Country Life Interests

Waikato Times, Volume 123, Issue 20693, 31 December 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Country Life Interests

A page devo** - ! to the interest* of the Country Women ef ths Waikato, and in particular to advancing and reoordlng the activities of those two great national organisations, the Women’s Institutes ttto Women’s Division of the Farmers’ Union.

1939 NEW YEAR WISHES Wishing Day is here again ! Christmas Day was, of course, an orgy of wishes fulfilled. But since then we have had the usual six days'Jull In so to speak, failed completely. We have opened out we have eaten our mince pies, the Old Year has lain a-dvlng, and ws have had nothing left to wish for in 1938. But all that was yesterday. To-day the little New Y'ear sets it* ladder against the nearest star and cries, “I want I I want P* And instantly we all begin to think out our New Year wishes. There is mure chance, somehow, of a wish coming true on January i, with a nice blank year ahead, than on any later day. Which, then, of your innumerable wishes are you going to choose this year ? For wishing is like breathing to most of us. “I wish I were at home”; “I wish I were In bed**; "I wish I hadn't to go out”; “I wish I weren’t so tired**; “I wish J liked tomatoes**; "J wish I wore rich”; “I wish you’d pass me the scissors”; “1 wish you wouldn't be so late”; *T wish ” “I wish I daresay we use that sighing word at least ten times every half-hour. That makes four hundred ihd eighty wishes a day — over one hundred and seventy thousand a year. Now why is a successful wish so uncommonly rare? i think it is because a wish generally upsets, or tries to upset, some little arrangement- or other of destiny. And destlnj hates Interference. And yet it’s a game that we all play, at some time or another that mat of three wishes. And the odd tiling is that if you ask people to-day, the odds are that they will pick out the same three wishes with which the goddesftes tempted Paris ten thousand years ago, though they will generally add a fourth wish—the typical wish of our civilisation —for health. Try it—what are your three or lour wishes ? But I must warn you that to play the game properly it is necessary to observe the nursery rules and make your wishes selfish ones. Otherwise, from beginning with wishing for enough monry to do away with poverty altogether, you will find yourself launching out into Impossible phi end by wishing the world free of stupidity, cruelty, injustice and dirt. We will not limit them to mere health, wisdom, power and Jove. We can choose anything we like. But I’d stick to health at all costs. I’d certainly ask for wealth, which provides nearly everything else one can want, the emotions apart. Next, J think l*d wish for worts, the certainty of congenial work as long as I lived. And last, I’d ask for heart’s desire. t>y Uiat I mean the Instant granting of one b darling wish of the moment, quite regardless of the fact that one may not want it in ten years' time. Three of one’s four wishes ought to be prudent ones, but heart's desire is a gamble. Heart's dea -10 term, certainly, but the pleasure in this wish is its secrecy. You can wish for heart’s desire without giving yourself away, even to the gods who grant it. But all my wishes, you see, are Just like everybody else’s wishes. Whatever names i give them they are merely splinters or the four great wishes—health, wealth, wisdom and happiness. So it comes to t:i;s. We all wish for the same things, and our wishes cheat us. We lose our health, and our work goes from us. We are not very wise, and we certainly don’t get our heart’s desires. What is wrong wIMi our wishes ? Have we got hold of the wrong series Is there no alternative luckier set of wishes ? I con think of only one. and that is so familiar that one forgets its promise and its beauty. The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The- Resurrection of the body, And the life everlasting. 1 am not sure, now I think it over, that I wouldn't sooner have these four wishes this New Year than any amount of health, wealth, wtadoui and happiness.