Dream on...

Dream, believe, achieve is emblazoned on my teenager's sweatshirt when she surfaces late morning. Not that there is any rule about squeezing achievements into the early part of the day - the placement of dirty cereal bowls in the dishwasher is generally good enough for me. "That's a nice thought for the new year," I tell her in my cheery voice (she can be a little temperamental before her first slice of toast so I have to tread gently). If only it was that easy, I think quietly to myself.

Maxims for the new year

Life is about striving in one way or another, no more so than at the start of a new year. The slate has been wiped clean, the days are growing longer and we are buoyed up by the belief that a few new numbers on the calendar will make all the difference. If Theresa May can feel chipper about making progress with her Brexit deal (assuming she believes her own rhetoric), then my own small-scale goals should be relatively achievable.

Time out from tigerish endeavours

About ten days ago, I was stood on a ferry in Hong Kong's Discovery Bay, wondering what my kitchen looked like. For a few seconds (shock, horror) I struggled to recall the exact positioning of my sofa and the layout of our cupboards. As I stared out at the twinkling lights of Lantau Island in the dusk, life back home felt like million miles away.

Lantau Island: living in the moment

I put my temporary memory loss down to a strange condition: living in the present tense. To exist purely in the moment, without reflecting on the past or worrying about the future is very rare state for me. The only time I ever manage to blinker myself in this way is when I am on holiday.

So while I was gorging on dim sum, haggling in Temple Street market or even practising handstands in the swimming pool, all my usual hang-ups and busy thoughts were put on hold. For a couple of weeks, I was like Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love (with less of the praying and a lot more steamed dumplings).

Reading Red magazine on the long flight home, I stumbled across an article that examined this tension between living for the moment and planning for the future. It was an interview with Amy Chua, the apocryphal Tiger Mother who pushed her kids to extreme levels of self-betterment.