Random Thoughts On My Birthday

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Few hours before my birthday eve, my mother told me that my sister who lives in another part of the world, checked with her if she could wish me at midnight.

“Woh so jayegi tab tak. Subah wish karna!” My mother correctly updated my sister on my sleeping habits.

Yes. This is what happens when you grow old.  Your routine is very precious to you!  And so, I was blissfully asleep until my partner woke me up at midnight with a beautifully decorated house, a cake, candles, and presents.

I have blogged about my birthday before. On my 28th I wrote a letter to my 18 year old self giving a lot of gyaan on how to live life.  On my 30th, I wrote a long long post and had a bunch of resolutions which I never followed.  One of the main things I wrote in that blog was about being happy being single and complete by your own self..

I got married seven months later…

But can life be planned ? Can we fast forward life in our heads and know at 20 what we would learn at 30 and therefore lead a better life?  Can we learn from the wise and elderly ?  Can we learn from well-meaning, well intentioned people around us? I guess not. Life is not meant to be perfect. It is meant to be lived. Raw.  Full of mistakes.  Full of experiences.  And today there is nothing that I want to tell my younger self.  Or to people who are younger than me.  Because they will learn from their own life. Not from mine. But I would certainly like to document my thoughts this year as it is fun to come back and revisit it next year! My personal growth monitor! So here it goes. Random post alert:

  • Do things that you like

There are a million things you have to do every day for which you have no choice.  Which irritates you. Frustrates you.  Which you may do for a living. Or for an obligation.  The work gets done.  It leaves the frustration behind. To combat it you need to incorporate something which you like to do on a daily basis. For me, it could be as simple as that A R Rehman playlist I play on my drive to work. Or wearing a nice shirt. Or that pink lipstick.

Don’t under estimate the power of little things!

  • Watch what you eat

This makes a lot of difference.  It is something that is difficult to start, more difficult to implement but once it becomes a habit, it comes as second nature.  The only place where you will live all your life is your body.  Take care of it. This is what I have been feeling lately.

But I also feel that if you take away food from life, there isn’t much good left. So, I am not saying we should not eat anything nice, but there should be some kind of balance, and some restraint.

Find yours.

  • Thou shall forgive?

The world is full of shitty people. Ungrateful people. Spiteful people. Jealous people.  I don’t believe in forgive and forget. But I guess forgiveness is important for our own mental peace, it has nothing to do with the other person. When I say forgive, what I mean to say is don’t waste your energy thinking about people who are utterly worthless.  The best revenge is living well.  Every time you think about something horrible somebody did to you, go do something for yourself that will make you feel proud of yourself.  Something that improves you. Something that you always wanted for yourself.

And one day you will become something. Someone. 

  • Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara

I have started saying this to myself every single morning.  I pay more attention to the way I look. I play my favourite music on my daily commute.  I even watched the movie again to reinforce the thought!  It made me remember that when I had watched the movie the first time, I could relate to (Natasha) Kalki’s character. Natasha feels bad that (Kabir) Abhay Deol’s character would  want to go out with his guy friends without her. She asks him how would he feel if she would have done the same thing. Kabir responds that she has her own life. He may want her to be safe, but beyond that she should have the space to do what she wants to do.

I was shocked to think that in 2011, I thought that Natasha’s feelings were justified.  What was wrong with me! Why wasn’t I mature enough to understand that Kabir was right.

I guess we all grow and evolve with age and experience and I had not reached there by then..

  • Take some risks

There was a panipuri stall organized at work few weeks back.  I was not in the best of health and had some indigestion that day.  Was on medication.  I felt tempted to have panipuri, but decided to avoid it.  I never have street panipuri anyway as I feel it will make me sick.

Couple of days later, I had a dream that there was pani puri being served somewhere.  Now, even in the dream I did not eat it because I thought it would not be safe! When I woke up I was quite mad at myself for not letting myself go even in my dream!  I told myself that I should have tried it. It was just a dream…

I have written about this before. Will I wake up one day and realize there is so much I could have done but I didn’t because I held myself back?  Do we regret the things we do as much as we regret the things we did not do?

I would rather do it and find out rather than wonder what would have happened.

With that thought, let me announce that I am working seriously on the book.  If by my next birthday, the book is not yet published, please make sure you make me feel very bad about myself!

Image source

My phone camera.

Thanks to my partner for decorating the house, organizing my party, getting me so many surprise gifts and cleaning up after the guests left.  My birthday was a week back, but I could not complete this post earlier. 🙂


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