Little steps take us a long way.......................................
I always wonder how small things can change the outlook of our life.Right from the time you get up to the time you go to bed if you know that someone remembers you in little things in their life, it makes the day bright and sunny for you. A busy mom after her morning chores of cooking, sending the kids to school, sending the husband to office feels soooo happy when she goes inside the bedroom to see that her husband has done the bed neatly after he got up. This makes her fly in the sky that she sits to sip her cup of coffee peacefully, though a load of otherthings are in line waiting for her to attend.She thanks him inside for the great help---in her way of thinking it is great. It would have taken just 5mins for him to do it. But the effect of it lingers through the day.It produces positive energy in her.
The answer my son, who is in second standard has written in one of his worksheets for the question " Why is your family important to you ? has made me think how kids value the quality time we spend with them. He has written,"Our family is important to us becos we eat together,we love each other and we go out together. We have affection for each other and we watch movies together." I know these things has been done as a daily routine but for the little hearts these are the bonding chains with the family which gives them the sense of security and confidence. I pretty well know that my son hates to join us for the weekly shopping. Each time we call him he makes a big fuss . But at the end of the day it does have some positive feedback from him.Things done involuntarily also gives you pleasure.
Till my daughter was 4yrs old I used to think when the day will come that she will start reading on her own before going to bed. Now she is 12 . Ofcourse she reads on her own but still "mama can u tuck me in bed?" is the regular request. I get angry sometimes when I am in the kitchen busy with my winding up of my day's work. I shout at her saying "can't u tuck urself ? Even now why do you need me? I am busy cleaning." She moans and then goes to bed. Actually speaking, it just takes 2mins to tuck her and say good night. Since I dont want to leave my job of eternal cleaning in half way I am reluctant to go. But when I do it she is so happy and goes to bed peacefully with a feeling "mama is there to check on me even when I am sleeping." To me it is only spreading the bedsheet on her but to her it means spreading and covering her with all mama's love and affection.
I dont call my friends often. But i make sure I call them on their birthdays or send them a mail wishing them. Sure I know this gives them immense pleasure . Small steps like these take us way deep into the path of happiness. It is just the extra few minutes that u need to spare to make others happy.Yes little steps take us a long way..................
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Are we really color blinded? Or are we pretending to be one??
Are we really color blinded? Or are we pretending to be one?????
Recently there was a news in the Strait Times Paper, Singapore about three people who posted some derrogatory comments on the basis of skin color in the face book. Their FB accounts were terminated I guess. I was wondering just by terminating the accounts is it possible to wipe away the similar thoughts that run through thousands of minds in this world??
Though we all pretend to be color blinded when it comes to skin tone still I feel that differentiating human beings on the basis of skin tone is still predominant in every society.Coming from a town in Tamil Nadu, I know how people are differentiated on the basis of the skin color. When a baby is born, the first question asked is "Is it a boy or a girl?" The second question asked is "Is the baby fair or dark?" There is no question of how the mom and the baby are doing? or is the baby healthy? I dont know whether it is becos of ignorance or that people refuse to accept the fact that a child can take up the color of the grandparents and it involves genes, that is something to do with heriditary . If the parents happen to be fair skinned and the child dark skinned then there is always a question of "from where did u get this color?" I feel this is the most abusive way of testing the child as well as the mom's intergrity.People can choose the gender of the baby not the skin tone of the baby. May be one day when man goes to live in the moon this also will be possible.If it is a girl child the problem is even more prominent. When it comes to marriage age there is always a question of "is the girl fair or dark?" If dark skin, the girl is rejected at the outset even before having a glance of her.
People dont look at the character of a person. Fair skinned people always have an upper hand wherever they go and wat ever they do. Dark skinned people are considered to be less trustworthy, not clean enough, lacking in social etiquettes and so on.Even dark skinned people have no issues in accepting fair skinned people to have a better edge than them. Though we all talk about unity in diversity , love a person for the character, treat everyone equally, I dont think practically we are following this in which ever part of the world we are in.Thousands of Lincolns may come and go but human nature doesnt change that easily. We give a hell a lot of impportance to the skin color. Otherwise why would there be so many fairness and whitening creams and lotions on this planet selling like hot cakes ?
