> 2:20pm May 7 >Getting the Best out of Life - Lee Kuan Yew > >*EXCELLENT ARTICLE!* >*Lee Kuan Yew On Getting the Best out of Life *** > >“The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in >Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. > >*If you’re not interested in the world and the world is not >interested in you, the biggest punishment a man can receive is total >isolation in a dungeon, black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, >that’s real torture.”* >[image: >http://dinmerican.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mmlee.jpg]<http://dinmerican.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mmlee.jpg> > >*MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your >knowledge about aging** **and what aging societies can do. * > >*You know more about this subject than I do. A lot of it is out in the >media, Internet and books. So I thought the best way would be to take a >personal standpoint and tell you how I approach this question of aging.* > >*If I cast my mind back, I can see turning points in my physical and mental >health. You know, when you’re young, I didn’t bother, assumed good health >was God-given and would always be there.* > >*When I was about 57 that was – I was about 34, we were competing in >elections, and I was really fond of drinking beer and smoking. And after >the election campaign, in Victoria Memorial Hall – we had won the election, >the City Council election – I couldn’t thank the voters because I had lost >my voice. I’d been smoking furiously. I’d take a packet of 10 to deceive >myself, but I’d run through the packet just sitting on the stage, watching >the crowd, getting the feeling, the mood before I speak.* > >*In other words, there were three speeches a night. Three speeches a night, >30 cigarettes, a lot of beer after that, and the voice was gone. I remember >I had a case in Kuching, Sarawak . So I took the flight and I felt awful. I >had to make up my mind whether I was going to be an effective campaigner >and a lawyer, in which case I cannot destroy my voice, and I can’t go on. * > >*So I stopped smoking. It was a tremendous deprivation because I was >addicted to it. And I used to wake up dreaming…the nightmare was I resumed >smoking.* > >*But I made a choice and said, if I continue this, I will not be able to do >my job. I didn’t know anything about cancer of the throat, or oesophagus or >the lungs, etc. But it turned out it had many other deleterious effects. >Strangely enough after that, I became very allergic, hyper-allergic to >smoking, so much so that I would plead with my Cabinet ministers not to >smoke in the Cabinet room. You want to smoke, please go out, because I am >allergic. * > >*Then one day I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam, meeting >foreign correspondents including some from the London Times and they took a >picture of me and I had a big belly like that (puts his hands in front of >his belly), a beer belly. I felt no, no, this will not do. So I started >playing more golf, hit hundreds of balls on the practice tee. But this >didn’t go down. There was only one way it could go down: consume less, burn >up more. * > >*Another turning point came in 1976, after the general election – I was >feeling tired. I was breathing deeply at the Istana, on the lawns. My >daughter, who at that time just graduating as a doctor, said: ‘What are you >trying to do?’ I said: ‘I feel an effort to breathe in more oxygen.’ She >said: ‘Don’t play golf. Run. Aerobics..’ So she gave me a book, quite a >famous book and, then, very current in America on how you score aerobic >points swimming, running, whatever it is, cycling. * > >*I looked at it sceptically. I wasn’t very keen on running. I was keen on >golf. So I said, ‘Let’s try’. So in-between golf shots while playing on my >own, sometimes nine holes at the Istana, I would try and walk fast between >shots. Then I began to run between shots. And I felt better. After a while, >I said: ‘Okay, after my golf, I run.’ And after a few years, I said: ‘Golf >takes so long. The running takes 15 minutes. Let’s cut out the golf and >let’s run.’ * > >*I think the most important thing in aging is you got to understand >yourself. And the knowledge now is all there. When I was growing up, the >knowledge wasn’t there. I had to get the knowledge from friends, from >doctors. * > >*But perhaps the most important bit of knowledge that the doctor gave me >was one day, when I said: ‘Look, I’m feeling slower and sluggish.’ So he >gave me a medical encyclopaedia and he turned the pages to aging. I read it >up and it was illuminating. A lot of it was difficult jargon but I just >skimmed through to get the gist of it. * > >*As you grow, you reach 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and then, thereafter, you >are on a gradual slope down physically. Mentally, you carry on and on and >on until I don’t know what age, but mathematicians will tell you that they >know their best output is when they’re in their 20s and 30s when your >mental energy is powerful and you haven’t lost many neurons. That’s what >they tell me. * > >*So, as you acquire more knowledge, you then craft a programme for yourself >to maximise what you have. It’s just common sense. I never planned to live >till 85 or 84.! I just didn’t think about it. I said: ‘Well, my mother died >when she was 74, she had a stroke.. My father died when he was 94.’* > >*But I saw him, and he lived a long life, well, maybe it was his DNA. But >more than that, he swam every day and he kept himself busy! He was working >for the Shell company. He was in charge, he was a superintendent of an oil >depot.* > >*When he retired, he started becoming a salesman. So people used to tell >me: ‘Your father is selling watches at BP de Silva.’ My father was then >living with me. But it kept him busy. He had that routine: He meets people, >he sells watches, he buys and sells all kinds of semi-precious stones, he >circulates coins. And he keeps going. But at 87, 88, he fell, going down >the steps from his room to the dining room, broke his arm, three months >incapacitated.* > >*Thereafter, he couldn’t go back to swimming. Then he became >wheelchair-bound. Then it became a problem because my house was constructed >that way. So my brother – who’s a doctor and had a flat (one-level) house – >took him in. And he lived on till 94. But towards the end, he had gradual >loss of mental powers.