Wan of a Kind V2.0

I am seventy and I feel that life has just begun. This feeling is shared by many septuagenarians. May Sarton has written At Seventy: A Journal and Judith Viorst, I’m, too Young to be Seventy . Both are funny, warm and positive. Judith is certainly “glad to be alive” and does not see it as the autumn of life. “The autumn of life,” writes Sarton, “is … a matter of saying farewell, but the strange thing is that I do not feel it is autumn. Life is so rich and full these days. There is so much to look forward to, so much here and now…And right now there are hundreds of good letters to answer and hundreds of bulbs to plant. I do not feel I am saying farewell yet but only beginning again, as it used to be when school started.” I love these positive life-affirming women, full of vigour and humour. They are good representatives of the spirit of active ageing, of which I am an ambassador. So, why do I feel that it’s spring at seventy? For me, it is about being in good health. I...

I am pleased to share with you this special personal journey from my guest Danielle Chan. She is one of the kindest and most compassionate person I have met. She is who she is because of what she has. Be Kind, Include Us. I have two boys; my older son is 16 and was diagnosed with Attention Deficiency, Autism and Dyslexia when he was 7 years old. Around 8 years of age, my younger son who is now 12 years old was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. Because of them, I went for an informal diagnosis for myself and discovered that I also have Attention Deficiency Disorder all along. The 3 of us would often joke with their father that out of the four of us, he is the only abnormal one in the family. This reminds me of the movie “Planet of the Apes”, where apes were the norm and humans were the outcasts. The norm is defined as the majority. But that number which constitutes as the majority is not an absolute, it changes doesn’t it? It is not a constant. Recent medical research indicate...

Yesterday was Father’s Day. Many of us, no doubt, seize the occasion to reflect on the challenges and joy of fatherhood. I posted on my Facebook that I am a proud and happy father and I thank God for all my three children. On my Instagram I posted a picture with my three children, Li-Ann (42), Li-Lynn (39) and my son (35) with these words, “Only yesterday, we were huddled on one couch…” Li-Ann posted on her Facebook a set of my pictures with the following remarks, “Happy Father’s Day to a real Renaissance man, though you will always be “Dad” to me. xoxo”. Li-Lynn posted on hers: My son and I talked on our facetime. 42 years have passed since I became a dad for the first time. How did I manage as a father? I guess, their messages answered my questions in part. Strange that none of us went to school to learn how to be a father, but somehow we managed. I grew up with an absentee father for the most part. He was, from my recollection, a friendly s...

Mother's Day is a relatively modern “special” day. It was officially celebrated by the Americans in 1914 when Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation setting aside the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honour mothers. However, it was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, in Grafton, West Virginia. She campaigned to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the USA in 1905, the year her mother died. Her mother was a peace activist during the American Civil War of the mid 19th century. She was carrying out acts of kindness by caring for wounded soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The original Mother’s Day was created by her as Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues she encountered in taking care of the wounded. In setting aside a day to honour mothers, whom she aptly described as "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world", Anna was also hono...

I have just received some copies of the latest Infocus , a Ministry of Manpower publication for employers of foreign domestic workers. The cover story Kindness is the Movement is an interview I gave to its writer. What are some ways in which employers can help FDW adapt to living and working in Singapore, I was asked. Though we had never engaged a FDW, I had spent periods of time with families with FDWs and I shared some of my observations of the way FDWs are treated that facilitated their happy adaptation. They include, The children addressing them as aunties – there is respect shown to them They are given good accommodation, meaning, their rooms are adequately furnished They have television set and watch local news and other programmes during their rest times They are encouraged to read local newspapers They are given a day off and encouraged to explore Singapore They eat out at the same table with their employers like a family member. I bel...

When Cheryl Faith Wee of the Sunday Times interviewed me in February this year to celebrate Facebook’s 10th anniversary, I had to admit that my posts were erratic, though I had opened an account since 2008. Since then, I had rediscovered the Facebook as a platform for positive messaging. I am now a much more avid user of the social network and am quite enjoying it. My renewed interest in active participation coincided with my discovery of the PhotoGrid Apps. By putting together a number of photos into a single frame with some variations, I found that I could make my Facebook posts a lot more visually interesting. I also found that my text becomes more interesting when I have something positive to say. In the months since the interview, I have increased the number of Facebook friends though I am still rather selective. In February the highest number of likes was 49 and that has increased several fold to some 200 in some of my posts. I thought it is instructive to find out what ...

On the basis of some recent studies, Yale psychologist Paul Bloom concludes that humans are born with a hard-wired morality. He thinks that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bones. Experiments with babies and toddlers found that they are able to judge goodness and badness in the behaviour of others. Researchers also found them desiring to reward the good and punish the bad. They even act to help those in distress and they feel guilt, pride and righteous anger. These tentative findings are encouraging for those of us who believe that given the right role models and education, children will become kind and gracious adults. They show that babies and toddlers are sensitive to third party interactions of a positive and negative nature, and according to Bloom, this influences how they behave toward others and later on, how they talk about them. They are useful moral foundations, to say the least. For a year now we have published a newsletter for the primary school chi...