Top Five Regrets Of The Dying

This is a copy of an article by Susie Steiner in the Guardian published three years ago on 1 February 2012. I think this is an interesting topic which has been on my own mind for a long time. Dying is a taboo subject and every time I raised it or talked about it, every one thought I was being morbid. But thinking about it earlier can help to determine how one wants to live.

Here is the article:

>>There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'.
Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. "When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently," she says, "common themes surfaced again and again."

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
"This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."

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3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result."

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying."

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called 'comfort' of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."<<

As for this blogger, the simplest way to live is to live the life of a liberal and celebrate liberty. After all, John Stewart Mill defined liberty as (my paraphrase) "the right to live our life in the best way as we see fit without preventing others from doing the same."

In the current climate of ours, we are looking at political infighting. Honesty is the topic of discussion among thieves. And sometimes, honour.


But I am nothing. So, just let me do what I wish to do, so long as I do not prevent you from what you want to do. Likewise, you should not prevent me from doing what I want to do, so long as you get to do what you wish to do.

I think wish for peace over violence, no matter how great the treachery. I can live with treachery but not in violence.

China Market Tumble

The China stock market is tumbling by nearly 30% after a year of run-ups of 150%.

This is nothing. Say, if the run-up is from 100 to 250 and if we consider that the run-up had been pure fluff, i.e., "leverage retail investors, egged on by bullish statements by official state media (Bloomberg), then for the index of 250 to return to 100 is 60%. Technically, at 30% down, there is still a lot of fluff.

We are talking in aggregate. If we were to think in spectrum, there may be stocks which have been super-hyped while some may be slow and steady. In the end, in the market, the focus is always on the so-called blue chips, if only we know what they are.

But the official reactions to the market is not something which Malaysians have not seen before.

This is the same old story where the government of a country gets involved in the workings of the stock market, on the illusion that the buoyancy of the stock market is a good indicator that the government of the day is clever.

Their first instinct is to try to intervene in the market, to prevent the market from adjusting to the fundamentals.

In the Malaysian case, they used government funds to prop up the market, prevent people from selling, prevent people from taking their money out of the country (when they had happily welcomed the short-term capital inflows).

No doubt, China may attempt to repeat these little silly tricks. The major consequence will be that the market will become less "real" in the sense of private-sector market determined, and more of a reflection of the delusion of the government of its perceived libido.

Greece

The referendum vote of "No" yesterday was no to austerity drive which the creditors demanded if they were to lend more money to Greece. The call for austerity is part of the economic thinking that if a country needs to borrow all the time in order to keep going on, then there is a structural change and one way to restructure is to cut spending and reduce the deficit.

But with many people without jobs, further austerity will mean that more people will be made unemployed and social benefits will have to be cut.


Being in the eurozone means that the Greece economy is tied to the euro whose value is determined basically Germany, the strongest economy and probably the most powerful partner of eurozone. This means that, for Greece, the currency it uses (the euro) is too strong for it which makes it uncompetitive. The major consequence is slow growth or recession and high unemployment.

If Greece gets out of the euro, its own currency (the drachma) will probably depreciate sharply and this could be a boost to its economy, at least to tourism. (Presuming that the current financial fiasco, the banks not opening their doors, ATMs without cash and capital controls are not scaring tourists from the Mediterranean paradise.)

I think the creditors of Greece should cancel off most of the debt (as called for by the IMF) because it is only money and this could save lives, in as much as possible so long as the creditors do not themselves get into bankruptcy.

I think Greece should get out of the eurozone but continue to be part of the European Union, as Britain is.

Morality & Rights

If we were to live alone by ourselves in isolation in the middle of nowhere, we can practically do anything we like and we will not bother anyone else. Except probably ourselves only because, maybe, we want to live long - but how long is long we would not know if we were to be all alone - or even healthily, if we know what it is to be healthy if we were to be all alone. There will be no morality and we will have complete rights.

Morality is an issue that comes up when we try to live together in peace and harmony with each other. We try not to offend others nor do we want others to offend us. That is why all communities have their own sets of manners and courtesies and customs. The social rules are usually not made up artificially but after many years of trial and error and the consent of generation after generation.

A community will develop along a strict code of conduct when somebody decides to put down all the commonly acknowledged rules on paper (or carved in stone). This strict code of conduct is likely to be biased, religiously or politically. It will be followed until it reaches its golden age. This happens in the high societies of India, China, Europe and even the more ancient tribal societies of Africa, South America and even Asia.

