Adieu 2021 - 23 thoughts at the end of the 22nd year of the 21st century

Perhaps this is one of the riders of growing older, but I sure feel that the years keep slipping off the calendars f as you age, and the end of December shows up faster every passing year than what it did the year before. It seems like yesterday when we entered 2021, exhausted & tormented by 2020, praying for a better year. And soon it’s time for 2022 & nothing much seems to have changed.

I agree. Life really can suck at times ! And make you wish you could cancel the subscription and sue it for negligence !

The other alternative is to blow a whistle, announce a time-out . Turns out that life used to suck in every page of history. And yet, we need to rise above the flux, get our act together & carry on . And to deal with it when it plays up, like it’s been doing lately.

One good thing about being in your 40s is that when life sometimes splutters at unforeseen bends like these, imploring you to slow down, you are able to peer alternatively back & forth, as you examine the beginning & the finale, both of which now stand like walls bearing graffiti behind foggy curtains , a little too distant to touch & yet a little too near for comfort. You’re old enough to know that nothing new and dangerous and mysterious now lies on the other side & yet you’re naïve enough to stop your old songs from dying. That’s what makes this decade special, something like an in-between age. A decade where you decide to make peace with an errant destiny, bury the hatchet with God & consider returning home to yourself. The first sip of your morning coffee makes you smile wistfully as you scribble a few Thursday thoughts into your journal, staring at the silent city outside a December window, a city blissfully unaware that you too once had causes to rebel for, or against. You know you are too ordinary to classify your thoughts as aphorisms. They’re just random realizations arrived at, through trial & error, through love & loss, through compliance & rebellion while reaching intermission. Some are your own, others borrowed from the universal pool of human consciousness that touched you.

Like with bad poems , the only way to end a second bad year in a row is to suddenly go very quiet. To find back your calm till the storm burns itself out. Here are some reflections of mine, collated for my annual archives. Feel free to use them if you like. They’re free. And seem to have worked over the ages.

1. When you’re younger, you pack for a new year – taking new things with you. As you grow older, you start unpacking – leaving a few things behind.
2. In December, we finally understand what we don’t understand, but what we thought we understood in January.
3. Eventually, the things you say ‘No’ to will define you more than the things you say ‘Yes’ to. Have you started saying a few ‘No’s this year ?
4. Growing older & growing up are not the same. Growing up is just a role play. Some wing it better than others.
5. Friends matter. A lot. Also the eccentric friends. Especially them. They keep you sane.
6. If it’s failed, it wasn’t love. When you love, you make it work.
7. An anonymous 1-star rating for your work is never by a critic. It’s either a jilted ex, an envious peer or an insecure foe.
8. One giveaway of undeserving humans & haters is the ferocity with which they try to defend their reputation. On haters again, the best comeback against them is to demonstrate to them that you don’t hate them at all.
9. Each time you try to control someone else, you lose a fraction of whatever control you formerly possessed. Each time you threaten someone, you demonstrate your own impotence.
10. The problem with academics is that they have questions you cannot answer. The problem with  politicians is that the have answers you cannot question. On politicians & academics again, notice carefully & you’ll see that the most politically correct political politicians & academically brilliant, well, academics, seldom end up doing anything productive except for giving great speeches & conjuring lofty theories  that sound sexy but yield nothing.
11. If you  need a biz card & a job title to introduce yourself ( or fetch ‘Likes’ on social media), you’ve missed the boat ( Oops !).
12. You can read personalities by mapping people who love them. You can read  characters by observing those who don’t.
13. When you have something very important to say, use as few words as you can . Language has a habit of complicating messages.
14. Intellect is seeing yourself how others do. Wisdom is seeing yourself like you are. No more. No less.
15. Every now and then, dribble with your other hand . Explore within. You might still have a trick or two buried deep inside, lying dormant for fear of ridicule.
16. Start forgiving people. Life is short. No enmity is worthy of permanence. Start forgiving yourself. No regret is worthy of permanence as well.
17. As a professional, the lifespan of your carry-forward goodwill is a year ( at most) . Beyond that, your accolades are meant to be forgotten. So, stop feeding on past laurels.
18. Practice beats inherent talent every single day. Nothing can be sadder than a promising individual who never trained. And one day, the promise faded off. Show up. Train. Repeat. ( Show-off alert – I rebuilt a six-pack in 2021. I know it’s so vain & pointless. But I still feel good about it 😊 )
19. Life draws it’s protoplasm in discomfort. Nothing can be more dangerous than a ‘safe zone’. Are you exploring some new discomforts for yourself in 2022?
20. Persist - A little beyond what you thought possible and a lot beyond what others believed you could.

21. Like Marcus Aurelius said, you are made of your body, your breath & your mind. Of them, the first two are merely placed in your care ( thus beyond your complete control) . It’s your mind that’s truly yours. Make sure you treat it well.

22. 'The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.'  This was Seneca . Close your books every night.

23. Hang in there. Don’t surrender your spirit before you surrender your body. You are made for your share of greatness. Your own song that no one else can sing as well as you.

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