Create With An Attitude

My favorite pastime is having traditional snacks and patisseries. During the past three pandemic years, I’ve always had a stash of savoury or sweet in the fridge. Lockdown or not.

The other day, I ordered a box of mixed snacks. I had a bite at this croquette or kroket as Indonesians like to call them, and I tell you, this croquette was not made with love.

You see, the taste and flavors were all there, but the potatoes, which is the easiest part, was rocky, lumpy, not mashed properly and carelessly wound around the fillings, like an unwanted duck down blanket wrapped around your waist on a sultry summer beach day.

I mean, you could TELL. Not made by a happy baker.

Love in a Box

On the contrary, it never ceases to amaze me to see the amount of detail, and effort that the chef takes to include, like a few crispies or sea salt in the tiniest liliput bag that you could drizzle over your 1.5 cm bite-size tartlets for that bit of crunch, or when the Picnic roll orders is on hold, because the baker couldn’t get the specific mustard as ingredient for the side-sauce accompanying the roll, due to Covid delivery interruptions.

Cottonandtarlets's love in a box

The list goes on.

Appreciating Pleasure

BBC says that enjoying or appreciating the pleasure of, rather than feeling obligatory about doing something, increases its positive outcomes.

In BBC’s Why pleasure is key to losing weight, an experiment of two milkshakes with very different descriptions was conducted.

The first milkshake was described as indulgent, rich, delicious, sumptuously smooth, heaven in a bottle while the other one was described as healthy and light.

After consuming the milkshakes, ghrelin hormone levels, which are responsible for our appetite and feeling hungry, were measured. It showed that people consuming the first milkshake had a much faster rise and drop in ghrelin hormone levels than the second. The lower your levels, the more full you feel, and the easier it is to eat fewer calories.

Therefore the perception and anticipation of pleasure impacts our mind-body.

Once something is seen as obligatory, rather than voluntary, joyful acceptance or appreciation, it becomes backbreaking work.

And that, changing our perception and our beliefs changes results.

By perceiving more things as pleasurable and satisfying, we place our whole being in a space of being able to receive greater fulfilment and positive outcomes.

So the next time you feel you need to embark on a not so exciting task, take a moment to switch on that Positivity button, try to think of a new postitive coming out of it. You may find that a positive anticipation could go a long way.