I'm terrible at this resolution business. This morning when I was practicing yoga, i said to myself July 25th onwards, I am going to start waking up at 5:30 am. I wonder why I need to wait until July 25th, if I really want to do it, I can start tomorrow no? For some reason when I'm doing yoga, either the most mundane thoughts cross my mind or my mind is totally blank - pure white noise. Which is why many times when I start my practice it becomes very difficult for me to stop - I enjoy it so much and there is so much to do, I never practice with a fixed "sequence" - my warm ups are always a set of suryanamaskars but my asanas post that are a mix and I will think of it only 5 seconds before I do it. I find that whole process very creative - you decide, you make, you flow. My mind is so fixed on itself and my breath and my body and most days it doesn't go anywhere except being in the present. Except today where it was everywhere - thinking about all the things i will start doing on July 25.
Today, I will talk about certain resolutions I've had in the 20s that have either held me in good stead or have been useless or I haven't followed them through and need to give them a try again. I think my first resolution (around when I was just turning 20) was to stop loving men who don't love me back. And then on my twentieth birthday I went out for dinner with a man i fell deeply in love with and the rest is history. He messed me up in many ways - but I guess I never really loved him, because post that I fell for someone harder which made the first dude seem like a laugh. I say laugh now, but I was pretty shattered then. Sadly, I never learnt. I invariably choose men who will never choose me. Someone once told me - i have such a low opinion of my self that I seek validation of that by falling for men i know will never reciprocate that feeling. And with every one of those stories, i would have written something in my diary about "never again, this is the last time" and then I go do it again. So looks like i totally failed that resolution then. I am also useless at controlling my heart, it falls for the people it falls for, but if there is a not very nice psychological reason behind that, then some deeper digging needs to be done. Now, people scoff at Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert but i love that book. When a friend of mine and I were discussing men one night over wine, she shared something from the book which rings so true even today, at least for me personally -
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency to not only see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than i care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung onto that relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance, I have been a victim of my own optimism.
I love this woman for writing these words. I do not think i could have put it better. While I rarely make it to the "relationship" part of the romance, I often fall in love with the idea of a man, his highest potential - which obviously means I tend to not see the flaws in them at all or rather i see the flaws but I also see these other non existent every worthy characteristics and traits that I believe he actually possesses but stuff that is not visible to the external world. I'm mad. But obviously I have Elizabeth Gilbert and my friend for company, and I am sure there are many other women out there who do the exact same thing. The good thing is i know this about myself and I am now always consciously on the lookout for it when i start falling for someone. But being on the lookout for it vs not doing it are two very different things. And so I invariably end up with a broken heart - but I shall again quote Elizabeth from Eat Pray Love "This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something". Where would I be without quotes from book? That is a beautiful statement, except that when you are in pain, this profound intelligence doesn't strike you. You are too busy lying curled up on your bed sobbing. So this July 25th, I shall make that resolution again. Now that I am a little more self aware, a little wise, I know men a little better, maybe I can succeed at this at last. The picture on this blog, is maybe what is my absolute favourite chocolate in the whole world - Alfajores (Havanna makes the best ones, you are welcome). An Alfajor is a piece of heaven, God bless the Argentinians. It is also a picture from one beautiful morning, where I was terribly sick & was home laying in bed and eating an alfajor and yet so blissful because i was in love and had spent a beautiful night celebrating my birthday with him over dinner. And decided to take this picture because I loved the way the light was falling on the crinkly golden wrapper. Chocolates are my true soulmates, supporting me in love and heartbreak.
My next resolution has to be not being too trusting of people. This is something every Indian girl grows up hearing from her mother for reasons of physical safety, considering our country's gold medal in issues of women's safety. Anyway, my mother too said these words to me, where when I was younger, don't be trusting of people meant, don't trust men. But she said it to me literally yesterday, and now it means, stop telling everyone everything about your life. Quite ironic that I am writing this on a public blog - hmm. I'm incorrigible. I believe that people more or less have good intentions, and want to help you instead of hurting you or cheating you. How I grew up with this naivety in a country like India beats me. Because everyone in our country is trying get one up on the other, simply because opportunities are scarce & most people are fighting for a very small pool of resources. So more often than not, someone else's gain is really your loss. People are shrewd and smart - street smart, and you will get hurt. But in spite of this scenario, I grew up believing everyone was good. I blame my army upbringing for it. The Armed Forces is a very protective family and when you are growing up in it's folds, you will get very few chances to realise the realities of life and how harsh people can be. Because most of the time, if not all the time, people are genuinely good to each other and are working towards a common goal. That is not necessarily true outside of it. That is my take on why I am naive at least. So I grew up taking people for their word and believing what they said - why would someone say something if they didn't mean it. I also took this as a sign of 'people want and desire the the good of everyone in this world, like i do' - which i now realise is not always the case. I went from my Army life to the corporate world, where every person solely runs for themnsleves. As much as my organisation was a class apart from the usual cut-throat corporates, it was a corporate nevertheless. A very close friend of mine recently said to me when I was telling him about someone i met who seemed like he was a nice guys and had xyz things to say, "When will you learn, you really believe everything that the man said is true?" and I had this "but of course, why would he say it otherwise" look on my face and my friend slapped his own forehead. He has known me since I was 14 and he was very disappointed that i never grew up. My mom knows this too - and hence her warning. That has been my resolution for a very long time now - to be a little less naive about the world and evaluate people with a 'what would they want from me" philosophy. But I find it supremely tough. It goes against my fabric and also everything that yoga teaches me. Until I remember my paternal grandmother and then i realise, I really need to be careful of certain kinds of people in the world. If she ever reads these blogposts and sees herself mentioned so very delicately, she'd throw me a party. On a serious note, what I do need to do is have a more "critical thinking" mindset about people. And evaluate scenarios and people - you'd assume this would come naturally to a 29-year old, but obviously this is a skill i am yet to cultivate. Again, one for the 30s.
