New Year, New Dreams, New Aims

We are a little less than a fortnight into the new year and 2022 promises to look exciting. The year 2021 came and went and nobody felt bad about it coming to an end. I mean it’s a complete year, a twelve-month duration from our lives and yet everyone I spoke to was glad it was over. Kind of sad but then I guess each one of us had our own reason for that. But I can’t get myself to blame it for the way things went. I believe it’s all in the head; it’s how we want to look at it.

With a flip of the page, we are into the next year. The glossy new calendar page showed brightly printed numbers up to 31 and declared it was January. It’s cyclical, it’s repetitive, it happened before, yet somehow it feels different this time. I was feeling a surge of energy as if it was telling me to clear out the cobwebs and start all over again. The wait for the new year was strangely stimulating. The world needs a strong dose of hope now, doesn’t matter which company or source. The pandemic has got to everyone, sparing no one – young or old, rich or poor, rural or urban areas. In times like these, all we need is hope. And what better time to restart than the beginning of the new year. As per the Hindu calendar, we celebrate the new year a little later. But what the heck, celebrations are all about spreading joy and happiness. So we can celebrate once again later.

The first thing I decided to do was not to make any resolutions. Yes, that’s the first thing I decided to do. Resolutions have a tendency of not making it beyond the first few months (sometimes even weeks!) of the year, at least that’s true in my case. And then starts the slow demotivating slide. So, I figured the best thing to do was to do away with it. Instead, I made a list of all things I have been meaning to do and have not been able to do for whatever reasons. The COVID restrictions, frequent lockdowns, the long hours before the computer have somehow made me more unproductive, demotivated, apathetic, and far less unimaginative. The gradual decline crept up sneakily and I was totally possessed even before I knew it. And it’s not just me; I’ve noticed not-so-pleasant changes in people around me too. It’s then I started looking around desperately for ways to break the spell and move out when I saw the hope of the new year beaming on the horizon. It inspired me to break out of the reverie and take the corrective decisions.

I fervently wrote out my list of ‘To-do’ this year. Reading more than the target number of books, writing more often and much more, reclaiming my health and sanity (first things first), getting my guitar out from the cold, getting my running groove back, travelling more often (that’s on the top of the list), brushing up my languages, retrying my hand at gardening despite all the opposition (my family holds me single-handedly responsible for the decreasing green cover in our neighbourhood!) and the list went on and on. Just making the list got me so excited that I was waiting for the first day of 2022 in feverish anticipation.     

That’s my to-do list. But there’s something even more important that I feel I need to do and that is to spend more time with myself. In the rush to impress others or meet the targets or complete deadlines, being ourselves gets relegated to the sidelines. Maybe it’s the age thing but I realise I don’t like to dwell too much on what is expected of me or what others think about everything and anything that happens. So who am I trying to impress by being such a pseud? So this year it’s all about going all out and being myself. If I can get myself to be happy from within, then the results will show by themselves.

I think it will happen. The positive vibes are certainly there. Even though the new year began with a customary resurgence of the third way (I say customary because it has now become a way of life and we need to accept it if we want to move ahead). If only the good wishes could spread as fast as this variant of the virus! Sankranti is already here. It’s celebrated all over the country, the first festival of the year. It’s a festival that celebrates new life, a new cycle of the season, new harvest. Sankranti literally means movement, and movement is life. An auspicious beginning to the new year. It’s time to move forward, live a more meaningful life. 

I can still feel it. The energy, the excitement, the anticipation coursing through me, egging me to keep at it. Well, I am hoping to cross out most of the things on that list before the end of the year. What have you planned for this year? Any new resolutions? Do share and let’s see if we can try to keep each other motivated and on track.