Days turns to night and months to years.
You live long enough with someone and soon years pass before you really talk to each other.
Soon they have a feeling that it was a different person they met those early years.
It was someone attentive, fun, sensitive, helpful, someone everything more!
And maybe you start to think that they didn’t turn out to be all that they promised to be.
And lately you may have this feeling that You are just someone who lives with an unknown person,
and maybe the phrase "taken for Granted" comes to your mind,
maybe you have the feeling that all the love, the passion, the hunger for each other have been washed away in the rushing days of our present life.
Maybe you don't feel appreciated, cared for, understood by the person who promised the world but somehow failed to deliver .
Maybe you don't even feel Loved.
And MAYBE Everything is true - Maybe the best friend in the world didn't turn out to be that great a spouse.
But maybe then again that unfeeling person actually feels and want to scream that You were and are the best thing that happened to them.
A thousand lives, better a thousand dreams, they would be willing to sacrifice to have and keep your love.
Maybe the years have not ravaged the ardor, the passion, the thirst, the craving for you.
Maybe the silence is just a reaffirmation of the love and the comfort they feel with you.
Maybe today they would reiterate they are nothing without you. Today they tell you that you are the pride, the beauty, the alpha and the omega of life for them
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Ideal Idol Worship
So yesterday I wrote about my muddled search for a personal idol and not trusting it to be single fallible person or even a group of famous people I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual realization.
It’s true I do not have a single role model because what I have had are thousands of role models. Every single person I have met in my life has had their faults but then each and every one of them also had something I could admire, emulate and desire.
Starting from my Mom’s enormous thirst for knowledge; to my Dad’s sunny optimism and literary bent; to my wife’s uber cool non-sanctimonious nature; to my kids’ infectious curiosity.
Among my friends I have been encouraged by seeing someone taking control of their diet and body, to someone sacrificing their career for their family, to someone having the courage to rejoin the work force after years of homemaking, to someone leaving a cushy job to follow their dreams.
I have picked up tips from people tasteful décor, to their knowledge of wine and food, I have acquired gems of philosophy from a barely literate rustic, discovered the ability to step back and laugh from staid old maids, learnt how to maintain my ethics and integrity from a go getting ambitious woman. Found the value of empathy from a boss who realizes you have a life beyond work and from the lunch lady who smiles and relaxes each new comer. Understood 'love thy neighbor' from a neighbor who helps you above and beyond what’s required.
Note I have never been reticent about the qualities I see. I bring it up and mention it constantly, sometimes I have been accused of insincere flattery. People who do not realize I’m only highlighting qualities they themselves should be aware and so what if I embellish it with a few over the board adjectives. Sometime we ourselves are not aware of the heroic qualities we posses or even the rare greatness of character that shines through.
So that’s my unassuming suggestion to anyone like me who does not have a role model. Look around; there are mentors all around, little tidbits you can glean from nearly every one you meet. If you pick up all the disparate things you admire in the varied people you meet you really would/could become that supreme idol worth worshipping.
It’s true I do not have a single role model because what I have had are thousands of role models. Every single person I have met in my life has had their faults but then each and every one of them also had something I could admire, emulate and desire.
Starting from my Mom’s enormous thirst for knowledge; to my Dad’s sunny optimism and literary bent; to my wife’s uber cool non-sanctimonious nature; to my kids’ infectious curiosity.
Among my friends I have been encouraged by seeing someone taking control of their diet and body, to someone sacrificing their career for their family, to someone having the courage to rejoin the work force after years of homemaking, to someone leaving a cushy job to follow their dreams.
I have picked up tips from people tasteful décor, to their knowledge of wine and food, I have acquired gems of philosophy from a barely literate rustic, discovered the ability to step back and laugh from staid old maids, learnt how to maintain my ethics and integrity from a go getting ambitious woman. Found the value of empathy from a boss who realizes you have a life beyond work and from the lunch lady who smiles and relaxes each new comer. Understood 'love thy neighbor' from a neighbor who helps you above and beyond what’s required.
Note I have never been reticent about the qualities I see. I bring it up and mention it constantly, sometimes I have been accused of insincere flattery. People who do not realize I’m only highlighting qualities they themselves should be aware and so what if I embellish it with a few over the board adjectives. Sometime we ourselves are not aware of the heroic qualities we posses or even the rare greatness of character that shines through.