Ironically When it comes to the hair color i guess everyone loves black and when u get a line of silver hair u detest it. It is then that the black color has an abundant value.I have a few questions to those people who show disparity becos of skin color. Do fair skinned people travel for free, eat for free in hotels, shop for free in shops, study for free in universities? Or do they get any discounts? NO !I pay the same school fees for my children as any other white skinned person. I have been paying the same school fees , air fair as any other fair skinned person. But customer service rendered towards the so called fair skinned people is always with a much more welcoming smile.In Asian countries Westerners and Europeans are looked high upon. What kind of a superior tinge do they add to this behaviour other than surrendering to the skin color? When a natural disaster strikes does it spare all the light skinned people and destroy only the dark skinned people? Is there any myth that fair looking people will be hale and healthy while dark skinned people will be disease struck? Are light skinned people immortal and dark skinned people short lived? After one dies is it anything like the body of light skinned people be never be decomposed and only dark skinned people 's body will be decomposed and eaten by worms. We humans with six senses should think that all our lives are short lived. We should learn to accept people as they are.
Let the next generation atleast learn to respect and accept all people alike. This world is global in every sense of the word. So accepting and being accepted becomes part of globalisation. Otherwise we all have to stick to our own coccoon for the fear of not being accepted for our inner self.Let us all learn the lesson from the Ugly duckling story. All that glitters is not gold and Diamond, the precious metal comes from the dark coal. A zebra looks beautiful just becos it has a mix of white and black stripes.If all the zebras look either black or white we wont turn to look at them. Same with our society. Mix of people with different skin tones gives beauty to the society . Let us see black just as any other color.
Recently there was a news in the Strait Times Paper, Singapore about three people who posted some derrogatory comments on the basis of skin color in the face book. Their FB accounts were terminated I guess. I was wondering just by terminating the accounts is it possible to wipe away the similar thoughts that run through thousands of minds in this world??
Though we all pretend to be color blinded when it comes to skin tone still I feel that differentiating human beings on the basis of skin tone is still predominant in every society.Coming from a town in Tamil Nadu, I know how people are differentiated on the basis of the skin color. When a baby is born, the first question asked is "Is it a boy or a girl?" The second question asked is "Is the baby fair or dark?" There is no question of how the mom and the baby are doing? or is the baby healthy? I dont know whether it is becos of ignorance or that people refuse to accept the fact that a child can take up the color of the grandparents and it involves genes, that is something to do with heriditary . If the parents happen to be fair skinned and the child dark skinned then there is always a question of "from where did u get this color?" I feel this is the most abusive way of testing the child as well as the mom's intergrity.People can choose the gender of the baby not the skin tone of the baby. May be one day when man goes to live in the moon this also will be possible.If it is a girl child the problem is even more prominent. When it comes to marriage age there is always a question of "is the girl fair or dark?" If dark skin, the girl is rejected at the outset even before having a glance of her.
People dont look at the character of a person. Fair skinned people always have an upper hand wherever they go and wat ever they do. Dark skinned people are considered to be less trustworthy, not clean enough, lacking in social etiquettes and so on.Even dark skinned people have no issues in accepting fair skinned people to have a better edge than them. Though we all talk about unity in diversity , love a person for the character, treat everyone equally, I dont think practically we are following this in which ever part of the world we are in.Thousands of Lincolns may come and go but human nature doesnt change that easily. We give a hell a lot of impportance to the skin color. Otherwise why would there be so many fairness and whitening creams and lotions on this planet selling like hot cakes ?
Ironically When it comes to the hair color i guess everyone loves black and when u get a line of silver hair u detest it. It is then that the black color has an abundant value.I have a few questions to those people who show disparity becos of skin color. Do fair skinned people travel for free, eat for free in hotels, shop for free in shops, study for free in universities? Or do they get any discounts? NO !I pay the same school fees for my children as any other white skinned person. I have been paying the same school fees , air fair as any other fair skinned person. But customer service rendered towards the so called fair skinned people is always with a much more welcoming smile.In Asian countries Westerners and Europeans are looked high upon. What kind of a superior tinge do they add to this behaviour other than surrendering to the skin color? When a natural disaster strikes does it spare all the light skinned people and destroy only the dark skinned people? Is there any myth that fair looking people will be hale and healthy while dark skinned people will be disease struck? Are light skinned people immortal and dark skinned people short lived? After one dies is it anything like the body of light skinned people be never be decomposed and only dark skinned people 's body will be decomposed and eaten by worms. We humans with six senses should think that all our lives are short lived. We should learn to accept people as they are.
Let the next generation atleast learn to respect and accept all people alike. This world is global in every sense of the word. So accepting and being accepted becomes part of globalisation. Otherwise we all have to stick to our own coccoon for the fear of not being accepted for our inner self.Let us all learn the lesson from the Ugly duckling story. All that glitters is not gold and Diamond, the precious metal comes from the dark coal. A zebra looks beautiful just becos it has a mix of white and black stripes.If all the zebras look either black or white we wont turn to look at them. Same with our society. Mix of people with different skin tones gives beauty to the society . Let us see black just as any other color.
