New Year Resolution for 2022

Year after year; some idea of a profit or gain steered my New Year resolution. Giving up smoking -Going to the gym-Adding to my qualifications. Generally, these were the options that I would set aside and forget within a week or so. But this time, I decided to drop these dry calculations. 

As I looked at 2021 in retrospect, all this sounded bogus and useless.

In the past year, along with every single human being on earth, I had witnessed a trail of death and destruction that was unprecedented in human history. And the scale of this devastation was so vast that it redefined almost everything we were familiar with- work culture, relationships, daily routines, our attitude towards life but most important, in a brutal and most certain manner, it destroyed the human ego.

The belief that we were in control was shattered to pieces.

The false sense of pride that technologically, we were the most advanced species on the planet, this mistaken stance was finally put into its right place as with all our hi-tech gimmicks, human civilization failed to check the havoc unleashed by a tiny virus.

As the curtains draw on 2021, we have all changed; whether we realize it or not.

So if I ask you today; what it is that is most important for you at this juncture in your life , I am sure you would think twice before blurting out common auto-responses like career, money or status.

All this will count only if you manage to live and against this backdrop, we have to find the way ahead and forge a New Year resolution.

For a change, I wish to do something that would nourish me from inside without paying any attention to the usual notions of benefits or rewards. I had been to the cremation ground and seen scores of sterilized body bags, lying cluttered on the ground, patiently waiting for their turn. The all-pervading smell of burning human flesh nauseated me. No desire for materialistic gains  could survive in such a chilling scenario.

Neither do I want to impress anyone. In fact, there is no need.

With the pandemic striking the rich and poor, the blacks and whites, the fashionable and frumpy, the weak and strong, with the same ferocity, I have realized how equal and ordinary we all are. Nothing divides us. Whatever boundaries existed before; do not matter anymore. Your money, your status, your big car or your palatial bungalow, nothing can save you from the delta variant. One man is as vulnerable as the other. Death has indeed emerged as a great equalizer.

Thus, in this new community of equals, I do not have any desire to dazzle anyone with my New Year resolution. I just want to focus on something which will give me joy for no reason at all, something which will help me rediscover the spring of my happiness within me. I have been looking for it outside and I accept now that the outside cannot help. It can only turn me artificial and the need is to tap into the inner, natural source.

I remember, as a schoolkid, how I used to enjoy writing short stories during spare periods.

They were always there in my mind. I just needed to uncover them and the words would flow out of my heart on their own. At that time, I was self-conscious and wanted to create a good impression on my friends and relatives. As a result, for years together, I did not publish a single story for the fear of rejection.

Gradually, I began to overcome my inhibitions. Now, I have two books to my credit, I write a blog and contribute articles for various magazines. 

However, this time around, I plan to pick up the pen with a difference. My New Year resolution is to write and keep writing without thinking about monetary gains or applaud. I will take appreciation or criticism in the same breath. If I get a sizeable chunk of readers, it's fine but if  the numbers are not encouraging, that will be fine too. It would be important for me to express myself sincerely through my writing and share it with the world around me but it would certainly be above any considerations of profit or loss. 

I would like to write because it gives me joy and satisfaction. For you, it may be helping others, painting, dancing, or traveling.

As for me, writing connects me with myself at a deeper level. I feel elevated and taste something through my writing which is beyond this sensory world. When I reach there, the idea of a business stops and the idea of an association starts. There, it is sacrilege to mention money or fame even remotely. There, what appeals to you is the bond you create with something otherworldly and eternal.

In a world threatened and tortured by death of a different kind, this is the only feeling which rises above everything else.

Let 2022 be that one year where we decide to do something not because it will earn us some green bucks or fame but because it will nourish and sustain us deeply. As the whole humanity braces itself for yet another wave and the virus changes it's properties and nomenclature once again, this is the only resolution we require to survive and face death without any fear as the taste of something eternal touches our core.

Humanity can address this debacle only by rediscovering that which nothing can destroy, that everlasting element in you and me which is beyond the reach of any virus, that is what will make us fearless and that is what will help us in understanding this new, equal world from a fresh perspective.

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