Evergreen New Year Resolutions

I’m the most disappointing person when it comes to New Year resolutions and fulfilling them. Often when I am asked about my New Year resolution, my prolonged thinking mode & silence turns people away. Saves me the torture! If you were to ask me if I have ever made a New Year resolution and fulfilled it…you will be bored to death waiting for an answer.

It’s not that I never made resolutions. My childhood that fortunately was free of the World Wide Web and mobile technology saw us exchanging handmade New Year greeting cards (Buying expensive cards from Archie's Gallery were reserved for Birthdays and special occasions). Making New Year resolutions then was as important a ritual as exchanging cards. If you didn’t make a resolution, your celebration didn’t go complete.

So I too gave in to the trend and made these same funny resolutions every year –

• Losing weight –This one placed itself on priority every year. After all, have you ever met a girl who feels she has the ideal weight? However, success or failure of this resolution was relative. If the girl sitting next to me in class was heavier than me, it felt like resolution achieved at the beginning of the academic year itself. But if my desk partner turned out to be a hot chic, the resolution always felt broken. By the time New Year’s Eve came back, knocking on the door, I was already in the SWOT mode and always felt I needed to lose weight.
• Getting first position in all sections – This was my parents’ all time favorite. Typical Indian parents keep pushing their child for more, even if their offspring is a child prodigy. Even if I ranked within the top three in my class, I always saw a “You could have done better” look while I knew friends whose parents pampered them even if they scored just above 80%. The only time I felt like a scholar was when I used to go to Nirula’s to show my Report card and enjoy the free Scholar’s double Sundae! (Nirula’s used to offer free special Sundae to kids who scored 90% or more in their final exams!) Looking back now, I realize this was a blessing in disguise, for if you aim for moon, at least you get the stars. But back then, the pressure ensured this resolution was scripted at the top in my copy on every New Year’s Eve.

As I look at them now, I laugh out loud! If they weren’t fulfilled the first year, why did I hope for magical results every year?

With time, the resolutions changed from everything one desires during adolescence to the ambitious 20s. By the time I was into 4-5 years of corporate grind, I saw myself making resolutions like “meditating for 15 min every day, spending less time on phone etc.” Soon I was married and resolutions changed to “calling mom everyday for 15-20 minutes.”

Things I was supposed to do immediately were transformed into resolutions, whose progress one usually monitors by the time it’s time to make new ones.

And then, blogging happened…

I had gone for a residential MBA post marriage when blogging & I discovered each other. It was love at first sight and soon we couldn’t spend nights apart. Contests were a new thing to me back then and participating in any and every contest sounded exciting to me. Seeing my name in the winners list gave me a high that even a good CGPA didn’t.

The momentum broke once I returned home. Job, home and responsibilities jumped the line and claimed priority attention. Writing for contests then usually meant fire fighting few hours before the deadline for submission. As for impromptu blogging ideas, I began to maintain a Word document and whenever an idea popped, I promptly noted it in that document.

Soon motherhood took over every other thing. Contest deadlines were missed, word document was filled never to be reviewed, and the blogger inside grew tired of complaining. Even if the deadline was comfortably far, creativity would have mercy on me only a day before submission deadline.

Few days ago, I missed writing for a contest that really interested me and it hurt, not because of the prizes, but for the opportunity it gave me to test my writing skills vis a vis hundreds of other blogger.

So, this New Year’s Eve, I resolved to do something for the stuff that’s so close to my heart.  

• Writing for contest posts well ahead of time. I know my mind throws fabulous ideas a night before the deadline, but nobody has banned drafting a post and saving in drafts, well before deadline to be modified later.

• Also, I intend to work on the frequency of posting. An average blogger who posts periodically is far better than an amazingly creative blogger who plays the hide and seek. I know it won’t be easy but as Mr. Hubby tells me every time, there is always time for what we really wanna do!

P.S.  Somehow I have come to realize that often, the toughest or next to impossible tasks are dumped under the cover of New Year resolutions…As if, poor New Year will give in to pressure of our dreams and aspirations and magically transform the impossible into possible. My sympathies with the New Year!

 

#NewYear #Resolutions #Humor