In their golden age, the societies stagnates because they could not change anymore. Everything has become so rigid that every deviation is immediately eliminated. The form of social manners is unchanging.

This stagnation can go on for a long time, but eventually it will break down. The gene pool deteriorates and society degenerates. Or, new thinking is introduced through interactions with different societies. New ideas are formed that either challenge the existing orthodoxy or new ideas that no one has ever thought of before. The line between right and wrong becomes thinner and blurrier and sometimes disappears completely. As this happens, there is less compulsion from the moral police and more exertions of individual rights.

In modern societies, it is the sacred right of individuals to defend common sense and fight against the tyranny of the ignorant. The ignorant are usually self-serving persons who exercise the little power that they have to the great annoyance and irritation of everyone else whom they can bully. They do not know what they are doing but they wish others to know that they are important because they have this power, small though it may be.

Ignorance is everywhere and the only solution is honesty, integrity, and common sense which all together comes under the word "wisdom".

Ringgit

Since he mentioned it, I thought I might just as well add in my bit of understanding of our recent economic history.

I disagree that the weakening of the ringgit in the past during his tenure was due to currency traders who were speculating on the ringgit in order to make money out of the ringgit. Of course, it is the business of currency traders to make money out of currency trading, either up or down, but not unchanged and hence the currency trading business was killed (along with a major portion of the financial industry) with the subsequent currency peg. The currency controls that were installed to reduce the outflow of currency were at the very centre of the subsequent loss of investor confidence in Malaysia as a country where you can trade without the rules being changed halfway at the convenience of top politicians. The loss of investor confidence has not recovered even until today, so that the slight sign of trouble is a signal to get out of this country, literally.


The ringgit was trading at around 2.70 against the US dollar for a while in late 1980s. When money flowed in to invest in privatised infrastructure companies, the ringgit went up to 2.50 and our foreign reserves swelled. Everybody was happy and congratulated themselved on a job well-done in running a successful economy. The stock market was up because of the inflow of short-term speculative funds and the government was using this temporary to fund long-term infrastructure. In so far as the foreign stock traders are concerned, they were waiting for the signal to get out of the Malaysian stock market. The signal came from Thailand when the Thai Farmers Bank could not pay back an offshore loan syndication for a private real estate development. The Thai central bank refused to support the Thai Farmers Bank and this was rumoured as the Thai central bank running out of money. All the stock investors from Europe bailed out, or tried to bail out out of Asia and this exodus of funds is now called the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997.

It must be obvious when funds which had been accumulating year by year for twenty years suddenly wanted to exit within a day or a week, it is similar to the crowd trying to rush out of a cinema in panic. As the central bank refused to support the currency, the value of the currency dropped. This gave opportunity to currency traders to short the ringgit in the hope of selling ringgit cheap and honouring the trade with cheaper rinngit later. But the market should be self correcting because once the currency traders think that the currency cannot go down any more, they will then have to quickly reverse their position and in the process strengthening the ringgit subsequently. Rumour had it that the policymaker panicked and was angry and slapped his close buddy who shorting the ringgit as well. Then he imposed the peg.

It is incredible that Malaysia, which has undergone a major economic policy change to open up the economy and to encourage growth such as that is now such a deficit of labour that we have to import many foreign workers for almost all economic sectors, has been suffering from a weakening of the ringgit since 1997. Why couldn't the ringgit go back to 2.50 or 2.70?

It is clear that there has been a persistent outflow of funds from Malaysia ever since we opened up the economy for rapid growth since the late 1980s. While we have seen the rapid development of real estate as plantation lands are converted, we are also seeing a heavy congestion of our roads as we expand our national car project. Instead of encouraging savings and investment, we are encouraging consumption and speculation in the stock market and the property market. The main driver for the economy seems to be the government spending itself to bankruptcy.

Could it be that the money that is being made from consumer indebtedness and government spending is causing the outflow of funds as Malaysia becomes less an attraction for investment as it is being overpriced?

11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020)

This is rather late as a comment on such a critically important document which came out on 21st May, 2015. This 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020) is the five-year plan that is supposed to bring us (the nation) out of the woods of our current economic doldrums and into the bright shiny world of an advanced developed nation by 2020 when everybody under the Malaysian sun will live happily and without a care in the world.


The overall theme of "Anchoring Growth on People" is laudable, although the immediate question I would ask is how else would anyone anchor the growth of any economy on except its people. Are the planners thinking of foreign capital or the invasion by drones of other rich countries?

"Anchoring Growth on People" being theme, there are Six Strategic Thrusts to bring out that flavour of policies. I shall be unfair here. I do not agree with what I read, so I am going to put down what those thrusts ideally be.