So that’s my unassuming suggestion to anyone like me who does not have a role model. Look around; there are mentors all around, little tidbits you can glean from nearly every one you meet. If you pick up all the disparate things you admire in the varied people you meet you really would/could become that supreme idol worth worshipping.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Idle Idol Worship
Some time ago a friend asked me who did I idolize. As I visibly struggled to think of a role model, he good naturedly mocked me saying "You probably think you are too good to have an idol".
His words stuck with me as I thought more and more about it. Was it my ego that made me assume that I did not need to look up to anyone?
Recently I was sort of introduced via a dear friend to someone who has accomplished everything I have dreamt of. He is an air force officer, a national award winner, has the extremely rare achievement of circumventing the earth, and to top it all is a published author, probably witty and personable too. Sadly I never followed up on a possible friendship, what if he turned out to be arrogant and condescending, or even dismissive. What if on a personality level we did not have anything in common? I had him on too high a pedestal to risk the falling off so I just kept my distance. Foolish? I agree. My neuroses? probably. Irrational? surely.
It’s true that I don't/can't worship anyone; it is true I do not wish to emulate anyone. I think it just not restricted to me but true for a lot of us. It actually may be really common in our modern cynical society. We all have seen the so called inspirational leaders with feet of clay. The more you read, the more you listen, the more you observe, the more you realize no one is perfect.
Role models and idols should be the fulcrum of leadership. People, whom you read, emulate and try to define your success by how close you can come to copying their mannerisms, choices and lifestyles. But in this day and age when everyone's life has been picked apart, we know no one is perfect.
Look at the great figures of recent history; Mother Teresa has been criticized for using her charitable work to promote her Catholic beliefs; Gandhi for general abandonment of his own family; Martin Luther King Jr. for allegations of infidelity; Even Jesus using violence when he ran the people out of the temple. You realize People are just people; human beings are mortal feeble beings. So we stop expecting them to be super men. And we take the cynical viewpoint of being our own idol.
That relief I felt at knowing I was not really egoistic was tinged with disappointment at my inability to have a role model. As Ben Johnson said “Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.”
So was I a fool?, someone who thought was even above Aristotle whose idea of virtue ethics relies largely on the effects role models have on people.
So I went back to reflecting and realized something wonderful, More about that later……
His words stuck with me as I thought more and more about it. Was it my ego that made me assume that I did not need to look up to anyone?
Recently I was sort of introduced via a dear friend to someone who has accomplished everything I have dreamt of. He is an air force officer, a national award winner, has the extremely rare achievement of circumventing the earth, and to top it all is a published author, probably witty and personable too. Sadly I never followed up on a possible friendship, what if he turned out to be arrogant and condescending, or even dismissive. What if on a personality level we did not have anything in common? I had him on too high a pedestal to risk the falling off so I just kept my distance. Foolish? I agree. My neuroses? probably. Irrational? surely.
It’s true that I don't/can't worship anyone; it is true I do not wish to emulate anyone. I think it just not restricted to me but true for a lot of us. It actually may be really common in our modern cynical society. We all have seen the so called inspirational leaders with feet of clay. The more you read, the more you listen, the more you observe, the more you realize no one is perfect.
Role models and idols should be the fulcrum of leadership. People, whom you read, emulate and try to define your success by how close you can come to copying their mannerisms, choices and lifestyles. But in this day and age when everyone's life has been picked apart, we know no one is perfect.
Look at the great figures of recent history; Mother Teresa has been criticized for using her charitable work to promote her Catholic beliefs; Gandhi for general abandonment of his own family; Martin Luther King Jr. for allegations of infidelity; Even Jesus using violence when he ran the people out of the temple. You realize People are just people; human beings are mortal feeble beings. So we stop expecting them to be super men. And we take the cynical viewpoint of being our own idol.
That relief I felt at knowing I was not really egoistic was tinged with disappointment at my inability to have a role model. As Ben Johnson said “Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool for his master.”
So was I a fool?, someone who thought was even above Aristotle whose idea of virtue ethics relies largely on the effects role models have on people.
So I went back to reflecting and realized something wonderful, More about that later……
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Parting
She was going to leave him. There was a joyous excitement within her tinged with a little fear. She did not really know how it would enfold, she was really not afraid of him making a scene or passionately remonstrating. After all he was always in total control. That was what had appealed to her for a fleeting time in the very beginning.