* > >*So my calculations, I’m somewhere between 74 and 94. And I’ve reached the >halfway point now. But have I? Well, 1996 when I was 73, I was cycling and >I felt tightening on the neck. Oh, I must retire today. So I stopped. Next >day, I returned to the bicycle. After five minutes it became worse. So I >said, no, no, this is something serious, it’s got to do with the blood >vessels. Rung up my doctor, who said, ‘Come tomorrow’. Went tomorrow, he >checked me, and said: ‘Come back tomorrow for an angiogram.’* > >*I said: ‘What’s that ?’ He said: ‘We’ll pump something in and we’ll see >whether the coronary arteries are cleared or blocked.’ I was going to go >home. But an MP who was a cardiologist happened to be around, so he came in >and said: ‘What are you doing here?’ I said: ‘I’ve got this.’ He said: >‘Don’t go home. You stay here tonight. I’ve sent patients home and they >never came back. Just stay here. They’ll put you on the monitor. They’ll >watch your heart. And if anything, an emergency arises, they will take you >straight to the theatre. You go home. You’ve got no such monitor. You may >never come back.’* > >*So I stayed there. Pumped in the dye, yes it was blocked, the left >circumflex, not the critical, lead one. So that’s lucky for me. Two weeks >later, I was walking around, I felt it’s coming back. Yes it has come back, >it had occluded. So this time they said: ‘We’ll put in a stent.’* > >*I’m one of the first few in Singapore to have the stent, so it was a brand >new operation. Fortunately, the man who invented the stent was out here >selling his stent. He was from San Jose, La Jolla something or the other. >So my doctor got hold of him and he supervised the operation. He said put >the stent in. My doctor did the operation, he just watched it all and then >that’s that. That was before all this pr`oblem about lining the stent to >make sure that it doesn’t occlude and create a disturbance.* > >*So at each stage, I learnt something more about myself and I stored that. >I said: ‘Oh, this is now a danger point.’ So all right, cut out fats, >change diet, went to see a specialist in Boston, Massachusetts General >Hospital. He said: ‘Take statins.’ I said: ‘What’s that?’ He said: ‘(They) >help to reduce your cholesterol.’ My doctors were concerned. They said: >‘You don’t need it. Your cholesterol levels are okay.’ Two years later, >more medical evidence came out. So the doctors said: ‘Take statins.’* > >*Had there been no angioplasty, had I not known that something was up and I >cycled on, I might have gone at 74 like my mother. So I missed that >decline. So next deadline: my father’s fall at 87.* *I’m very careful now >because sometimes when I turn around too fast, I feel as if I’m going to >get off balance. So my daughter, a neurologist, she took me to the NNI, >there’s this nerve conduction test, put electrodes here and there.* > >*The transmission of the messages between the feet and the brain has slowed >down. So all the exercise, everything, effort put in, I’m fit, I swim, I >cycle. But I can’t prevent this losing of conductivity of the nerves and >this transmission. So just go slow.* > >*So when I climb up the steps, I have no problem. When I go down the steps, >I need to be sure that I’ve got something I can hang on to, just in case. >So it’s a constant process of adjustment. * > >*But I think the most important single lesson I learnt in life was that if >you isolate yourself, you’re done for. The human being is a social animal – >he needs stimuli, he needs to meet people, to catch up with the world.* > >*I don’t much like travel but I travel very frequently despite the jetlag, >because I get to meet people of great interest to me, who will help me in >my work as chairman of our GIC. So I know, I’m on several boards of banks, >international advisory boards of banks, of oil companies and so on. And I >meet them and I get to understand what’s happening in the world, what has >changed since I was here one month ago, one year ago.* > >*I go to India, I go to China. And that stimuli brings me to the world of >today. **I’m not living in the world, when I was active,** more active 20, >30 years ago. So I tell my wife. She woke up late today. I said: ‘Never >mind, you come along by 12 o’clock. I go first.’* > >*If you sit back – because part of the ending part of the encyclopaedia >which I read was very depressing – **as you get old, you withdraw from >everything and then all you will have is your bedroom and the photographs >and the furniture that you know, and that’s your world. **So if you’ve got >to go to hospital, the doctor advises you to bring some photographs so that >you’ll know you’re not lost in a different world, that this is like your >bedroom.* > >*I’m determined that I will not, as long as I can, to be reduced, to have >my horizons closed on me like that. It is the stimuli, it is the constant >interaction with people across the world that keeps me aware and alive to >what’s going on and what we can do to adjust to this different world.* > >*In other words, you must have an interest in life. If you believe that at >55, you’re retiring, you’re going to read books, play golf and drink wine, >then I think you’re done for. So statistically they will show you that all >the people who retire and lead sedentary lives, the pensioners die off very >quickly.*** > >*So we now have a social problem with medical sciences, new procedures, new >drugs, many more people are going to live long lives..* > >*If the mindset is that when I reach retirement age 62, I’m old, I can’t >work anymore, I don’t have to work, I just sit back, now is the time I’ll >enjoy life, I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. After >one month, or after two months, even if you go traveling with nothing to >do, with no purpose in life, you will just degrade, you’ll go to seed.* > >*The human being needs a challenge, and my advice to every person in >Singapore and elsewhere: Keep yourself interested, have a challenge. If >you’re not interested in the world and the world is not interested in you, >the biggest punishment a man can receive is total isolation in a dungeon, >black and complete withdrawal of all stimuli, that’s real torture.* > >*So when I read that people believe, Singaporeans say: ‘Oh, 62 I’m >retiring.’ I say to them: ‘You really want to die quickly?’ If you want to >see sunrise tomorrow or sunset, you must have a reason, you must have the >stimuli to keep going..’* > >*Have a purpose driven life and finish well, my friends.* > >If you have to fall, do fall like a seed to germinate, unlike a leaf to die.. > >=========================================== > > >