1. Enhancing Inclusiveness. You either have inclusiveness in the first place, or you do not have. I therefore do not think that "enhancing inclusiveness" is a good term to use. "Inclusiveness" itself is another ambiguous term. In simple English, it means everybody is included. In what? The common sense answer is in everyday life, of course - decent education, economic opportunities, decent public amenities, good law and order and security. These are very basic things in life. But the 11MP takes "inclusiveness" as a term to conquer problems which could take a new political system and decades to achieve: eliminating the low income groups (this is technically impossible unless we do a communist model where everybody is equally poor), the rural areas which by definition are those that are not as developed as urban centres (remember that urban centres grew out of once rural areas), and the Bumiputra economic community whose status is to be further enhanced (and this brings us right back to the NEP).

2. Improving Well-Being. Quality healthcare, affordable housing, neighbourhoods, sports and physical activity. I suppose this is about town planning and not letting developers ruin the cities by overbuilding and escalating real estate prices year after year. This is about controlling bank lending into unproductive real estate development.

3. Speeding Up Human Capital Development. The Plan says the government will create more jobs opportunities for highly-skilled workers. But it doesn't say how. It elaborates on how to train potential workers.

4. Pursuing a Green Agenda. Better quality of life and all that. It is a repetition of (2) above.

5. Strengthening Infrastructure. This is an integral part of any economic development plan. In fact, these are triggers to direct investments. This overlaps (6) below.

6. Re-Engineering Economic Growth. What we want to do here will have implications for (5). We want to value-add in all industries in all sectors through creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship. But do we know how? Are we inclusive here, or are we assuming that only one group needs extra help while the others can fend for themselves.

High Income
This term is badly used. The US$15,000 per person is old hat. Basically, the target is the lowest income of the group of countries which the World Bank, in its wisdom, termed as "High Income". As rich countries grow, as they inevitably will, even at 2-3% p.a., the target is constantly drifting further away. I think the figure is now higher, and can look it up in the World Bank website.

Malaysia is supposed to be one rung down last time, but we could not be classified in the "stuck economies" group - economies going sideways because they have squandered this capital through corruption and hence outflows while leaving the economies deficient of investments and hence incomes unable to rise.

Concluding Remarks
This is obviously not a very professional review of the 11MP. It is not meant to be professional. It is meant to be critical veering on cynicism. But there could be much more truth here than in the document, which is a bunch of pages with words and figures. But I am not connected with it. It does not excite me as a person, as a citizen, as a worker, as an investor. I think it was just another ordinary day, that 21st May, 2015.

Power: 10 Points

We see many media reports nowadays about the abuse of power across the board. Why?

1. Human beings have been abusing their powers all their human lives on earth. They conquer their surroundings, they conquer other creatures, they conquer other people. But they have no conquered themselves.

Each of us starts by being nothing. We get bullied when young, and we didn't like it. One reaction is to begin to bully others when we have the power. The other is not to bully at all, because we disagree with it and we don't like it.

2. We start being a nobody at first. One goal in life then is to try to become someone. Many try to be someone by associating themselves with well-known people and claiming friendship with these people. They name drop often. They become sycophants. When they manage to get themselves to be recognised by the general public, they start lying about their importance. They can also enhance their importance by lying about other people to their well-known friends.

3. When the government sanctions that a certain section of society or any of its characteristic is privileged. Privileged is taken to be special and exclusive. "I have the right, you do not have the right." This sense of privilege is dangerous because it can be easily taken to extreme. All the massacres in history came from here. It started from lowliness, fear and insecurity. This government-sanctioned right, privilege and exclusivity of a certain section of society is dangerous.

4. Power cannot be bestowed on anyone. This is why human beings are born ignorant, myopic, and short-lived. The Tree of Knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it grows in a person without wisdom. Knowledge is power, and that's why power must be exercised with great caution, restraint, discipline and reluctance, together called enlightenment.

5. Power must be accompanied by compassion. So that we can use our power to do good. If you cannot do good and offer power, you do decline the power. Don't acquire power to abuse others or yourself. The whole world is not about you. You are about you, but not necessarily all about you. Pity those who have no power. Help them with the power you have.

6. Fear power. You may not be good enough to handle it for your own good, or for the good of others.

7. Power in the hands of the incompetent is a dangerous thing.

8. Wise people with real power pretend to be powerless. Ignorant people with no real power pretend to be powerful.

9. Don't seek power; seek energy.

10. Don't just seek knowledge, seek wisdom which is real power.