Drinking lemon juice with warm water and honey. Has to be the resolution i have tried the most in my 20s. From "it cleanses your insides" to "you lose weight" I have heard many things for why it is a "great way to start the day". I don't know if I lost any weight or detox-ed because of it, but every time I did it, I felt good about the habit or the rhythm of it. Wake up really early and then drink a whole glass of lemon honey warm water on an empty stomach - i just felt nice doing it as a ritual. Maybe no significant changes in my body weight made me give it up, and maybe I need to restart this one for fun. Also a related one is a eating fruits as a the first solid food in the day. I tried that too - in fact that one i try on and off a lot, literally every second week. I just have to be good at stocking up my fridge with fruits for it - and somehow that seems like a mammoth task for me, this buying, cleaning and chopping fruits thing - too much really and I'll never buy pre-cut fruits because who knows when they were sliced and how old they are and also they are such a rip-off, I'd not be willing to waste my hard earned money on something like that. But another pair of sunglasses is another matter.
Speaking of money, resolution number 4, is keeping a track of money. I have a problem with money, a genuine relationship issue. Money scares me - not that we were lacking money when I was growing up - we were and still are a very comfortably well off family. But i think very few Indians are ok with money - there is always this fear of - it is going to go away. Someone will either steal from you - whether thieves or the government (which steals because they take your money and give you nothing in return) or your money will be worth less (1 kg of onions can suddenly cost you Rs 100) or worth nothing (our Dear Leader's banning Rs 50 and Rs 100 notes stunt). There's very few people who will be content with what they have. I have that fear as well - to the extent that it keeps me up at night. One of my resolutions was to keep a note of everything i spent on throughout the month. Back then, you used actual cash, and hence tracking was slightly tougher as compared to today when most of us use our cards and have a ready view of our expenses in our bank statements. In the olden days (I have always wanted to say that) we used to withdraw Rs 5000 and use that for the rest of the month for our day to day expenses. And I wanted to keep track of this liquid cash. When I lived with 3 other girls in Hyderabad, we did a very good job of maintaining expenses via Google Spreadsheets and i also used that same model with my flatmate in Singapore. But after i moved out and started living by myself, I lost track of that discipline. I still don't like to use my card all that much, i feel like I spend more if I keep swiping my card everywhere vs when I have cash i know how much i am spending and how much i am left with - its a bit more real than a card (of course). This can take a whole other let's discuss what the future of currency looks like turn, so I shall stop here. I will start doing that again and try and be a little more disciplined about it.
Brushing my teeth thrice a day - YES! I have managed to do this. And this should count as the single biggest achievement of my adulthood. It's a habit I formed and thankfully never let go of. Yay to me.
Going vegetarian every three months for three months. I started doing this two years back I think and I have successfully done it for 2 years now and will start again in August (should have been July, but I was working on recipes and had to eat meat). I started doing it because it helped with my yoga practice, I didn't feel as lethargic, and my body wasn't heavy and I also feel like it's a healthier lifestyle - will eventually turn as close to a vegetarian as i can and try not eat too much meat, fish i think is ok. I intend on continuing to do it - except when I visit home, I can't not eat my mother's chicken/mutton biryani - she has forbidden me to be vegetarian on my visits too.
Drinking water and keeping yourself hydrated - I am good at this most times, except when I travel. What helps tremendously is having your own water-bottle, a big one if possible, for you to carry around the entire day to keep track of how much you've had and how much you still need to have to meet your daily quota. Again, like being vegetarian, by body and skin just thank me when i drink a lot of water. I have a lot more energy and i don't feel as lazy, and most importantly I go to the loo a lot more - which is great! Again my mother's pearls of wisdom - go to the loo as often as you can, it's really bad to hold your urine. Also something my foot reflexologist says to me all the time - he knows I tend not to go and that is all kinds of bad for your body. No amount of "work" justifies forgetting to drink water and forgetting going to the loo to pee. The wisdom in this post is just too much.
I have many more, but in the interest of this last one, I will make this the last one - sleeping by 10:30pm. I do not know how I am going to achieve this number considering i am transitioning into something that will invariably mean i sleep late, but I guess then I push it to 11:30/12:00 max, get my 8 hours of sleep and most importantly say no to social media before bed. Something needs to give, and social media can give away for all I care. The blue-ish white light is just the absolute worst thing to see right before you shut your eyes, I'd rather spend that time thinking about how my day went and thanking the universe for another day and the luxury of my head being on a pillow, do a short meditation which will invariably lead into sleep.
On that note, I will end today with this song that i really like for some unknown reason - Chanda Re from the movie Ekalavya written by Swanand Kirkire, one of my favourite lyricists after Javed Akhtar and Gulzar:
चंदा रे चंदा रे
धीरे से मुस्का
हौले से हौले से
पलकों में छुप जा
हौले से हौले से
बादल के झूले पे मुस्का
लूखा चुप्पी खेले चंदा
तारों के संग
कौन थाममे डोरी
तू हैं किसकी पतंग
चंदा ओ रे चंदा
तेरा कैसा गुरूर
हंस दे ज़र्रा सा
बरसा दे तू नूर। ..
~ Chanda Re, Swanand Kirkire for Ekalvya
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