By Dr Wong Wee Nam
08 August 2010
SGPOLITICS.NET
“If I’d known that retirement was going to be this good I’d
have done it the day after I left school!!!”
— Mickey White
Flowers know when to shrivel and die. Trees know when to shed
their leaves. Animals know when they can no longer hunt. Even
elephants know when to die.
Do Singaporeans know when to retire? Some of them don’t, many of
them just can’t and most just don’t know how to.
Those who don’t are obviously the very well-paid. If you are
getting an income of millions of dollars from your company, why
would you want to give that up? I asked my long-retired mathematics
teacher, aged 77, for his view on this and, with a mind still as
sharp as his putt, he replied, “This is pure mathematical
logic”.
Those who can’t are those who have, all their lives, been so
lowly-paid that they do not have enough savings to retire. These
people just have to continue working at their menial job, on a pay
that is continually being depressed by cheaper foreign labour and
praying that they would not be replaced.
For the Singaporeans who do not know how to retire, it is
because all their lives they have only known how to work and slog
in the name of productivity, but do not how to live and enjoy a
life. Moreover how could they when the retirement age is
periodically being extended and our venerated sage has advised that
retiring is not the wise thing to do?
Happy Retirees
There is a time for everything. Retiring at the right time is
not necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, retirement from a job is
not the same as retirement from living. A lion which has lost its
teeth and can no longer hunt will starve to death. As human beings
are capable of having family, friends and cultivating a variety of
interests, they need not shrivel and die when they retire from a
job.
For many of the happy retirees whom I know, retirement is just
the beginning of another chapter of their lives. My primary two
form master’s wife, also a retired teacher, aged 75, is a good
example. She wears brightly coloured dresses and dyes her hair in
matching colours. Her exuberant expression and vibrant spirit shows
how much she enjoys her retired life.
Another is this 85 year old patient of mine who enjoys playing
mahjong, helping out in church, meeting friends, cooking and
wandering all over Singapore looking for food to eat. She once
invited me for supper at 313 (I didn’t even know there was such a
place then), knew exactly where to get the desert for me and then
insisted on taking the MRT and bus home.
Unhappy Retirees
However not everyone is so fortunate. There are some who had
been forced to retired because of ill-health.
Two nights ago, a friend called me up to asked me for some
advice regarding a friend of his, aged 52, who went into a coma as
a result of diabetes. This person had been unemployed because of a
festering gangrene of his foot and he had refused treatment because
he did not want to burden his family with hefty medical bills and
also having to take care of him for the rest of his life. He would
rather die.
I advised them to call for an ambulance immediately and bring
him straight to hospital. When the ambulance came, he regained
consciousness and refused to be sent to the hospital. To him, there
is no meaning in retirement or living a life that is going to be
very expensive for him.
Similarly, there are others who have been forced into retirement
because they have lost their jobs during the recession or have been
displaced by cheaper labour. Because they are middle aged, these
people thus find it very hard to get another job again. This group
of premature retirees is likely to lose their self-esteem and
become depressed instead of enjoying their retirement. To them,
postponing the retirement age and asking them not to retire is
totally meaningless.
The Government’s Role
With an aging population, the number of both happy and unhappy
retirees will grow. For their contribution to the prosperity of our
nation, this group of citizens is entitled to a life in this
country. To achieve this, there must be a change in attitude
towards retirees by society, the government and the retirees
themselves.
Instead of seeing them as economic burdens and discarding them
as useless economic digits, the government should look to see how
it could provide a favorable environment, a good infrastructure and
appropriate social amenities to give a life to these people in
their golden years.
In the early fifties, the government planned and provided health
and social services for the poor and the baby boomers. In the next
fifty years, the government should be planning and providing
healthcare and social services for the retirees. There must also be
social and community programmes to engage the retirees. They
deserve all these because it is their blood and sweat in their
productive years that have given the country its wealth.
Singapore is always building this hub and that hub. Have we ever
thought of making Singapore a retirees’ hub? A retirees’ hub need
not be detrimental to the country. It can spawn new goods and
services that could fuel economic changes and also result in the
development of skills and expertise that can be exported.
The task may be enormous and challenging, but think of the
coffee shops in Geylang and the integrated resorts that have
benefited tremendously from the patronage of the retirees. We can
certainly do with more of other healthier programmes.