But now she felt it was almost inhuman. Everything he did was so well thought out, so by the book, She could not complain about him missing an anniversary or not making solicitous calls to her old parents. He guided her through her nascent career, he helped her brother through his college. He actually had a hand in helping everyone he came across. He did it quietly, unemotionally and never went overboard with the assistance he provided. A nudge, a word, a little help and he changed the person’s world. He arranged magnificent charity drives, was an active member in the local council, contributed to school activities. To her it seemed he did everything looking at the return on investment, the bottom line. The tasks were always done with a cold irrefutable logic on the need of the hour.
During her self pitying phrase she had silently cried in desperation about living with a such a cold hearted person. Like his off handed dismissal of her offer to help in his business. Like the time when she had that operation. She remembered him taking her to the hospital, picking up the prescriptions, arranging for the nurse and then leaving on the business trip because as he said – he was not a doctor. That there is a certain required healing time which he could not help with anyway. And that in any case the nurse was there and the best thing to do in an emergency would be to call for an ambulance to go the hospital. That cold unrelenting logic and looking at everything through the prism of reason drove her to distraction. She had been bought up on passion and soft words and although she understood the practicality of the way he lived, the cause and effect mentality, she detested and hated it with all her heart.
She then met J. He was talented but oh so awkward, witty with the tendency every so often to put his foot in his mouth, immensely charismatic but very self conscious. He was cute and boyishly good looking without really knowing how attractive he was. He laughed aloud at jokes he liked and grimaced equally loudly at something or someone he did not like. He had a way of shyly entering a room and standing quietly in a corner, and then in a couple of hours you would see him on top of the table belting out songs to loud appreciative screams. He touched everyone lives without knowing he did so. He lived on the moment. Sometime he would lose all sense of time, for instance the time he made her wait for hours because he got into a passionate debate with a complete stranger about the local animal shelter. J was her sun, her moon and her stars. She did not think she existed before she met him, his raw passion for life thrilled her very core. He really gave her everything she wanted from life.
He relentlessly argued with her to let go on a marriage gone sour and move in with her. She always agreed but never seemed to find the will to do it, till today. Today she would let her husband know that she could not live with him any longer, she would not ask for any money, just the suitcase she had packed early in the morning. She was meeting him for lunch, one of the short lunch they had every Wednesday where he always choose and ordered what he thought she should have. As she reached the restaurant she realized that very unlike him he was late, she slid into their usual booth and ordered a strong hot coffee, she was sure she would need that warmth as she got his cold, logical response to her decision.
He walked in, and although dressed impeccably as always, somehow looked a little disheveled. He ordered ,again surprisingly unlike him, a glass of scotch. He looked at her almost wonderingly for a few seconds, before quietly saying “Is six months more too much to ask?”.
She looked at him with a shock as she realized he knew! She thought bitterly about the private detectives he had probably hired to follow her around. She desperately tried not to scream and asked him back very quietly “How long have you known”?
He looked at her with surprise and replied with a faint smile “I would have thought you of all person would show a little more emotion, anyway I found out this morning”.
She noticed a faint tremor at the corner of his lips and wondered if the implacable soul could actually feel? She asked back a little more heatedly “Who told you”?
He replied gently “the doctor of course, he said I have two months at the most three, the cancer is too far advanced for any treatment, I would have loved 6 months to arrange my affairs but…..”
Her mind went blank as she heard him carry on “ I especially worry about you, I tried to avoid bothering you with mundane stuff. See I did not ever want you to change, you were ... are so perfect. My love for you was the only joyful thing I had in my life”.
His voiced dropped to a hoarse whisper as he continued “Hopefully I can explain everything to you before I’m gone. It’s just my hope you would continue living life as I wanted too but never could, live it to the fullest, maybe even find someone who could give you back as much as you have given me, give you back everything you ever wanted from life”.
But now she felt it was almost inhuman. Everything he did was so well thought out, so by the book, She could not complain about him missing an anniversary or not making solicitous calls to her old parents. He guided her through her nascent career, he helped her brother through his college. He actually had a hand in helping everyone he came across. He did it quietly, unemotionally and never went overboard with the assistance he provided. A nudge, a word, a little help and he changed the person’s world. He arranged magnificent charity drives, was an active member in the local council, contributed to school activities. To her it seemed he did everything looking at the return on investment, the bottom line. The tasks were always done with a cold irrefutable logic on the need of the hour.
