Stop whining and get on with life

Saw this really inspiring story on NST. Just hope this will inspire us.

NEXT time you think you’re having a bad day, consider this story.

Chik Salleh is bent by age and is as thin as a broomstick. The yellowed documents in her hand say that she is 92 but she swears that she is 112. Perhaps her age is the only issue of dispute in her difficult life.

This is a typical day in the life of this woman who calls the Felda settlement in Bukit Tembaga in Kedah her home. She wakes up at dawn every morning, and faces a day as bleak as the overcast sky during the monsoon season.

You see, Chik not only has to survive on RM100 from the Welfare Department every month, she also has to look after her 54-year-old grandson.

He is paralysed from waist down and has suffered from a speech defect since he was a boy. His condition was too much for his parents to handle. So they moved to Selama in Perak.

But if you think that his aged guardian is going to start ranting and raving about her lot in life, think again. She blames no one and says this matter-of-factly: "His parents could not look after him because they suffer from old age."

Bathing Md Saad Osman is a tough task. She gets a neighbour to help him into the bathroom and then scoops tumblers of water onto her grandson. After helping him to change, she sets about doing her household chores — washing, cleaning and cooking. She has to be careful about exerting herself because asthma has been a constant companion for years.

Meals are simple because RM100 does not stretch very much these days. She says: "Sometimes we have to eat rice and salted fish."

Still, she lives every moment. No whining. No giving up. No excuses.

She knows that someone depends on her waking up every day and carrying out her routine like clockwork. She is so aware of what her duty is. Of what her obligation to her kin is.

So she does not use age, sickness or gut-wrenching poverty as a crutch. This was the way it was for many older Malaysians.

They just got on with their lives, no matter how difficult the circumstances, no matter how little money there was to go around. From the portly teacher to the sinewy badminton player who represented the country at the All-England championships to the civil servant at the Sultan Abdul Samad building, they all seemed to have a deep sense of duty.

Excuses were not their calling card. In fact, leaning on excuses was a sign of weakness to the men and women of Malaysia’s older generation.

Tan Aik Huang, Tan Yee Khan and Eddy Choong did not complain about the bitter cold when they competed in England. In 1966, Aik Huang clinched the All-England title and two gold medals at the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.

In fact, his medals were the country’s only golds in Jamaica and the nation’s first golds at the Commonwealth Games for 16 years.

He was the favourite in Kingston and delivered when it mattered most.

"My memories are for the first time standing on the rostrum, listening to the national anthem and looking at the flag. It was a great moment," said Aik Huang a few years ago.

Fast forward to the World Badminton Championships in Madrid last month. Witness the world’s top player Lee Chong Wei flounder on the court against China’s Bao Chunlai, a player not in his class on most days.

Witness him leave the court, head bowed. And then listen to him serve up a dish of excuses. Lee said he lost his cool during the match after the Chinese coach Li Yongbo, who was seated in the crowd, yelled for Bao to break his legs.

"It is very unsportsmanlike and unbecoming of a chief coach to behave like that. His intention may have been to affect me psychologically, but this is not the right way to do it.

"This is badminton, not boxing. A chief coach should not stoop so low to get his player to win the match. And it is also not the first time that Li has asked his player to break my legs. He also did it during the Hong Kong Open final when I played Lin Dan," said the wiry badminton player.

He is right. A coach should not be uncouth. And there should be less gamesmanship in sports. But whoever said that everything in sports was a walk in the park.

Sports, like life, is often unfair. The challenge is to ride the valleys and peaks of life and sports with the same sense of drive and duty.

Chik Salleh does it every day. Can we?