Each year brings forward the approach of a ‘new you’ to be adopted post-January 1st. To accept and advance with memories or to forget, that is the question.
Facebook status updates, WhatsApp’s standardised greeting messages; all recite similar rhymes of New Year wishes. A pang of guilt lingers concerning our vernacular during the twelfth month of every year, for we’ve all been there and done that. As the human instinct goes, we are bound to critique and comment on what the year gone by was, what it wasn’t, and what it should have been. The clichéd practice presents itself with some repetitive terms; from the conventional usage of ‘new slate’, ‘new beginnings’ to the customary resolutions seeking. Our life plans begin to synchronise with do-overs as a new year sets it, an idea I address with convoluted emotions. While it conveniently provides an excuse to commit to new things to be done in the New Year, one can’t overlook the fact that things done and said don’t always stay in the past. So how does one hinge and direct the mind-set towards the ‘right’ path to follow as the sun sets to rise on January 1st? Should you stick to the road of the past or the one with a clean and gleamed beginning?
Regardless of where our personal journeys have sojourned this year, internet critics and the majority has declared 2016 to be a Black and White failure. Politically, economically, and socially, the turbulence has taken a toll on lives and minds. Amidst this uncertainty, the question rises- what do you forget and what do you take along? It’s a practice I borrowed from the Gilmore Girls Revival episodes, one which oddly works from clothes to mind placating situations. If a particular life event, memory, people or work gives you happiness (all shades of it), keep them in your life and carry forward them to the next year. If they’ve managed to extract varied degrees of contentment from you this year, they must be worth keeping with you in 2017. Love them, treasure them; for they shall be instrumental in helping you clean your slate for another year.
The other side of this pervasive process is to discard things or people who radiate any energy which disagrees with you. One might say it’s easier said than done. That it is. However, longevity reminder: life’s short, life’s unpredictable, life’s a shit show. All the veils of pretense and niceties have to fade away sooner or later, so make it sooner. Do away with things of the past which might invite despondence of any kind. Starting over is not synonymous to resetting who you were or giving it a retry; rather they are about acceptance and courage. Accepting what went, and having the courage to move far and past from that. As overrated and cliched start overs might sound, in some aspects they do curiously possess a flaming power.
Formulae and pravachans are never tailor-made, so bend the strings of your mind and mull over how you want to steer the wheel this year. The golden rule 101 proffers that personal growth should mark the success scale as the spindle of time passes us by. So before we begin to fill 2017 in the year columns and blanks, spare some moments to retrospect and introspect on the good, the bad, and the ugly. Achievements, failures, emotional blows; all should be accounted for and accepted as you get ready for another ride spanning 365 days. For New Year is merely an umbrella term for how we choose to live after December 31st; carrying forward memories, starting over mentally, and believing in who we are. Happy New Year!
Image Credits: Subbus Kitchen
Saumya Kalia
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