27. HEALTH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MONEY
“Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” -- Dalai Lama
My dad was born in 1924. He is 96 years old in 2020. He has lived to witness World War II (1939 - 1945), Japanese occupation of Malaya in 1941, Malaysia's independence from the British on August 31, 1957.
He has lived under the premiership of all prime ministers of Malaysia, from Tunku Abdul Rahman (1957 - 1970) , Abdul Razak Hussein (1970 - 1976), Hussein Onn 1976 0 1981), Mahathir Mohamad (1981 - 2003), Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (2003 - 2018), Najib Razak (2009 - 2018), Mahathir Mohamad (2018 - 2020) to the current eighth prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin.
My dad has experienced four global recessions since World War II: 1975, 1982, 1991 and 2009. He has also experienced four recoveries of world economy. Along with all of us, he is now fighting against Covid-19 pandemic that’s sweeping across the world, causing more than 700,000 deaths, dampening the world economy, and resulting in high unemployment rates.
My dad has lived a long life to witness the historical, economic and social changes in Malaysia and the world. He has experienced all sorts of ups and downs in life for the past 96 years.
At 96, my dad can still read newspaper daily, walk without help at home, and engage in intelligent conversations with me daily.
It's not by coincident that he can live such a long life. He has been living a healthy lifestyle with good quality of life with the help of my late mother for His life motto is, "As long as I can eat, I can shit, life is good."
He is a positive, forward looking, simple person who appreciates life in all small little ways. May be that’s why he always seems to be so happy all the time.
Most killers diseases are due to diet and food intake
According to the latest WHO data published in 2018, life expectancy in Malaysia is 73.2 for male and 77.6 for female.
Meanwhile, top 10 killer diseases in Malaysia that cause premature death are: 1. Coronary heart disease, 2. Stroke; 3. Influenza and pneumonia; 4. Lung diseases; 5. Road traffic accidents; 6. Diabetes Mellitus; 7. Breast cancer; 8. Lung cancer; 9. HIV / AIDS-Common and other injuries.
If you take a look at the list, it must be noted that most of the major causes of the killer diseases in Malaysia are widely due to the diet and food intake. For instance, hypertension, stroke, diabetes are all lifestyle-related diseases.
A dear ex-colleague passed away prematurely at the age of 49 due to a full-blown stroke, mainly due to poor diet and work/life stress.
An ex-customer working in banking industry collapsed at his work desk at 10.30 pm on evening. Luckily it was only a mild stroke affecting his mobility. It was a wakeup call from him. After his full recovery, he changed his job to a less demanding role to reduce his work-related stress. He also changed his diet to eat healthier food by reducing oil and sugar from his daily intake.
He told me over a lunch session, "Vincent! I have realised that I can work hard to have all the money in the world. But if I don't have good health to enjoy my life, all money is worthless. Money can't buy my health back. Health is more important than money."
His realization really echoed what A.J Materi, a Canadian church official, said, “Many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.”
My unhealthy diet and working lifestyle
When I was young, work was my top priority. I never really took care of my diet or food intake. McDonalds, fried chicken, nasi lemak, roti canai, fried kuay teow, banana fritters, and fried crunchy snacks were amongst some of the unhealthy food I craved for.
I was renting a room outside in my twenties, hence there wasn't home-cooked food for me. I had all my meals settled outside - either at hawker centres, mamak stalls, fast food chain, or occasionally at restaurants.
It was hard for me to control my diet. At the same time, I felt there was no need to control my diet because I was young and healthy.
I did my best to bring home-cooked lunch to office once my parents shifted to Kuala Lumpur. Being in sales with sales appointments and client visitations filled up my days, My time was so irregular. Most times I ended up bringing same home-cooked meals back home because I didn’t get a chance to eat in office. And at other occasions, I ended up with gastric because I had my meals at irregular hours.
Due to the nature of my work in sales and business development, I also entertained business clients quite a fair bit. These entertainments with clients included heavy dinner, long drinking sessions, late-night karaoke sessions until wee hours. I didn't like the entertainment portion of being in sales. But entertainment was part of the sales and business development jobs.
I guess I should thank my fountain of youth! Despite a hectic working schedule, stressful work, late-night sleep, and all the unhealthy, irregular eating lifestyle, my health was still pinkish and in great condition.
When I was in my mid-forties, I was based in Jakarta on a two-year work assignment staying in hotel room for a year, followed by apartment for another year in 2012-2013.
I lived a hectic, jetsetter working lifestyle for two years. My passport was stamped seventy-seven (77) times at Indonesia immigration. I was shocked to realise later that I actually made 77 return trips to Jakarta within a two-year period.
I commuted by plane weekly from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta. Usually I would catch either 7.00 pm Sunday night flight or 6.30 am Monday morning flight to Jakarta. I would then catch the 7.30 pm evening flight back to Kuala Lumpur on Friday evenings. By the time I reached KL home on Fridays, it was past midnight.
I worked long hours too, being one of the last few to leave office in most evenings.
