about
I designed an interesting name for this website / blog. You can read it as “Age In Gray” (US English), meaning the age when we turn gray. You can also read it as “Ageing Ray” (UK English), meaning the ray of hope during ageing.
You may wonder how my story began. It started when I was 12.
Back then when I was a kid, my grandma stayed near to my family, I used to hold her hand and walk her to my house every day for meals (she preferred to stay nearby instead of under the same household), I enjoyed spending big part of my childhood time with my grandma; I guess also because she doted me a lot.
There was a time, I was thinking how nice if I could have my own eldercare home to take care and spend time with the elderly people? I started dreaming… In that place, I would have all sort of facilities and activities such as a library, meditation room, Chinese garden, pebble path, koi pond, chess room, tai chi class, calligraphy lesson, local tour, mini farm, karaoke room, regular health check and health talk, and many more. My dream grew so big that I even dreamt of setting up an orphanage next to it, so that the kids can learn to take care of the seniors, and seniors can share their life experiences with the kids.
As life gets busy and commitments pile up, this dream has been set aside somewhere in my mind. Somehow, subconsciously, throughout my career, I was wandering around this dream. I worked as an aging research scientist, led a patient education team in hospital, organised regular health check for the community, and managed the operations of a nursing home. During my free time, I picked up skill such as caregiving and befriending a few elderly in my neighbourhood.
People may think that working in a nursing home is the closest to my eldercare dream. Somehow, it was just not the way I wanted it to be. Many of the employees treat it as a job, seldom I see people who truly love and care about the old people. I left them silent in despair.
There was once an opportunity, an investor approached me to set up a nursing home using one of her bungalow houses. After a few discussions, she liked my idea, and I wrote her a 20-page proposal. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out as expected. She demanded to be the main part of the ‘business’ and I must follow her way. The entire plan was aborted eventually, and she took away my proposal.
At the very second, my heart sank, my childhood dream just vanished. The opportunity was right in front of me, yet unreachable. What had I done wrong? I was so lost and miserable…
Going through my options, I have no avenue to source for sponsors, crowdfunding may not be a sustainable solution, no capital and deep pocket to set up a decent nursing home, unable to align my values with an existing nursing home, what else can I do?
I figured that the existing eldercare facilities are here to serve the current population of elderly. Five, ten, twenty years down the road, many will pass on, new cohort will admit. Are the current facilities able to cope with the surge of aging population? How many more new facilities need to be built? Is Ageing-In-Place a sustainable solution? Is multi-generational living workable? There are a hundred and one question marks in my mind.
As the saying goes one door closes, another opens, since I cannot afford to set up my own nursing home competing in the Red Oceans, why don’t I explore my Blue Oceans, preparing the future ageing population, reducing their needs and dependence on nursing care?
Here is where I have this thought of writing a blog for the current young-old (those who are now 40-50 years) or even younger generations, I hope by sharing relevant and useful information, I can plant a seed in your mind, create awareness, prepare you early when you reach the right age, you can still keep up good health, good wealth, good lifestyle, and reduce the needs for caregiving (unless unforeseen circumstances happen). With the help of internet, I can even reach out to more people worldwide as compared to serving a small local population.
In this blog, I will touch on various ageing-related topics such as health, financial, relationship, retirement, lifestyle. In order to prepare ourselves to live a healthy and active lifestyle after 65 years old, you must start preparing as early as 40-50 years old. Of course, if you could start even earlier, you will reap more benefits later.
“One door closes, another opens. Never give up on your dreams, it may just appear in another form”
aikkia