Fulfilling projects

 My usual New Year greetings is to wish others a 'Fulfilling & Happy' year  because at the back of my mind happiness stems from a sense of fulfillment. When I was younger I felt great sympathy for full time housewives and their lack of deemed 'accomplishment'.

I have often wondered why my mother-in-law (MIL), (who spends her whole life cooking for the family) is such a happy and contented person. If being happy is the measure for having lived a successful life, she would be one such successful person. 

Dare I admit it? Now I am actually getting some satisfaction when people enjoy a dish I whipped up. Every Chinese New Year I've got to cook a dish for 2 separate pot luck gatherings. I would be thrilled to see the food being devoured. Still I am amazed to find myself just before bedtime happily recollecting how I managed to feed my brood of extended family with some food that they relished.  Huh? Is this cheap joy? Is this what fuels my MIL's contentment with life, does she thinks about it every night? Or is this satisfaction of providing wholesome meals for the family an inbuilt project that is achieved daily?

Sartre, one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism said that "In order to ground itself, the self needs projects, which can be viewed as aspects of an individual’s fundamental project and motivated by a desire for “being” lying within the individual’s consciousness". Maybe for a retiree like me, lacking big company projects to work on, I have to hinge on smaller projects for grounding. Yet the level of satisfaction, even without the pomp and the financial rewards enjoyed in the completion of a company project, seems to be no less, especially if the task is done out of love, which could be the 'fundamental project'.

"What is your project?" the ang moh staff at Spotlight asked of me when I needed the required length of some fabric to be cut. He raised his eyebrows in awe when I told him I am making curtains as if I was embarking on a big engineering project. I guess for him his achievement is not only to ensure I get the right material for my project but also to instil some zest in me as well. I guess when the curtains are sewn and hung, my accomplishment will be seeing it drawn to provide comfort to all in the house. Fulfillment, I guess is yours to define.

May we all have a Fulfilling and Happy Year ahead!