Some of you will know this. A Singapore businessman gambled and lost S$26 million at Genting Resort World within 3 days. S$26 million is a huge amount of money which most of us cannot image ever having, not to mention losing it over 3 days. But even this pales beside Mr Terrance Watanabe, who managed to lose 127 million USD during a year long gambling binge in Las Vegas.
I sometimes wonder though if part of this is due to a person being overly focused on work and failing to achieve some proper work life balance. We don’t know who the 50+ years old businessman is, but he really must have been drawn deeply into the thrill of gambling to end up losing so much. The same can be said for Mr Watanabe. He built up a family business into a massive empire over the course of two decades, and did not even get married. He then sold the company in 2000, likely for a massive sum of money. The gambling spree during which he lost over 100 million was in 2007.
I don’t know Mr Watanabe personally, but it seems likely that he focused on his family business and work to the exclusion of everything else in his earlier years, not even getting married, and thus after selling off the business, he had too much time on his hands and did not quite know what to do with himself. Thus, when he stepped into the glittery world of a casino, he was drawn in. He was said to have alcoholic problems as well during that time.
I think this shows that it is important to achieve a good work life balance. In Asia here, we tend to be very workaholic. According to an employment management company, Hudson, Singapore has the highest percentage of respondents in a survey who indicated that they were working more than before.72% of 685 of the respondents in that survey said they worked at least 50 hours a week.
When you put in too many hours into work, burn out, health related problems and other problems may surface. And this also makes the allure of doing crazy things, like gambling your hard earned fortune on the roll of a dice stronger perhaps because it gives people a thrill which they would otherwise have not felt in their busy lives.
People who had been very busy with work for decades, who suddenly put everything down may find that they have lost all meaning or focus in their life. Some, like Mr Watanabe would find themselves drawn to and addicted to activities like gambling and alcoholism which would be self destructive in the long run. Others just fade away. My father mentioned that some of his friends, died within a few years after retirement. They had been too focused on work previously that they simply couldn’t handle the boredom of retirement.
So, while I know I usually talk about investing and stock markets, I do believe it is good to achieve a good work life balance. Even if we are busy, we should take the time to develop some interests outside of work, or simply spend some time with our family. I don’t think people are going to remember what kind of a worker I was at my funeral, but my two kids will certainly remember what kind of father I was, and whether I was there in their lives when it mattered.
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