What would you like to name this?
We all talk about spending quality time with our kids and family. Even in my house we talk a lot about this. Most of the time the talk leads to argument and finally disagreement. Which I guess is the case in almost every household. When I ask my busybody husband to spend some quality time with the kids the answer he gives is invariably, "Ok, lets watch something on the tv or go for a movie". According to him sitting together in the same place means spending quality time, which I personally disagree. How can watching tv be quality time?It all starts with wat movie to watch? The disagreement starts with the selection of the movie. In the worst case if one of us doesnt like to watch the movie there is always another choice for that person to go and watch something else in another room. First of all, there is no conversation between anybody. We all are glued to the tv screen that we forget the presence of other person in the same room. We laugh at the jokes individually. There is no sharing of any jokes during the show time.The only conversation is "can we have something to eat?" As the lady of the house , I am entitled to provide the snacks when they demand. I am happy atleast for this they open their mouth. If at all one of us opens the mouth to say something there is always this moaning from someone " cant u keep quiet and watch . I cant hear the dialogue, or I cant concentrate,or if u guys want to talk y cant u go inside the other room and watch." The quality time centers around the word "I".When a similar thing was happening non stop in one of my friends house, she unplugged the tv in the living room and hid all the wires. She is so lucky that her family atleast for the time-being pretended to understand the underlying reason behind it and didnt attempt to reconnect the tv. So when everyone is in the living room they have no other choice other than to talk to each other. I wish this could happen in my house too one day. This is even more worse when in the name of spending quality time we take the kids to the theatre. There u get a big bag of popcorn and never even let the children utter a word other than keep munching the popcorn during the whole movie.During the interval u open ur mouth to ask "Do u want to use the restroom?"Especially when the kids are around 4 to 8 they keep asking so many questions which annoys us and at the end of the movie we feel that we missed most part of the movie.In some movies which we are interested, we tell the kids to keep quiet and watch and that at the end of the movie we wud answer their questions. But all this we do in the name of spending QT with our kids. Yes this is supposed to be approved as quality time. While I call it whiling away the time my husband gives it a respectable term "Quality Time" becos he is without his laptop and is sitting along with us. So wat wud u like to name this???????
MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL
I always imagine being the queen of the house I am as busy as a queen bee. But in reality am I sooo busy ? If I can read the buzzing of the queen bee I will know whether it complains like me about the work it does? Most of the time I try to self pamper myself saying, I do a lot of work , no rest,no recognition for my work, blah blah blah. I seek attention from my family saying I do so many things non-stop from morning to evening for them and that no one shares my work. Isn't this position of a queen chosen voluntarily by me??
I wanted to be the home-maker though I proclaim I did all the sacrifice for my family. It was a self chosen path . I chose this path so that I can take care of my children in a better way. Then why should I crib? I complain about being the first person to get up in the morning and about going to bed last. Does anybody thrust this on me? Absolutely not. It is my moral responsibility right ? I have chosen my home to be my office.I knew pretty well I won't be able to balance between outside office and my own home office. I am the boss of my office . Then why should I complain about every move I make? Is it because I am not getting paid for my service? If I get paid won't I loose my title of being the queen of the house? I never appreciate my husband who let me stay at home because I can't handle too much stress if I happen to work in an office. Instead I complain that I was made to sacrifice my career for the family.
I feel every task I do right from cooking, cleaning, packing lunch, washing, doing laundry , taking care of the kids, teaching them, buying groceries, is like moving a big mountain everyday. Why don't I see it in an different angle? I am doing all this for my dear and loved ones in this whole world. I have to do justice to the role I am playing as a mom and as a wife. For example, instead of saying in one single sentence that I made chapathi for dinner if I go beating around the bush saying, I opened the box with flour, then took a bowl, took some flour, added water, added salt then kneaded till my hand hurt and made chapathi, it makes a simple task seem more complicated .It is just one job accomplished. I try to explain it as a long process so that I get pitied and recognized for the hard work--- which I presume to be.
My husband doesn't tell me ,"I have so much work in the office , why don't you share?" My children don't say"Amma can you share our school homework?" They all do their own job but I am the one who expects that all in the family should share my load of work. But in a more sophisticated way I call it , teaching my kids to be independent and considerate and that my husband should take part in family activities so that he will be a role model to the kids. Isn't "Selfishness" a better word to call this attitude?
