For Me, There Are No Resolutions This Time. Bring It On – 2023!

What you do on the first day of the year is something you continue to do for the rest of the year. Is it the kind of hackneyed cliché that is hammered in our heads? The enormity of trying to become more on the first day so that it can bring that cusp of profound change is so exhausting that we try to get it right on day one itself. Try to get up early, go to the gym, study, read and be a part of the euphoric avalanche of activities that will give some surreal happiness and a sense of worth on the first day of the brand-new 2023.

Now, if you have moved beyond the guilt and self-disparagement of waking up late, and wasting the first half of the day, let me tell you that the wrongness of the claim has just given false hope. How is it possible that one day of light, will wash off all the anxiety of the coming year? 

Smiling disdainfully is that social media influencer who has already posted early morning picture of his calorie count quoted with boundless optimism. I have mentally dismissed him as just another garrulous old crank who is trying to make my life difficult. While I’m pouring the fourth cup of chai and saying “ aur batao kya chal raha hai” this poster guy notifications are not letting me chat guilt-free about inconsequential things and nibbling on one snack after the other. Here we are a bunch of lazy insufferable bores who didn’t even party last night. As a custom, on new year’s eve we gauge the chances of having a good time outside, then after much contemplation, we slide in the blanket, pass the roasted peanuts to each other, drink tea and at 12 o clock at night when the party animals are going bonkers with the clock ticking 12, we sing “Om Jai Jagdish” arti together with fervour and gulp down a bomb of 400 calories named gulab jamun and that’s the customary new year eve for us.

No Resolutions This Time

It is akin to walking on the razor’s edge if you think resolutions would yield results and make it a super productive 2023. We are inundated with advice from all corners that we don’t know what to do. Everyone has something to say about, how to live a good life. Not sure how many are living a good life though. 

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For me, there are no resolutions this time. The viciousness of keeping them is both pointless and unnecessary. Will not gloss it over with fine words either. 2023 – is about being at peace with the pace of our life. Working on a calmer me. The overwrought mind is perennially protesting on how life should be. In an age and time when Covid, the new virus is buzzing on the ear like a mosquito, we still haven’t understood the importance of living in now. Once again, gut check aches for a spotlight. It needs tweaking for redemption. A calmer happier me would probably not indulge in mindless comparisons. I could see where I had gone wrong last year from my vantage point. While I think aloud, I will make sticky notes and hang them in my sight of work.

Here’s a reflection from the year gone by;

1) Declutter the mind and space. 

2) Overthinking has not led anyone anywhere. Stop it right away. 

3) Don’t waste time with things you cannot control. 

4) It’s okay to be disliked. 

5) Gratitude journal. Make it a habit.

6) If you love them, show them. 

7) Live in the moment. Don’t try to capture it. 

8) Don’t neglect your health, exercise and supplements. 

9) Me time. During the day. During the week. 

10) Connecting with friends and family.

11) Pat your back for small achievements. Yay! I made a good cup of tea. 

12) Do not postpone what you can do right now. 

With smouldering eyes, as I gaze at the flashes of orange in a milky violet sky. The first sunset of 2023 reminds me that this year I am the only beacon of light. No inundated advice, no forced optimism, no pressure to outperform, no outside influence, no deliberate euphoria. I am enough and more. For the entire year, it's me vs me. I will see what I can fix, and what I can do better and take it forward to the next month. As I observe my breathing and try to prepare myself for ten minutes of meditation, I remind myself that tomorrow we shall try again. 

The views expressed are the author's own.