During her self pitying phrase she had silently cried in desperation about living with a such a cold hearted person. Like his off handed dismissal of her offer to help in his business. Like the time when she had that operation. She remembered him taking her to the hospital, picking up the prescriptions, arranging for the nurse and then leaving on the business trip because as he said – he was not a doctor. That there is a certain required healing time which he could not help with anyway. And that in any case the nurse was there and the best thing to do in an emergency would be to call for an ambulance to go the hospital. That cold unrelenting logic and looking at everything through the prism of reason drove her to distraction. She had been bought up on passion and soft words and although she understood the practicality of the way he lived, the cause and effect mentality, she detested and hated it with all her heart.
She then met J. He was talented but oh so awkward, witty with the tendency every so often to put his foot in his mouth, immensely charismatic but very self conscious. He was cute and boyishly good looking without really knowing how attractive he was. He laughed aloud at jokes he liked and grimaced equally loudly at something or someone he did not like. He had a way of shyly entering a room and standing quietly in a corner, and then in a couple of hours you would see him on top of the table belting out songs to loud appreciative screams. He touched everyone lives without knowing he did so. He lived on the moment. Sometime he would lose all sense of time, for instance the time he made her wait for hours because he got into a passionate debate with a complete stranger about the local animal shelter. J was her sun, her moon and her stars. She did not think she existed before she met him, his raw passion for life thrilled her very core. He really gave her everything she wanted from life.
He relentlessly argued with her to let go on a marriage gone sour and move in with her. She always agreed but never seemed to find the will to do it, till today. Today she would let her husband know that she could not live with him any longer, she would not ask for any money, just the suitcase she had packed early in the morning. She was meeting him for lunch, one of the short lunch they had every Wednesday where he always choose and ordered what he thought she should have. As she reached the restaurant she realized that very unlike him he was late, she slid into their usual booth and ordered a strong hot coffee, she was sure she would need that warmth as she got his cold, logical response to her decision.
He walked in, and although dressed impeccably as always, somehow looked a little disheveled. He ordered ,again surprisingly unlike him, a glass of scotch. He looked at her almost wonderingly for a few seconds, before quietly saying “Is six months more too much to ask?”.
She looked at him with a shock as she realized he knew! She thought bitterly about the private detectives he had probably hired to follow her around. She desperately tried not to scream and asked him back very quietly “How long have you known”?
He looked at her with surprise and replied with a faint smile “I would have thought you of all person would show a little more emotion, anyway I found out this morning”.
She noticed a faint tremor at the corner of his lips and wondered if the implacable soul could actually feel? She asked back a little more heatedly “Who told you”?
He replied gently “the doctor of course, he said I have two months at the most three, the cancer is too far advanced for any treatment, I would have loved 6 months to arrange my affairs but…..”
Her mind went blank as she heard him carry on “ I especially worry about you, I tried to avoid bothering you with mundane stuff. See I did not ever want you to change, you were ... are so perfect. My love for you was the only joyful thing I had in my life”.
His voiced dropped to a hoarse whisper as he continued “Hopefully I can explain everything to you before I’m gone. It’s just my hope you would continue living life as I wanted too but never could, live it to the fullest, maybe even find someone who could give you back as much as you have given me, give you back everything you ever wanted from life”.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Dreamless Dreams
Was the mistake in ever opening books itself?
You read about slaves becoming kings and lowly corporals becoming emperors of nations and your hearts are filled with grandiose dreams and wants. Your knowledge of men and letters gives you the false sense of being a superior person, a person who could emulate the great men and move mountains and crest clouds. You have been on Homer’s odyssey; you have flown with the Wright brothers; and studied at the foot of Plato.
All that indiscriminate knowledge coupled with grey hairs has given you remarkable erudition unburdened by moral conscience and naivety. Shouldn’t that be sufficient to have mastered the world? Shouldn’t that been the path to the top of heap looking with amusement at the poor plebian souls? Yet somehow you never got the opportunities and still yearn for illustrious success.
Then again maybe you got the chances but just never had the talent to recognize great opportunities. Or worse maybe you had the talent but the energy was never there. And Of course the catchall - maybe the opportunities, the talent and the energy were present but the fear of failure was just too great.