Just like they have their own office and school ,I have my beautiful house as my office . I get an extra privilege of hiring someone to help me even. But most of the time I don't realize this privilege.The best part in my office is, no one questions me the way I do my things. The house is in the way I want it to be. I decide where what has to be and how it has to be. I make others follow that . I am not answerable to anyone ---still I complain about my position---ridiculous isn't it? Is this becos of attention seeking after being in the house alone for a long time or is it making a mountain out of a molehill? An idle mind is a devil's workshop. Let me try to see things in a positive way hereafter. Home is where your heart is. Wherever you go you want to feel At Home. To make it a garden of roses is in my hand. I saw a business card printed by one of my friends, where it says,
Mrs.XXXXXX
CEO of the X family.
Family Chef.
I was totally fascinated by the novelty in the card .I could see the self respect my friend has for herself and how she values her role as a home maker and how she enjoys doing it. I appreciate her way of interpreting her role as a home maker.
Hats Off to all the CEO's of several such families!!!!! Lets all try to make rose gardens. Less complaints and more happiness.
P.O After reading this my daughter came up to me and told " mama atlast u understood wat ur role is in our house. hope u won't bother us anymore." Wat do think my answer wud have been?? I told her"Look , all this I wrote to make others feel good and it is only on the paper ( now computer though)
Watever said and done i still go by my notion that i do a lot of work in this house." Till now wat was" My House" became "This House".Typical Mom Ego.
My MOM EGO didnt let me admit wat i really felt inside, how i wanted to see things in a different perspective. Hope time will wash away my mom ego and help me make a rose garden.
C u next week with a new note to ponder over!!
I wanted to be the home-maker though I proclaim I did all the sacrifice for my family. It was a self chosen path . I chose this path so that I can take care of my children in a better way. Then why should I crib? I complain about being the first person to get up in the morning and about going to bed last. Does anybody thrust this on me? Absolutely not. It is my moral responsibility right ? I have chosen my home to be my office.I knew pretty well I won't be able to balance between outside office and my own home office. I am the boss of my office . Then why should I complain about every move I make? Is it because I am not getting paid for my service? If I get paid won't I loose my title of being the queen of the house? I never appreciate my husband who let me stay at home because I can't handle too much stress if I happen to work in an office. Instead I complain that I was made to sacrifice my career for the family.
I feel every task I do right from cooking, cleaning, packing lunch, washing, doing laundry , taking care of the kids, teaching them, buying groceries, is like moving a big mountain everyday. Why don't I see it in an different angle? I am doing all this for my dear and loved ones in this whole world. I have to do justice to the role I am playing as a mom and as a wife. For example, instead of saying in one single sentence that I made chapathi for dinner if I go beating around the bush saying, I opened the box with flour, then took a bowl, took some flour, added water, added salt then kneaded till my hand hurt and made chapathi, it makes a simple task seem more complicated .It is just one job accomplished. I try to explain it as a long process so that I get pitied and recognized for the hard work--- which I presume to be.
My husband doesn't tell me ,"I have so much work in the office , why don't you share?" My children don't say"Amma can you share our school homework?" They all do their own job but I am the one who expects that all in the family should share my load of work. But in a more sophisticated way I call it , teaching my kids to be independent and considerate and that my husband should take part in family activities so that he will be a role model to the kids. Isn't "Selfishness" a better word to call this attitude?
Just like they have their own office and school ,I have my beautiful house as my office . I get an extra privilege of hiring someone to help me even. But most of the time I don't realize this privilege.The best part in my office is, no one questions me the way I do my things. The house is in the way I want it to be. I decide where what has to be and how it has to be. I make others follow that . I am not answerable to anyone ---still I complain about my position---ridiculous isn't it? Is this becos of attention seeking after being in the house alone for a long time or is it making a mountain out of a molehill? An idle mind is a devil's workshop. Let me try to see things in a positive way hereafter. Home is where your heart is. Wherever you go you want to feel At Home. To make it a garden of roses is in my hand. I saw a business card printed by one of my friends, where it says,
Mrs.XXXXXX
CEO of the X family.
Family Chef.
I was totally fascinated by the novelty in the card .I could see the self respect my friend has for herself and how she values her role as a home maker and how she enjoys doing it. I appreciate her way of interpreting her role as a home maker.
Hats Off to all the CEO's of several such families!!!!! Lets all try to make rose gardens. Less complaints and more happiness.
P.O After reading this my daughter came up to me and told " mama atlast u understood wat ur role is in our house. hope u won't bother us anymore." Wat do think my answer wud have been?? I told her"Look , all this I wrote to make others feel good and it is only on the paper ( now computer though)
Watever said and done i still go by my notion that i do a lot of work in this house." Till now wat was" My House" became "This House".Typical Mom Ego.
My MOM EGO didnt let me admit wat i really felt inside, how i wanted to see things in a different perspective. Hope time will wash away my mom ego and help me make a rose garden.
C u next week with a new note to ponder over!!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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