There is also the social benefit as well. Instead of encouraging
the retirees to migrate or go to JB, such a hub would send a
message to young Singaporeans that the State cares for them and
it’s worthwhile to stay here for the rest of their lives.
Retirement Is Not a Bad Thing
Retirement is a fact of life. It is not a bad thing at all. It
helps in the renewal of leadership, in rejuvenating the workforce
and in the removal of stumbling blocks in the system. All workers
have a use-by-date whether they like it or not. An actress,
when she is young and pretty, will get all the lead roles. As she
grows older, she will act as someone’s mother. Later on she may
still get some cameo roles as a grandmother. She should then retire
because beyond that no director will cast her as a
great-grandmother as there would be hardly any script for
great-grandmothers.
However not everyone is aware of his or her expiry date. No one
will ever think of himself as a stumbling block. This blind spot is
often found in civil and political leaders and patriarchs of family
businesses. These people always like to think that without them
everything will disintegrate and hence are very reluctant to
relinquish their powers. Sadly they often end up being like a
goalkeeper who has lost his reflexes, does not realize it and
starts to let in goals. Or they end up like the analogy once
used in Parliament: an old 75 rpm gramophone that keeps jumping
back to the same groove.
The Parable of Zhuang Zi
(庄子)
There is a Chinese idiom害群之马when literally translated means “a
horse that is harmful to the herd”. It is used to describe a person
who is detrimental to a team. However, it is not easy for most
people, especially powerful people, to realize and accept that they
could be a harmful horse and retire gracefully. Only a person as
enlightened as the Yellow Emperor will be able to do so.
In Chapter 24 of his Complete Works entitled Xu Wu Gui (徐无鬼),
Zhuang Zi wrote :
One day the Yellow Emperor set out with six sages to seek the
advice of a very wise man, Great Wei (大隗) at Mount Juci （具茨山）. In
the wild countryside near Xiang Cheng City, they lost their way and
could find no one to ask directions from. Fortunately they
chanced upon a young boy herding horses, and asked him for
directions.
“Do you know the way to Mount Juci?” they asked.
“Yes.”
“And do you know where Great Wei is to be found?”
“Yes.”
“What an extraordinary boy!” the Yellow Emperor exclaimed. “You
not only know the way to Mount Juci, but you even know where Great
Wei is! May I ask you how to govern the empire?”
“Governing the empire is no big deal,” said the young boy. “It
is just like your excursion. Move on and leave your worries behind.
When I was little, I used to go wandering but unexpectedly I
contracted a disease that made me giddy and which blurred my
eyesight. An elderly man advised me to mount on the chariot of the
sun and go wandering about in the wilds and not to worry about it.
Now my illness is slowly getting better and I intend to go
wandering again. Governing the empire just means doing what I’m
doing. No big deal. Just go with the flow.”
“I know that governing of the empire does not concern you,” the
Yellow Emperor said. “Nevertheless, I would like to ask you how it
should be done.”
The young boy declined to comment but when the Yellow Emperor
remained insistent. So the boy said, “Governing the empire is not
much different from herding horses. Just get rid of the horses that
are harmful to the herd.”
The Yellow Emperor suddenly became enlightened. Addressing the
boy as “Heavenly Master,” he kowtowed twice and retired.
There must be much wisdom in Zhuang Zi’s parable. Otherwise how
could it be around for more than 2300 years?
【原文】Original Text
黄帝将见大隗乎具茨之山，方明为御，昌寓骖乘，张若、謵朋前马，昆阍、滑稽后车；至于襄城之野，七圣皆迷，无所问塗。
适遇牧马童子，问塗焉，曰：“若知具茨之山乎？”曰：“然。”“若知大隗之所存乎？”曰：“然。”黄帝曰：“异哉小童！非徒知具茨之山，又知大隗之所存。请问为天下。”小童曰：“夫为天下者，亦若此而已矣，又奚事焉！予少而自游于六合之内，予适有瞀病，有长者教予曰：‘若乘日之车而游于襄城之野。’今予病少痊，予又且复游于六合之外。夫为天下亦若此而已。予又奚事焉！”黄帝曰：“夫为天下者，则诚非吾子之事。虽然，请问为天下。”小童辞。
黄帝又问。小童曰：“夫为天下者，亦奚以异乎牧马者哉！亦去其害马者而已矣！”黄帝再拜稽首，称天师而退