During those two years, I usually settled lunch and dinner at food court and cafés behind the office building or near my apartment. Whenever there was a chance, my Indonesian colleagues would bring me to authentic Indonesian restaurants.
I was thinking since my stint in Jakarta would be short-term, I might as well take the opportunity to consume local authentic Indonesian food as much as possible to satisfy my stomach.
I truly fell in love with authentic Indonesian food, especially Ayam Penyet, Nasi Goreng Gila, Nasi Padang, Mee Kangkung and deep-fried Indonesian finger food. I also ate a lot of locally-made potato chips, one of the best potato and corn chips I have ever tried.
In terms of drinks, I couldn’t resist the temptations of Es Doger, Indonesian coconut milk-based shaved ice beverage, and my favourite Alpukat, Indonesian creamy Avocado shake with chocolate syrup. They are simply delicious!
Hypertension hit me in mid 2012 at age 45!
Then in mid 2012, I experienced consistent pounding headache that would never go away around 10.00 am in the office for about two weeks.
Initially, I thought I didn't have enough sleep. I thought perhaps the weather was too humid and hot. But even after I took Panadol, the headache would come back a couple of days later.
It was so coincident that during one of the lunch times, a pharmacy near to a restaurant at the neighbouring building had a pharmacist on-duty with digital blood pressure machine. My colleague then urged me to measure my blood pressure.
Being confident that my blood pressure was normal, I was reluctant initially. Ultimately, I had my blood pressured checked.
I had the shock of my life when my blood pressure was around 149/90. It was in the hypertension level. I couldn't believe because every year during my annual medical check-up, my blood pressure was normal.
I couldn't figure out why it shot up. I decided to go to the same pharmacy to double check again four hours later on same day. My blood pressure still didn’t go back to normal. My headache was still pounding.
I knew then and there that something was wrong with my physical body. I was attacked by hypertension, first time in my entire life.
Before that, my health condition was excellent. I had no high cholesterol, no high blood pressure, no high glucose. That's why the hypertension really shocked me.
I immediately left office after the blood pressure check and went back to the hotel to rest. I also took the next day off.
Instead of rushing back to Kuala Lumpur on that Friday evening, I cancelled my flight and stayed in the hotel room over the weekend. I spent the next three full days resting, taking a complete break from work, and eating clean.
It was a wake-up call for me on my health.
I was 45.
I came to realisation that I had been working too hard accumulating a lot of stress and eating too unhealthily with the jetsetter lifestyle.
I almost sacrificed my health for work and money without me even realising it. I enjoyed my work and had a lot of job satisfaction. But I guess I needed to listen to my body. Without good health, the most satisfied job in the world and most delicious food wouldn't make me happy.
Health is more important than money
No doubt it's important for you to achieve financial independence and retire early. No double you can then have more time to pursue your happiness in life.
However, without good health, you won't be able to enjoy your retirement. Without good health, there is no happiness. Therefore, health is even more important than money. It's the fundamental requirement of how happy you will be in your retirement years. You don't want to be bed ridden due to illness or have your life cut short after working so hard for thirty to forty years. It's pointless if you don't get to enjoy your life even if you have all the money.
To the millennials, probably time is on your side. Being young gives you great advantage. Taking care of your health might not be your top priority. Climbing corporate ladders, finding more exciting things to do in life, indulging in all the delicious but unhealthy food (by the way, most healthy food doesn't taste nice but most unhealthy food taste superb), starting your own business to be the next millionaire are far more important than your health. It's fully understandable. Everyone is entitled to his or her own happiness. You can go ahead and do anything that makes you happy.
Perhaps when you grow older and body metabolism starts to slow down, you will start to appreciate importance of health. You will then realise that if you lose your health, whatever you once considered more important things in the world may seem unimportant anymore.
If you could, you can start young living a healthy lifestyle.
Many long-term diseases like hypertension, stroke, diabetes don't suddenly occur overnight. They are the cumulative results of poor unhealthy lifestyle practices. I
f you can strike a balance between your work and your health since young, surely you will live a very long happy life.
Living a long life is good. Living a quality happy healthy life is even more important.
Health benefits of early retirement
If you achieve your financial freedom and retire early, you can then have even more time to spend on gaining good health. You can say no to entertainment from clients. You can cook healthy quality food to eat at home instead of eating out all the time. You can spend more time in the gym sweating it out. You can afford better health care system should you need it.
1. Got rid of work stress, which is bad for health
After my early retirement, I finally got rid of work stress that has been troubling me for over 27 years. I finally have time to relax and smell the breathe of life.
Previously, work came first and everything else evolved around work schedules, to the extent of sacrificing my own health. I used to get caught up with endless meetings in office.
Even though I still do some freelance work on and off after retirement, the part-time freelancing work becomes secondary.
My friends joke that I’m a fulltime caregiver and fulltime traveller now. Freelance work is just to fill in the gap whenever I’m not traveling overseas.
2. More time to plan, prepare and eat healthy meals
After retirement I have since reprioritised my life and put health first.
