Our Wishes Evolve as We grow Older

Chocolate maker Cadbury has developed a temperature tolerant Dairy Milk that resists melting in hot weather.

The bar can withstand 40oC heat for more than three hours and the product will be sold in warmer countries.

This delightful piece of news means that forgotten chocolate bits left in pockets will no longer turn gooey, for sometime at least.

Certainly one of my childhood wishes come true.

We seem to carry with us a never-ending list of wishes in our hearts and if we really sit down and try to remember, I do believe that many of them have come true.

Why, even Jiminy Cricket (after singing When You Wish Upon a Star in Walt Disney's 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio says: "Pretty, huh? I'll bet a lot of you folks don't believe that, about a wish comin' true, do ya? Well, I didn't, either.

"Of course, I'm just a cricket singing my way from hearth to hearth, but let me tell you what made me change my mind."

Jiminy was talking about Pinocchio, the wooden puppet's wish to become a real boy.

One of my earliest wishes when I was 6 was to get a baby doll.

Then wishes for good school grades, for the ability to enjoy food without growing sideways and for a world without mosquitoes or flies or cockroaches followed.

Sometimes, I wished for the appearance of a fairy godmother, like that in story books who could grant you any wish. To outsmart the fairy godmother, I wished that anything I wished for would come true. In that way I would have what I wished for any day of my life.

When a wish comes true, we are over the moon. We have finally arrived as we have got what we wanted and strived for. We smile and we re-enact the 'happy scene' again and again in our minds.

Yet strangely the period of exuberance and jubilation experienced does not seem to equate the long suffering involved in waiting for the wish to come true.

The thing about wishes is that they evolve over time.

Physiological wishes give way to wishes for safety, for belonging, for self esteem and finally, for self actualisation.

Strangely, wishes mirror Maslow's hierarchy of needs represented in a pyramid with physiological needs at the base and self actualisation at the apex.

Just the other day, I was filling in a form to become a member of an organisation.

One of the questions listed was "What are your wishes?"

Simple enough I thought and began to pen a few lines. Then it dawned on me that my wishes this time round were so different than the wishes that I had before.

It is a strange phenomenon to realise that you are wishing the best for others and hardly any more for yourself.

With time, hopes and dreams fall into place. We have attained some and forgone others. Our perspectives have also changed.

What bothered us before may not irritate us so now. What seemed to be so attractive before has paled in its significance.

As Michael Phillips a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper aptly puts it: "In all His purposes for the world, The Creator allows time to accomplish them.

"Whether it be in an individual heart, in the relationships of a family, or in the history of a nation, time teaches, time heals, time strengthens, time deepens roots and gives perspective.

"For time is an essential element of growth and a necessary catalyst for the development of maturity and wisdom."

It is not so much what I want for myself any more but what I want for others to achieve.

They are wishes for a lack of prejudice and an acceptance of fact. They are wishes for morality, for creativity, for spontaneity and for solutions to problems.

With a whole new year ahead of us, I live in hope that every good thing that we wish for will come true.

source: Our wishes evolve as we grow older - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/our-wishes-evolve-as-we-grow-older-1.470712#ixzz2rfd9F7qx

A Day Off for Mums turns them back on

When my children were young, I would read to them every night before they fell asleep.

One of their favourite books was about a stay-at-home mother who would cook, sew and do practically everything until the father came home. Once in a while, her friends would call over and she would go out with them and the father minded the children.

A simple story but it reminds me of the times when mothers, whether they are working full time outside or at home, need a day out.

My mother had her own days out. She used to go to the Orchid hair salon every Saturday to "set" her hair.

She never missed an appointment and would come home with beautifully coiffured hair, resembling a pineapple, stiffed with hair-spray. Such was the fashion then.

And every Sunday, she would hang up her pots and pans and there was absolutely no cooking done.

Interestingly enough, there are church-run Mother's Day Out programmes, especially for stay-at-home mothers who do not have domestic helpers or relatives to help them mind their children.

Teenagers and young adults run the programme. There is no real structure to the programme, no curriculum or schedule of events.

These volunteers sign up to supervise the children who play, do crafts, learn letters, numbers, shapes, take naps, and eat with their friends. These are typically between three and six hours and are usually two to five days a week.

This gives the mother the much needed break to go grocery shopping without a crying baby, get her hair cut, take a nap, blog or do anything she wants.

The greatest obstacle is the mother's difficulty to deal with the "guilt" of leaving the child with someone else. Whatever form a mother's day-out can take, it is certainly therapeutic. It helps preserve sanity and breaks the mundane cycle of things.

I was in Dublin recently as my daughter was receiving an award from the university. I did not want to drive and thus I took an express bus. It was actually quite fun because I had not travelled leisurely on my own for a while. I had the whole day to myself as the ceremony was at night and my daughter had day lectures.

The bus stopped near Grafton street, which was perfect. All the mannequins in the window display were screaming at the shopaholic in me. I read somewhere that we should not shop on an empty stomach so I took a turn to Georges street where most of the Asian restaurants are. I was spoilt for choice and sat down at a Nepali restaurant for a three-course lunch of piping hot mountain rice topped with well-stewed lamb pakuwa.

I was not disappointed as I imagined myself somewhere in the Himalayas and tasting the food of gods.

There were pigeons everywhere pecking breadcrumbs from off the sidewalks. Obviously, they were not subjected to any signs of a recessive economy as they were so fat, I could not see their legs.

I chuckled when I saw a bus with a big chocolate chip cookie advertisement over it "Chip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" (an ingenious twist of the song from the Disney 1946 animated movie Song of the South).

I thought of my bills that have been paid. I thought of the house mortgage that has been settled.

I thought of no more car loans or any other outstanding loans. I thought of my older two children who are working. I thought of my youngest daughter's education expenses at Trinity that have been taken care of.

It was time to go for the award ceremony. As I walked towards the university in my new dress and matching shoes and handbag, I felt like a million dollars.

It was indeed a mother's day out, a good beginning for a new year.

Source: A day off for mums turns them back on - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/a-day-off-for-mums-turns-them-back-on-1.460352?cache=03%2F7.206773%3Fkey%3DMalaysia%2F7.288059%2F7.308059%3Fkey%3DKuala+Lumpur%2F7.320411%2F7.320411%2F7.330034%2F7.330034%2F7.480850%2F7.480850%2F7.480850%2F7.480850%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.575117%2F7.575117#ixzz2qDDm5Win