Lee Kuan Yew on AGEING....part 1

Subject: Lee Kuan Yew on ageing

This is Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's advice on ageing the best way one can. Here is the transcript of his remarks.
Very interesting insight from the Old Man. If you have read it before, or don't have the time to read the whole story, just read the last few paragraphs. Good Advice!
'Stay interested in the world, take on a challenge': Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew This story was first published on Jan 12, 2008.

MY CONCERN today is, what is it I can tell you which can add to your knowledge about ageing and what ageing 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 ageing.

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, I 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 when -this was 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.'