Adieu 2018. Reset. Restore.

One of the things that happens to you as you grow older is that you stop making new year resolutions. At least, lofty ones. However, it is reassuring in a way to have a periodic reset-point where you can pause, look back at a particular block of time & analyze how life behaved with you during that period. Importantly - how YOU behaved with life. For the past few years, November has been the month when I try and regroup with myself, introspect on my learning from the bygone year and jot it down as I prepare to launch myself into a new year, preferably a better version of myself than one from the year before.

It is natural for all of us to reflect on the perceptible changes in us over the past twelve months – some obvious, others - not so obvious. These changes are physical, psychological and even spiritual, even when there might not be too many external manifestations visible. For instance, I have had to give up on my running( my favorite sport for years) over the past twelve months and move to other forms of cardio, thanks to a knee injury that I cannot ignore any more with youthful bravado. Likewise, though I don’t need glasses yet, I do notice the beginnings of eyesight challenges. The mind too follows its own idiosyncrasies as it gets older, often exerting regulations on the playful heart and occasionally wanting to break free into a now-buried past, through an odd strand of memory , a fleeting note of music or a stray line of a forgotten poem that breaks the patterns of your new ordinary when life seems to have sped up around you while you seem to have slowed down. Your photographic & instantaneous brain, that has , over the years, evolved to become more associative and connective, takes extra time to process sudden acronyms in the new language being spoken by all the new people around you.

It can be a pretty cathartic when you realize that your yesterdays now outnumber your tomorrows, and that so many of your earlier dreams won’t see light of the day in this lifetime. At twenty, the whole world stretches out like an enormous ocean in front of you and you have infinite combinations of choices to hoist your sails and set off for new lands and new adventures. The universe bows to your youth and to its whims. Life is a never ending realm of possibilities in front of you.

As you grow older, you start letting go of these possibilities – at times by design, and at times by default. One after the other, you start shedding your dreams and making peace with each departure as you head into the next leg of the journey, each day a little narrower than the one before. One by one you start saying goodbyes – to people and to places, getting a little lonelier with each passing year. And the worst part is that you often fail to realize this transition till you are midway through because all this happens when you are too caught up in your theatre, donning masks and playing roles. Then one fine day you realize that you have very few takers for yourself in this new and reset world around you. You, the biggest hero you once knew, are now officially part of the group of folks you once made fun of, ones who talk slow, walk slow, and often repeat their stale jokes, assuming they are still funny & in vogue . At twenty, you were a challenger to the Gods. At forty, harsh as it might sound, you need to re-configure your challenges, re-adjust your limits and re-caliber your greatness scale.

In recent years, I no longer scribble fantasies in my journal. I have made peace that I won’t head IBM Corporation, win an Olympic medal, or bring home a Nobel in this lifetime. Funnily, what pinches the most is that this doesn't pinch me as I would have expected it to. Eventually we all make peace with our limits & our limitations. But yes, these days I try to list down things that I can still possibly do within my means that would leave me with a satisfaction that I took my own humble shot at greatness, in my own small way. I am sure you too have your own scribbles in your journal as you wrap 2018. I have a lot of them. Here are a select few , some new and some carried forward from earlier years.

1. Give someone a chance  – Long back, someone took a chance on us when we were novices. And that one chance carved our lives and kept us going in this wonderful world. Whenever possible and within your means, take chances on a newcomer. Never underestimate someone for his / her lack of experience. Maybe that would turn out to be his / her greatest break . Experience creates cynics. Lack of it gives wings to dreams. Push someone into his first step towards greatness. You can be sure that the greatness shall rub off on you too. Do someone a good turn every day. And keep quiet about it.

2. Pick someone up  – As we go through life, life tackles each of us in the most unpredictable and sometimes, most unforgiving ways. The economy plays truant, people get framed, conned or laid off, marriages fall apart or partners die, fortunes tumble and health gives in, to name a few. As we look around , we see so many known faces of the once-great but now-humbled folks. Pick someone up whenever you can. Your simple act might resurrect the lost self-pride of a man . Never undermine the immense potential of a man who has once seen success and then tasted failure. He knows the score, the peaks, valleys and the formula to navigate through them. Help someone reclaim his greatness . And you shall feel great yourself.

3. Cheer for someone  – Often, while we are busy being busy, we turn insensitive towards people whose pace is slower than ours. We wear our impatience on our faces when someone wants to tell us their story. We often forget that we too shall be in a similar space soon and someone might show us the same intolerance when we desperately seek a listener for our rant, just to keep our self- respect going when everything else has left us. Every life is a story of a hero in his / her own right , someone who has battled a unique set of circumstances that you and I don’t know anything about . It never hurts to be kind and listen to someone with all your senses and make his / her day. Maybe that is the best thing that is going to happen to that person today at the twilight of life. Applaud an unsung hero. Catch someone doing something RIGHT. And cheer for him.

4. Loosen up  – Youth is often about strength and arrogance. We are capable of pushing our faculties to the limits and that makes us vain. We start believing in the permanence of this superiority. Believe it or not, every bit of pride that we scatter through our actions in arrogance, comes back to dress us down ( been there, seen that) . Time is the biggest trickster ( & leveler) of them all, and before you realize, you might trade places with the same person you scoffed at. Be humble. Be great.

5. Let go – As we go through the first innings of our life, we often accumulate opinions, grievances , angst, bitterness and resentment towards people. While these feelings do not reach those people, but they surely poison our own soul. Nothing is more pathetic than a sore elderly person who harbors judgmental misgivings towards the whole world. Refrain from rising to every provocation the world tosses at you . Stop trading unkindness with unkindness. The window of opportunity between a stimulus (temptation) and a response for a human brain less than a second. In this interval, we make most of our decisions as we go through our otherwise ‘auto pilot’ days. And yes, each of these responses has the cascading power to alter our lives permanently and take it in a completely new direction. Permanently so. Words that leave our mouth and emails that leave our outbox, shall never come back. Pardon and let go. Forgive, forget and be great.

6. Make commitments  - Make commitments more often. And keep them. People don’t buy products or services. They buy credibility. Be credible. Be great.

7. Surprise & Simplify - Surprise onlookers , once a week . Surprise yourself, once a day. Create one Wow ! moment for yourself every day. That’s 365 Wow ! moments a year. Pretty cool, right ? Similarly, simplify your greatness modules. Greatness often comprises of some straightforward and simple acts performed with masterful consistency ( love this phrase !). For example, try going through one full week without criticizing or complaining about anything or anyone. As is said, it is not simple to be simple. Be simple. Be great.

8. The five year rule - Five years from now, we shall be a sum of the words we chose, the friends we made, the books we read, and things we said yes or no to. Importantly – sometimes, our “NO”s define our lives more than our “YES”s. So , once a day it makes sense asking oneself – did I say some appropriate “NO”s today when I was dying to say ‘Yes’ ?

9. Rituals – Do not let go of your rituals even when you have temporarily let go of your faith. Stay with your rituals. Faith will come back. It always does.

10. Toss it up – Break your patterns. Once a week, take a new route to work. Once a fortnight, clean a messy closet. Once a month, go for a 2 AM swim. Once a quarter, try a new author . Once every six months, make peace with a detractor or a critic And every once in a while , have a ‘no phone’ hour and a ‘no email’ weekend. So on.

Life has a habit of slipping away stealthily. Seize it. Breathe it . Live it. Be humble. Be kind. Be great.