Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Nature vs Urban Life

I received this in my In-box and I have no idea who the original author was. Whoever it is, this article indeed gave us a very good way to re-look at ourselves, nature and today's urban life.

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TO ALL THOSE WHO WERE BORN IN THE 40's, 50's and early 60's

First, we survived with mothers who had no maids . They cooked /cleaned while taking care of us all at the same time.


They took aspirin, candy floss, fizzy drinks, shaved ice with syrup and diabetes was rare. Salt added to Pepsi or Coke was remedy for fever.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

As children, we would ride with our parents on bicycles/ motorcycles for 2 or 3(this we still see insome towns in Malaysia & elswhere). Richer ones in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a private taxi was a special treat.

We drank water from the well & tap and NOT from a bottle.

We would spend hours on the fields under bright sunlight flying our kites, without worrying about UV rays which never seem to affect us.

We go into the jungle to catch spiders without worries of Aedes mosquitoes.

With a mere 5 pebbles (stones), it was an endless game. With a rubber ball (tennis ball best) we boys would run like crazy for hours (game called choppin).

We caught guppy in drains / canals at low tide and when it rained we swam there.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one glass bottle and NO ONE actually worry about being unhygenic.

At that time we were not rich and 10 cents per day as pocket money was a BONUS!

We ate salty, very sweet & oily food, candies,bread and real butter and drank very sweet soft drinks, sweet coffee/ tea, ice kachang, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, till streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. (except when we got home, to face the music from our parents)

We would spend hours repairing our old bicycles and wooden scooters out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, multiple channels on cable TV, DVD movies, no surround sound, no phones, no personal computers, no Internet.WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and we still continued the stunts.

We never had birthday parties till we were 21,

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and just yelled(sometimes we had special whistle sounds to identify us) for them!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Yet this generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned

HOW TO

DEAL WITH IT ALL!

And YOU are one of them!

CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the government regulated our lives for our own good.

and while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.




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To all my friends that like to kill their times in nature…. Another good reason for you to support your family or people that matters to you to enjoy nature!!!

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