Me vs Time (you too?)
How does half a century feel to you?
I am not sure how to feel. I just turned fifty-five and Time began to loom everywhere I turned.
“You don’t look fifty-five!”
I am not sure that fifty-five has a definite look, but Time definitely seemed frozen in the looks department, thanks to all the advertising hurled at us.
Here in Singapore, turning fifty-five is a time-marker that many joke about for it is the d-day of being free to finally, fully own our hard-earned monies.
Due to our highly efficient government, ideologically anchored to what I would describe as an ‘as-humane-as-possible’ market vision of life, all citizens are committed to a savings program once they start work. The money saved can at first be used for housing, and later for certain investments and education of the next generation.
What happens at age 55 is that one is entitled to withdraw monies from this savings scheme — provided, for the safety net it is meant to provide — one has a minimum sum.
I made no withdrawals because the minimum sum now stands at a whopping 96k (and that is the basic sum, we also have the Full Retirement Sum and the Enhanced Retirement Sum).