SINGAPORE: Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said the biggest mistake one can make is to retire and not stay mentally and physically active.

That is why he continues to stimulate himself mentally by staying updated with developments and interacting with people.

Mr Lee was speaking at a dialogue at the Silver Industry Conference and Exhibition held at the Suntec Convention Centre on Friday.

He noted that for most people, retirement is a much awaited time for rest. But Mr Lee warned that a tendency to withdraw from everything will leave a person with no purpose in life. This is what he certainly does not intend to do.

Mr Lee said: "I'm determined that I will not, as long as I can, ... have my horizons close on me like that. It is the stimuli, it is the constant interaction with people across the world that keeps me aware and alive to what's going on and what we can do to adjust to this different world. In other words, you must have an interest in life."

The Minister Mentor warned that if a person believes in retiring at 55 years old to read books, play golf and just sit back to enjoy life, he will be done in.

That's because, Mr Lee said, research has shown that a person who leads a sedentary life is more likely to die earlier.

So, his advice is that it's best to keep on working and challenge oneself physically and mentally.

In fact, Mr Lee does not even believe in having a retirement age.

He said: "I think a man should go on working or a woman should go on working as long as they can but changing the nature and intensity of the work, as he ages.

"Retirement means death. If you ask me, for me, retirement would have meant death. I would have just shrunken up. I will not be able to speak to you in this way if I've not led a very active life, connected with the world, connected with many people throughout the world, reading, talking, understanding, assimilating and trying to interpret it to make sense for Singapore."

But Mr Lee pointed out that it is difficult for Singapore to change a world practice that has been passed down since the British rule.

He said: "It's difficult to switch from what was a world practice that we adopted, the British left us with it. (First, it was) 55, we pushed it up to 60, and then to 62."

On his health, the Minister Mentor admitted that he used to be a heavy smoker and drinker, when he was in his 30s.

But smoking caused him to lose his voice and that prompted him to quit.

He recalled: "I was about 34 (years old), we were competing in elections and I was very fond of drinking beer and smoking. After the election campaign, in the town memorial hall (we had won the city-council election campaign), I couldn't thank my voters because I had lost my voice."

Then came the time for him to watch his drinking habit.

He said: "One day, I was at the home of my colleague, Mr Rajaratnam, meeting foreign correspondents including some from the London Times and they took a picture of me and I had a big belly.....a beer belly. I thought, 'no, no. This won't work'. So I started to play more golf, hit hundreds of balls on the practice tee. But this didn't go down. There's only one way it could go down. Consume less, burn out more."

Turning 85 this year, Mr Lee said he never planned to live to this age.

"My mother died when she was 74, she had a stroke. My father died when he was 94. So my calculations are somewhere between 74 and 94, and I'm now at the halfway point," he said.

During the hour-long dialogue, Minister Mentor Lee also clarified a comment he made at a recent Institute of Southeast Asian Studies event.

He had said that Singapore should strive to become more like Italy and Austria. Some thought he was referring to the economic standards of those two countries.

But, Mr Lee said, that's not quite what he meant. What he actually meant is that Singapore should strive to become a cultured society like Italy and Austria.

"Let's move in the direction of being a cultivated society and be what Italy has in its culture and civilisation and what the Austrians have. We must make economic growth. Without economic growth, we won't be here today. We won't have the connectivity, we won't attract people to be part of the world. But having made this, let's now raise our cultural levels and in the next 15, 20, 30, 40 years, by the next two generations, we have a more cultivated society," he said. - CNA/ir