So what do you do? Accept that some people are meant to be the drones, the worker bees? The kind of people - who although still important - can just cheer the exalted ones on their way to the summit. It would have so easy to accept that only if your “readings” had not left you with unbridled ambitions and dreams. Only if the fast advancing years did not create a sinking feeling on hearing the creaking of the doors slowly closing shut.
Maybe we would have been happier just busy living life instead of thinking about it.
Yes it’s sad to be a small man with tiny dreams, but it’s colossally sadder to be a small man with huge unrequited dreams!
You read about slaves becoming kings and lowly corporals becoming emperors of nations and your hearts are filled with grandiose dreams and wants. Your knowledge of men and letters gives you the false sense of being a superior person, a person who could emulate the great men and move mountains and crest clouds. You have been on Homer’s odyssey; you have flown with the Wright brothers; and studied at the foot of Plato.
All that indiscriminate knowledge coupled with grey hairs has given you remarkable erudition unburdened by moral conscience and naivety. Shouldn’t that be sufficient to have mastered the world? Shouldn’t that been the path to the top of heap looking with amusement at the poor plebian souls? Yet somehow you never got the opportunities and still yearn for illustrious success.
Then again maybe you got the chances but just never had the talent to recognize great opportunities. Or worse maybe you had the talent but the energy was never there. And Of course the catchall - maybe the opportunities, the talent and the energy were present but the fear of failure was just too great.
So what do you do? Accept that some people are meant to be the drones, the worker bees? The kind of people - who although still important - can just cheer the exalted ones on their way to the summit. It would have so easy to accept that only if your “readings” had not left you with unbridled ambitions and dreams. Only if the fast advancing years did not create a sinking feeling on hearing the creaking of the doors slowly closing shut.
Maybe we would have been happier just busy living life instead of thinking about it.
Yes it’s sad to be a small man with tiny dreams, but it’s colossally sadder to be a small man with huge unrequited dreams!
Friday, February 4, 2011
Facebook Types
An attempt to generalize online people!
• The Moderate User: joins and increases friends slowly & steadily. Usually checks out friend’s profile and posts but without commenting or interacting. Updates sometimes depending on time, can have spurts of very active usage followed by period of inactivity.
• The Forced User: Doesn't understand what the big deal is. Has always sneered at web based social networking but was forced by friends or co-workers into creating an account. Tentative, only accepts friend if invited, posts rarely and may add a few pictures. Usually not have a profile picture or has one which is never updated.
• The Short sprinter: Activates an account and immediately friends everyone and their uncle, uses obsessively for a few weeks before realizing it would have been better not to have all the friends in the first place, goes into hiding and occasionally "likes" a few posts.
• The Ego user: usually has a huge list of friends so that they can have an audience, will sometime “unfriend” people who are not deemed worthy enough of their social status. Updates their status regularly, doesn’t really care about interacting, usually does not visit/comment on anyone’s status/posts unless the topic is about them or if it’s a very trendy hip friend then will post excessively witty comments on their pages and hint about cool get-togethers involving high art and sophisticated cultural events.
• The Loud mouth: also known as CNN. Will persistently post links from entertainment to politics to news. Excessively share applications and causes. Has a tendency to comment on friend’s friend posts/wall. Can be relied upon to usually have the last word on any thread.
• The Task master: Treats face book as a job, strictly regimented, regularly updates status, has a fixed number of comments daily, never misses a friends anniversary, well organized comments schedule so that every friend is touched in a fixed period of time, captioned and grouped photos, detailed information on info page.
• The Power user: has account in every social networking site FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Orkut etc. Passionate user of the medium and prefers to talk via this channel instead of face-to-face. Gets update by the minute using their Smartphone. Usually lost when forced to interact outside these medium. Will not go on a vacation unless the place has Wi-Fi access.
• The Evangelist: really needs/wants a large circle of contacts. Is irritatingly using the medium for spreading his world view whether religious, political, social, cultural or crassly even business. Not really interested in personal details or posts if they cannot be tied to his central message.
Okay small print!
“He” above is interchangeable with “She”. I attempt to group while fully aware that most people are an amalgamation of the above types or move from one group to another during their lifetime. I don't have any of above in my own friends list ;-)
• The Moderate User: joins and increases friends slowly & steadily. Usually checks out friend’s profile and posts but without commenting or interacting. Updates sometimes depending on time, can have spurts of very active usage followed by period of inactivity.
