New Year Resolutions

Another New Year begins... There's a huge buzz on status msgs, facebook profiles, greeting cards, this and that. Plans are made and religiously (don't fall for the pun :D) executed, friends and families get together to celebrate and there's merriness all around. Everyone is filled with excitement and hope as they look forward
to a new year. Somewhere there are a few people writing about how the new year's gonna be and how youngsters are not supposed to celebrate it and how new year resolutions fail.. but that cannot surpass the happiness around :)

As I look forward to the new year - and my first new years' eve in the USA - I am filled with the same excitement and hope. Amidst the clicking of glasses and the chants of 'happy new year' and the prancing of party-ites, however, is the part I like the most - making resolutions. Agreed you don't need a day to make resolutions or to make a change in yourself. "Thou shalt adapt" is the one and only commandment of the present. However, small things at times have best effects when done on specific occasions and resolutions is one of them, I believe. While the mind is ready for a fresh start, while it is reveling in the happy moments of the past year and hoping for many more of those in the coming year, it is best to make a wish, make a resolution...

I was drawn to this resolutions game - when I was little. My grandparents used to tell me about little things I did right and did wrong in the past year and ask me to resolve to make the wrongs right. They were small things indeed - ranging from completing homework on time to washing my own socks and from keeping my plate away by myself to tidying my bed. They slowly grew to helping Mom make tea on weekends and reading out the 'editorial' every day and to mastering one more 'adhyaya' of the Geeta... and after some more time, to exercising for 45 mins daily and to writing about my experiences... one such resolution before coming to Cornell was to write to my friends every fortnight :)

Thinking in hindsight - did all these things really matter? It seems they need not have been decided on New Year's eve.. But making resolutions on New Year's and following them throughout the year gives a sense of responsibility and achievement. My grandparents gave me the freedom to choose my resolution but made sure I understood what it meant to make a resolution. I was not allowed to go astray - they made me stand up to myself. It taught me what giving a word and keeping it means - and how important it is, to keep one's word to oneself. Hence, even today, if I make a solemn promise to myself, I make sure I follow it with the same child-like honesty. I can't imagine how these little things go a long way in making you the kind of person you are.

Of course, I will be making a resolution today as well :) And although I am no one to suggest you resolutions, I would like to point out to the following, if you haven't thought of one yet :)

'Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you, only you can let it in
No one else, no one else can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken...
Live your life with arms wide open,
Today is, where your book begins..
The rest is still unwritten..'
(from the song 'Unwritten' by Natasha Bedingfield)