By
Wu Siu Yan
16 Dec 2002
Chrysler was in bad shape in the 70s, losing millions per day for several years. Chrysler hired Lee Iacocca to be CEO to turn the company around. Lee had worked for FORD for 32 years, and had been President of FORD for eight years.
After some years of intense effort, Lee finally succeeded in turning Chrysler around, making it profitable again.
How was he able to do that ? Apart from his experience and ability, he relied on retired executives of FORD who had been his friends. They all came out of retirement to help him turn Chrysler around.
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The elderly have accumulated much experiences and wisdom, and even after retirement (in USA, executives usually retire at 65), many are still in good health and as capable as when young. In Japan, many top executives are old men in their 80s!
LORD : You shall rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God. [Lev. 19:32]
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When a society does not honor the elderly, the young will not learn from the aged. They may even despise the aged.
And what happens then? They will have to learn everything the aged had learned before (perhaps) at the cost of much bitter experience.
Therefore in such a society, the youth face every danger afresh. And dangers and snares and troubles are not lacking for the inexperienced, who often make mistakes to their own hurt and sorrow, and that may be long-lasting.
Lee Iacocca talked about the suicides in USA,
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Iacocca : When Kelly visited me, she rattled off some statistics that really blew my mind. Every day, as many as 1000 children attempt suicide. Every year, 6500 to 10000 of them succeed. Since the 1950s, the teenage suicide rate in America has tripled.
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The same is true in Hong Kong -- suicides among the young has increased a lot in recent years.
Lee Iacocca said that the elderly can help the young from self-destruction,
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Iacocca : The Oriental mind says, the longer you live, the smarter you get. There's not just respect, there's reverence. Many of the people who run Japan are in their eighties. They've lived long enough and gotten wise enough at least to protect their young people from self-destruction. Nothing is new to them; they've seen it come and go. |
For a society that honors the elderly, the elders pass their experiences and wisdom to the young, who in turn add wisdom and experiences of their own, and pass it to their children. Therefore, there is an accumulation of experiences and wisdom over the years.
But for a society that honors not the elderly, each generation will start afresh, and experiences and wisdom will not accumulate.
If you look around the world, those societies where elders are honored are usually more stable, with much less youth problems, e.g. the Native Americans, the Maoris, the Australian aborigines, ...
Honor the elderly, as LORD taught you, and learn from them.
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Because of the attitude of the society nowadays, which would not honor the elderly, many elders have very little to offer. They have only their own experience, and if they do not learn in their life-time, they have very little to teach to the young.
Elders, have a humble spirit as Jesus taught you : "Blessed are the poor in spirit, ... " [Mt 5:3], learn and learn and learn until the day you no longer are in this world, then you will have something to pass to your children.