• The Forced User: Doesn't understand what the big deal is. Has always sneered at web based social networking but was forced by friends or co-workers into creating an account. Tentative, only accepts friend if invited, posts rarely and may add a few pictures. Usually not have a profile picture or has one which is never updated.
• The Short sprinter: Activates an account and immediately friends everyone and their uncle, uses obsessively for a few weeks before realizing it would have been better not to have all the friends in the first place, goes into hiding and occasionally "likes" a few posts.
• The Ego user: usually has a huge list of friends so that they can have an audience, will sometime “unfriend” people who are not deemed worthy enough of their social status. Updates their status regularly, doesn’t really care about interacting, usually does not visit/comment on anyone’s status/posts unless the topic is about them or if it’s a very trendy hip friend then will post excessively witty comments on their pages and hint about cool get-togethers involving high art and sophisticated cultural events.
• The Loud mouth: also known as CNN. Will persistently post links from entertainment to politics to news. Excessively share applications and causes. Has a tendency to comment on friend’s friend posts/wall. Can be relied upon to usually have the last word on any thread.
• The Task master: Treats face book as a job, strictly regimented, regularly updates status, has a fixed number of comments daily, never misses a friends anniversary, well organized comments schedule so that every friend is touched in a fixed period of time, captioned and grouped photos, detailed information on info page.
• The Power user: has account in every social networking site FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Orkut etc. Passionate user of the medium and prefers to talk via this channel instead of face-to-face. Gets update by the minute using their Smartphone. Usually lost when forced to interact outside these medium. Will not go on a vacation unless the place has Wi-Fi access.
• The Evangelist: really needs/wants a large circle of contacts. Is irritatingly using the medium for spreading his world view whether religious, political, social, cultural or crassly even business. Not really interested in personal details or posts if they cannot be tied to his central message.
Okay small print!
“He” above is interchangeable with “She”. I attempt to group while fully aware that most people are an amalgamation of the above types or move from one group to another during their lifetime. I don't have any of above in my own friends list ;-)
Monday, January 10, 2011
A new beginning
From time immemorial or at least since humans understood the concept of time we have designated a day which began a year. Present in nearly every culture and every civilization , for our modern calendar we do owe Julius Caesar a thanks for giving us 1st January, a sort of CTRL-ALT-DEL for humans, it allows us to reset our priorities, plan a fresh start and take stock of our selves.
In my younger years I did make it a point to draw up a set of goals, sadly over reaching goals which were usually beyond my scope or talent. I had grandiose dreams and looked at ambitious immediate accomplishments in the coming months if not days. I did not plan on learning to swim; I planned diving off the Great Barrier Reef. I did not plan doing a 5 mile hike; I planned climbing Mt. Everest. I did not plan merely keeping in touch with my friends; I thought of grand reunions. I did not go to the gym everyday but planned on having a six pack by early spring. The object was not to merely start writing ; it was to get published and obviously win the Booker price. Learning to sail was for suckers; I was going to sail solo around the world.
Yes, the biggest part of the problem was setting unrealistic aspirations. Now even in my most deluded state I did know that some of these ambitious goals were not immediately attainable. But I had this “clever idea” that I'll work harder and accomplish more than if I set low standards. What it caused was the exact opposite, I was all for setting goals - and then beating myself up for failing to achieve them. Unrequited resolutions led to guilt which in turn hammered my ego into oblivion and ultimately caused paralysis. After all if I could not trek across the Gobi desert what was the point of doing 15 minutes on the treadmill? In setting the bar higher than I know I could jump, I didn't jump. Or, if even if I tried I failed.
So, I've thought to myself, if I know going in that I won't succeed, why bother? Some years back, coming to terms with myself I turned a full 180 and stopped making resolutions. Recently I saw a statistic that says 55% of us usually never set New Year's resolutions. I guess this painfully made me a part of the masses. Like many of us I developed a certain disdain for resolutions. I sniggered about the crowded gyms come January, I listened amusedly to the incoming calls from friends who promised to keep in touch but would call only next year, I saw the vain attempts at dieting and eating healthy, I made snide remarks at everyone’s futile attempt at turning into a new leaf.
But somehow a wondrous thing happened, without the weight of my own massive expectations, I started doing things I liked. I started enjoying myself, became a little more social and communicated a lot more, played a lot more with my kids, went camping and hiking again, bought a plane; started flying with the early passion again, began eating healthy. The absolutely quintessential example of this is starting this blog; I don't care if I write well or if I ever would became a published author. I write knowing I will only get better and mainly because it’s pleasing and cathartic for me.
