Elderly Challenge-Observation 4

I noticed that the elderly is often treated as nought by people or worse, being considered as 'useless' in the worse case scenario. Often, people do not regard them with the respect they deserve, but rather, with emptiness and often dislike. I know some people loathe senior citizens; I have heard some of them complain about them being dependent on others while not putting in any contributions to society. And therefore, I dare say, the elderly is often neglected by others. People do not give any attention to them when they are in need, and I am going to state some examples.

One, the senior citizens are not offered seats in public transports by egotistic people when they really require it. This scenario has happened a lot of times. The people usually pretend to be engaged in something on their own and pretend to be oblivious to the presence of the elderly. This behaviour is appalling; the government have taken further actions by reserving one or two seats for them, but it is certainly not enough. We need to understand and empathise with the elderly by putting ourselves in their perspective; we need to have the initiative that I believe, many Singaporeans lack.

Secondly, when people walk on pathways, they will sometimes find an elderly having difficulty walking. Instead of helping them, those people will resort to mumbling and grumbling under their breaths or complaining aloud, which I find appalling. Humans have feelings and the elderly are as human as we do; we have to understand people's thoughts and sentiments, otherwise we are no better than being called 'inhuman' by others.

There are many more examples, each which will make us grimace or cringe in disgust. Yes, our thinking has to change, otherwise the society will still stay the same. We can be a developed city, but if we lack the respect to others and ourselves, then we are pretty much useless. Therefore, this very issue has to be improved not by the government or the authorities, but starting with ourselves.