Imagine, if I were still working in corporate world, my meal times would be so irregular. I had several times hit by gastric because I ended up eating my lunch rather late due to endless meetings and office work.
Even when I tried my best to eat healthy at work, it was hard when I had to entertain clients at restaurants. It would be very impolite of me to eat salad only while my clients eat chicken, fish, prawns, crab.
Besides, how could I possible have my dinner at 5.00 pm while I was still at work? My dinner used to around 8.30 pm after reaching home. Late dinners are rather bad for health. We are not burning the calories from the late night dinners. All the dinner in the stomach is likely not fully digested yet before sleep time. And we are making our organs work even during our sleeping hours.
Now I take time to plan what nutritious food to eat to nourish my body and keep sickness away. I start to be more disciplined in my diet and health plans too. Knowing when to eat is critically important as well.
I can arrange my time freely to do grocery shopping. I can also have time to prepare and eat healthy home-cooked meals.
I strongly advocate eating at home. Eating at home is not only healthier than eating outside, you can also save a lot of money by eating at home.
I can now take my healthy home-cooked lunch at home with my dad at 11.00 am daily. I can also take 5.00 pm dinner with my dad daily. Sticking to regular meal hourd really helps me to follow the intermittent fasting method in keeping a healthy lifestyle.
By the way, my dad is not allowed to eat a lot of protein for his chronic kidney problem. As per doctor's order, he can consume plant-based or animal-based protein up to the size of two fish balls only in a day. Meat has been drastically cut out from his diet. Doctor has advised him to eat more vegetables that are not causing uric acid or containing high protein such as tofu, long beans, etc. Doctor has also advised him to take more fruits.
To keep myself healthy, I also follow my dad's diet pretty much. During my weekly grocery shopping, I buy a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits. As for meat, I only buy fish and chicken. Fish is almost our daily affair, mainly steamed, baked or occasionally deep fried. As for chicken, we only consume twice a week. Even so, the portion is relatively small compared to vegetables and fruits. Pork, prawns, beef, squid and crabs are totally out from our daily home-cooked meals.
3. More time to exercise
Besides eating healthy home-cooked meals more often at appropriate times, I also have plenty of time to exercise.
Before movement control period
Before movement control period, I woke up at 6.00 am in the morning. Instead of rushing to office to work like I used to, I joined my dad to read Sin Chew Jit Poh (Chinese daily) and have an active conversation with him.
By 7.00 am, with empty stomach, I was on my way walking twenty minutes leisurely to the nearby Celebrity Fitness Centre which I'm a lifetime member. I then spent one hour doing strength training with gym equipment. After that, I ran on treadmill for 5-10 km in distance depending on my marathon training plan.
Occasionally, I joined Pilate class to loosen up my body for more flexibility and better core strength.
After I finished my morning workout and run around 9.30am. I took my muesli, oat and milk drink. I the took a shower in the gym before wrapping up with a twenty-minute walk home.
During movement control order period
During movement control order period, I ran around my car at car porch every morning. I usually ran 200 loops totalling 5 km daily. I tried once running 10km. That was 400 loops around my car. I ended up feeling dizzy.
When I still had lots of energy, I then ended up doing another 20-30 minutes of Tabata exercise in my room.
While many people put on weight during movement control order period, I lost 3 kg due to daily running.
After movement control order period
I’m very happy to be able to exercise outdoors and back to the gym again. Due to the new norm, I reduce my gym visits to twice a week for safety and social distancing reason. I try to minimise going to crowded places.
For the other 5 days in a week, I run from my home to KL Sports City, then spend about 1 hour doing calisthenics workouts (body weight strength training) using the pullup bars at the park, then run back home again. Total daily running distance is about 8-9 km. Total workout time is around 2 hours.
Undoubtedly, healthy lifestyle does lead to good health, happiness, and longevity.
I’m grateful that my latest medical check-up result shows that I don’t have high cholesterol, high blood pressure or high sugar.
As I age, I also know I need to be even more careful with my food intake. I need to continue to eat as clean and healthy as possible. It’s quite natural that illnesses and diseases may catch up with me one day due to ageing, but I hope to do my best to delay the process.
As I age, I also know that I need to continue my exercises, keeping my bones, muscles as active as possible. Aging will definitely deteriorate my body functions. What I can do is to ensure it deteriorates slowly with physical exercises.
As I age, I also know that I can no longer take a lot of stress. Stress can definitely elevate a person’s health condition. Many strokes or heart diseases are due to stress from work and life as well.
I don’t want to sacrifice my health in order to make money, then sacrifice money to recuperate my health.
With early retirement, I can now really focus on taking good care of my own health. I can then truly live my life fully in the present.
SECTION 5
Life after Retirement:
Health, Happiness, Gratitude, Being Significant
“If you have health, you probably will be happy. And if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it’s not all you want." -- Elbert Hubbard
F I L L
Financial Independence, Live Life
achieving financial independence from 9-to-5 job before 50
