BRO, WHY IS LIVING SO COSTLY, LAH?
There may be very little we can do, but do it we must
In the meantime, mortals such as you and me, armed with metaphorical stones and sticks, must do what we can. Perhaps we can scarcely hold back the forces that are pushing up prices and pushing out our dreams. But if we do nothing, this portion of misery which we received will we bequeath to our children too. random; are not at least four obese or overweight?
It is a sign of the times; a portent of uglier things to come. The waist grows, health ebbs and cash goes.
As recent as in 2017, the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Tackling Obesity in Asean” report said in Malaysia, the prevalence of obesity was at 13.3 per cent, with 38.5 per cent of the population overweight.
A monstrous toll does the condition exact, “equivalent to between 10 per cent and 19 per cent of national healthcare spending”.
Sadly, we ourselves, by our miserable habits, are conspirators in fuelling the rise in healthcare costs. Are we not eating ourselves into despair and debt with eyes wide open?
A good number in the upper reaches of the M40 group are untouched by the rise in prices. To them fortune has been kind, but some speak as if their troubles are equal to the hardships of B40 citizens.
I grow weary of them, those who groan about the cost of living (and blame the rulers) but who possess this and that and much more, and whose only obvious poverty is in the richness of their selfishness.
They should be ashamed.
They, along with the T20 superrich, should make it a mission to aid their fellow man and woman instead. But if they choose to do nothing, then they must at least read about the great French upheaval in 1789 — of the fate that may await them.
Still, in Jenaris and in the wider lands that I love dearly, there is no rumour abroad of upheaval. Not a whisper. For we know that the cost is too high. Higher still than the rising cost of living.
But, sisters and brothers, we have to keep on believing that in this square of earth under heaven, we can make a difference.