At the onset, I am honored to have been invited to attend this gathering with a task of delivering this keynote address. When I received the invitation, I was wondering why this task is given to me. Being an engineer by profession delivering a keynote address before religious people highly regarded as you are, might not jell with the expectations you wanted me to deliver. I really don’t know where to begin, or where to find some references to establish probable relationship between an engineer and a minister. Also, I couldn’t see a perfect starting point on how to draw a relationship appropriate to your topic today about ‘Empowerment of the Retirees through Integrity, Self Esteem, Economic Security, Recreation and Leisure’. I could only see numbers to start with because I am not as adept to biblical verses as you are. This number, I made it simple is not mathematical because I know you won’t care to listen to me anymore when I bring mathematics to an audience like you are. I may call this number a simple serial number, the serial number of our life. I mean to say that my serial number is 55 and yours are much more than mine. Of course, you are much senior than I am today.
At 55, I realized I am lucky and thankful to be invited to a gathering like this because I see this occasion as an awakening moment to start with my preparations for my coming retirement. Sooner I will be entering into your fold as one of you. But am I ready for such an eventuality of my life? The answer really is uncertain as they seem to be, because so many factors will come along the way that may affect all our plans. The prominent factors, as we see them, appear to be of physical, psychological, economic and social concerns. When we get old, the pressing issues affecting us are the negative side of these factors. How will we cope up and overcome the negative side of these factors? I am glad that your association is here to tackle some of these pressing issues. Meantime, allow me to relate to you some case observations I made with older people I happened to associate with in my long years of service not as an engineer but as a human being.
At 55, I realized I am lucky and thankful to be invited to a gathering like this because I see this occasion as an awakening moment to start with my preparations for my coming retirement. Sooner I will be entering into your fold as one of you. But am I ready for such an eventuality of my life? The answer really is uncertain as they seem to be, because so many factors will come along the way that may affect all our plans. The prominent factors, as we see them, appear to be of physical, psychological, economic and social concerns. When we get old, the pressing issues affecting us are the negative side of these factors. How will we cope up and overcome the negative side of these factors? I am glad that your association is here to tackle some of these pressing issues. Meantime, allow me to relate to you some case observations I made with older people I happened to associate with in my long years of service not as an engineer but as a human being.
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