see trading houses all over. Disillussioned and enlightened heartlanders will abandon bank fixed deposits; investment-linked insurance and CPF for higher yields.
Note: Many people do not see it this way. But CPF is simply forced term insurance with a payout ratio of 1:1. It is dream deal for the insurer. This is probably why we can sink billions into lemons without blinking an eye. I would too if there is no cost to failure. It makes betting on sport’s books or 4D, conservative investments by comparison.
The traditional equities will fall if a global recession grips in. Unless you move to derivatives where you can short and make money on a down market, you are left trying go up a slippery slope.
See you at the bottom of the hill.
KT, the investments houses for the frys are non-aircond, spartan, no settess with pretties sitting there to advise you. You only need to matk 6 numbers -they can combine one’s bankruptcy adjudication date & one’s wife’s ;ast menaopause. You need to wager only $1 to win as much as $10m.
So they do have a big heart for the hdb dwellers by putting up so many betting shops in the heartlands.
Btw, 2 matches were cancelled last nite so my reduced investment of $260 earned me a profit of $169………..almost 40%, not bad yeah?
Derivatives?
Heeee, why dont you also derive the same pleasure I hv in supporting SporePools and so support charity?