Karoshi - Death by Overwork.

When you bring up a daughter, watch her take her first step, speak her first word, hold her hand and embrace her tightly, the bond lasts a lifetime. 

You teach her to love, to hope and to be strong at all times. You also watch her grow, mature, graduate and walk down the aisle, with tears of joy. 

This equally applies to sons too. They are the pride of your life, your crowning achievement regardless of their status in life, their job ranking or academic standing. Your love for them is unconditional; it is lifelong.

So, the papers this morning about a case of karoshi in Japan is something I can relate to intimately as a father with a son and two daughters. 

FYI, Karoshi literally means "death by overwork."

There is in reality a face to such tragedy and a mother's broken heart to such unbearable pain. 

The face is a young Dentsu employee named Ms Matsuri Takahashi, and her mother, Mrs Yukimi Takahashi, seeks solace in the memory of her beautiful daughter, who once was full of life, hope and passion before she was inducted into a dispassionate world where those who have owns the life and time of those who don't. 

In modern vernacular, it is called the relentless market-driven pyramid society where less than 1% at the top owns half the world's wealth and controls the lives of billions at the bottom; most of them are largely quietly dispensable in their pursuit to sustain their unimaginable opulence. 

It reports that "Ms Takahashi, who worked 105 hours of overtime in October 2015, became depressed and jumped to her death from a company dormitory on Christmas Day. She left behind a trail of grievances on social media about her relentless working hours and boss' verbal abuse."

In the past year alone, Japan had 191 deaths and they are related to karoshi - death by overwork. 

And it is increasing by the year. The report also "showed that 7.7 per cent of employees in Japan regularly log more than 20 hours of overtime a week." 

This is in fact not the first case for Dentsu. In 2013, a reporter, Ms Miwa Sado, was covering political news in Tokyo when she was "found dead in her bed in July 2013, reportedly clutching her mobile phone."

Ms Sado's mother said: "My heart breaks at the thought that she may have wanted to call me in her last moments." 

Lesson? One, and we can stop pretending that the world's richest are readily prepared to put their accumulated wealth and estate aside, or compromise its value, for the benefit of the thousands - whom they hardly know - who are slavishly generating the net worth for them - day in, day out.

The world will not magically become fair just because we wish for that to happen. 

Alas, the rich will want more, because at some point, it is not so much about the money, but about who dies with the biggest toys. 

Of course, we appreciate the rich for providing jobs, grateful for the risk they take for sustaining employment. But as the income gap widens, and their acquisition becomes a competitive obsession, we as parents have to be realistic about the world our children will be entering into. It's no Eden, but a winner-takes-all society.

The truth is, there are many good bosses out there who think and act in their employees' interests, but even they - quite unwittingly and even unknowingly - fall into the trap of turning human means into a self-sustaining end in a world that puts a premium on avarice, fame and power. 

Exploitation, bullying and self-esteem destruction are prevalent in a world under immense pressure to perform, acquire and self-enrich. Sadly, the system devours the Individual and all that is good within him/her. 

Except for their own family members, bosses' workers, especially those in the field and in the factory floors, are often reducible to a payroll identity on a computer-generated payment voucher. 

As such, they are more readily dispensable, or seen as a cog in the wheel of a larger system obsessed with sustaining the businesses at all costs, and making the profit motive its first coveted priority over the human face of their workers. 

So, if I am going to end this post here, I will end it on a pragmatic, but loving, note to my daughters and son, who will one day grow up to enter into this world where the system threatens to set aside their humanity, hope and joy in its headlong rush to enrich those at the top at the expense of those at the bottom. 

Bearing this in mind, I will constantly remind them of their inner worth. Their worth comes from the love we have for them, the hope we see in them, and the joy they can always savour when they think of the memories we once shared with them.

Resilience in love will outlast any biting endurance in the faith we put in money, fame and power. 

Love ultimately overcomes all - that is, love of family, spouses, children and true friends. 

I will also tell them that they always have a choice, and that choice cannot be taken from them because even God who granted them that freedom of will respects and treasures it above all of creation. 

And that power of choice frees them from the tyranny of men, their greed, and their exploitation. 

More relevantly, this power of choice liberates them from the mindless urge to abandon their humanity to become part of this toxic system where they sacrifice what is their inner worth for a value that does not last, a worth that rusts, and a worldly treasure that even the richest amongst us cannot bring with him to his grave.

Lastly, and most importantly, should they become rich and successful in their own rights (and toil), they must never forget their roots, that is, where they come from, and always treat people, regardless of colour, rank or age, as an end rather than a means to their self-serving ends. 

Armed with overcoming love, the God-given power of choice and putting others first as an end and never a means, I trust my children will stand on solid ground wherever they are to embrace and do what is right when the time is most pressing and when temptation is most compelling. 

And hopefully, they themselves will lead exemplary lives their children will come to witness, learn and follow. Cheerz.