My goals aren't a yearly thing now; they are more of seeing things as they come, coming to terms with the unseen and making new "doable" resolutions every day. While back then I was taking crap from previous years and putting it right back in front of me instead of leaving things wide open for new possibilities. Now I don't worry about the guilt of not reaching anywhere and although it’s a cliché but truly I now enjoy the journey. If the process is exciting, the destination really does not matter.
After all isn’t life a one-lap race, a one-time-only offer, then doesn't it make sense to celebrate what you HAVE achieved, rather than mourn what you haven't? The only goal worth worrying about is what is in your control, for instance a better job is dependent on economy, hiring trends and requirements - but we can improve our skill set to become more market worthy and at the same time get the immense immediate satisfaction of gaining more knowledge. Getting a beach body is dependent on your genetics and the years of havoc and destruction you have wrought on your body, but eating healthy and working out a little is going to make you feel so much better NOW.
I feel this is the time of year to be gentle on yourself. Your only resolution should be to feel alive and then its Goal accomplished.
In my younger years I did make it a point to draw up a set of goals, sadly over reaching goals which were usually beyond my scope or talent. I had grandiose dreams and looked at ambitious immediate accomplishments in the coming months if not days. I did not plan on learning to swim; I planned diving off the Great Barrier Reef. I did not plan doing a 5 mile hike; I planned climbing Mt. Everest. I did not plan merely keeping in touch with my friends; I thought of grand reunions. I did not go to the gym everyday but planned on having a six pack by early spring. The object was not to merely start writing ; it was to get published and obviously win the Booker price. Learning to sail was for suckers; I was going to sail solo around the world.
Yes, the biggest part of the problem was setting unrealistic aspirations. Now even in my most deluded state I did know that some of these ambitious goals were not immediately attainable. But I had this “clever idea” that I'll work harder and accomplish more than if I set low standards. What it caused was the exact opposite, I was all for setting goals - and then beating myself up for failing to achieve them. Unrequited resolutions led to guilt which in turn hammered my ego into oblivion and ultimately caused paralysis. After all if I could not trek across the Gobi desert what was the point of doing 15 minutes on the treadmill? In setting the bar higher than I know I could jump, I didn't jump. Or, if even if I tried I failed.
So, I've thought to myself, if I know going in that I won't succeed, why bother? Some years back, coming to terms with myself I turned a full 180 and stopped making resolutions. Recently I saw a statistic that says 55% of us usually never set New Year's resolutions. I guess this painfully made me a part of the masses. Like many of us I developed a certain disdain for resolutions. I sniggered about the crowded gyms come January, I listened amusedly to the incoming calls from friends who promised to keep in touch but would call only next year, I saw the vain attempts at dieting and eating healthy, I made snide remarks at everyone’s futile attempt at turning into a new leaf.
But somehow a wondrous thing happened, without the weight of my own massive expectations, I started doing things I liked. I started enjoying myself, became a little more social and communicated a lot more, played a lot more with my kids, went camping and hiking again, bought a plane; started flying with the early passion again, began eating healthy. The absolutely quintessential example of this is starting this blog; I don't care if I write well or if I ever would became a published author. I write knowing I will only get better and mainly because it’s pleasing and cathartic for me.
My goals aren't a yearly thing now; they are more of seeing things as they come, coming to terms with the unseen and making new "doable" resolutions every day. While back then I was taking crap from previous years and putting it right back in front of me instead of leaving things wide open for new possibilities. Now I don't worry about the guilt of not reaching anywhere and although it’s a cliché but truly I now enjoy the journey. If the process is exciting, the destination really does not matter.
After all isn’t life a one-lap race, a one-time-only offer, then doesn't it make sense to celebrate what you HAVE achieved, rather than mourn what you haven't? The only goal worth worrying about is what is in your control, for instance a better job is dependent on economy, hiring trends and requirements - but we can improve our skill set to become more market worthy and at the same time get the immense immediate satisfaction of gaining more knowledge. Getting a beach body is dependent on your genetics and the years of havoc and destruction you have wrought on your body, but eating healthy and working out a little is going to make you feel so much better NOW.
I feel this is the time of year to be gentle on yourself. Your only resolution should be to feel alive and then its Goal accomplished.
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