The New Year: The past

Its the end of the year and every publication worth its salt is looking back at the year gone by. “The winners and losers of the year gone by” “The sexiest of the year” “The movers and shakers of 2011” go the headlines.

Its so ingrained in our psyche that the end is the place to look back, measure, judge and evaluate. For many of us its the only time we do and if my life is in anyway representative of most lives, its a time to say “sh#t, where did the year go?”.

And so I am sitting here today writing this blog, looking at what all happened this year. In the order of how they hit me as I write.

1. I fell in love and got married

This is probably the shocker of the year. Never planned this, never saw it coming. Looking back the last 6 months of marriage are probably a mix of my best days and my worst. I got a whole new family and interestingly I love them too! I am the man now for atleast one special person and with that comes the expected and much advertised love (who would have thought!)  thing and this new responsibility (who would have thought!) thing. Oh yeah and waiting eagerly for junior now.

2. LandMark Education

4 and a half courses later I have taken my life back from the autopilot, with all its sorry broken pieces, and am rebuilding with abandon. Still facing and breaking barriers in my life and other’s, and slowly coming to the sober realization that the jerk is here to stay and transformation is a continuous process. And finally, still trying to be chillaxe through it all 🙂

3. My Swift

my constant companion, from the early morning struggle to office, to the late night icecream cravings of wifey. And when I am disempowered at how life is treating me, I see an open road, I pound the accelerator and the whoomph of the turbo kicks me back to life.

4. My Guitar

so I know 2 songs and I can tune the damn thing. But even this is a victory over the past!

5. Zynga goes IPO

it happened. I had very little to do with it.

6. babies, kids and gifts!!!

lots of “new kids on the block” with many friends going the family way (me included). A new entry into my life is this whole gifting thing. I have never been much of a gifter, I blame my friends who have failed (repeatedly) to gift me, even with all the opportunities available 😉 But now with the extended family, its like war!!! A slew of gifts has to be returned with another and the war goes on. Do I like it, Yes and No. I like it when its incoming and there is this pinch to the heart when its outgoing, followed by happiness as you see the recipient glow.

7. Socializing

Since my marriage, you would be hardpressed to see me alone, brooding about life or any other solitary activity. Its like, people are everywhere and at all times!! Leave me alone for gods sake!!!! (just kidding). So theres always someone around, at home, at their homes, in class (landmark), at office and strangely I am in communication with them! (yep me! would you believe that). The icing of the cake is I also host parties !

8. My Samsung S2

My first 5 digit phone (as in price). I was so much in awe of the 5 digits, that I kept it in my draw for a whole week, too scared to carry it around. Anyway its out now and for all you cynics out there, you were right, I still havent coded a single App yet!

9.  Kashmir and Thailand

Two trips, Kashmir and Thailand, first on honeymoon and the other with the company. Both were awesome.

10. 50 pushups in 3 sets and looking healthy (a tad fat)

I could do a 100 in 3 sets once. Lost the momentum for a month now, lets restart in the new year.

phew! got to 10!

 

Life: It only means what you make it

So, there are a group of people who think that life is suffering and there is the other group who think its all about enjoying yourself to the max. Both take their views seriously enough to die for them. But maybe suffering and enjoyment are just different views of this thing called “life” that has been given to us. For most the experience of life can be improved manifold by changing this view.
Its interesting to note that our greatest accomplishments occur when handling our greatest problems, and both accomplishments and enjoyment are necessary for a satisfied and happy life. Suffering is just a view of problems that have not moved for a while, or we have given up on or something that just should not be (because noone else has it or its painful or…..).
So what view should we have? Can I make a suggestion? How about this:
Life is a design problem and as always there are constraints (barriers to get what you want), So maximize what it is you want. But you know what makes life easy is that you can want anything you want to want and choose to not want what others may want,coz there is no gold standard out there. So find out what you really want and design life with that as central and in the bargain you might not get what others have/or want, but you know, that doesnt make your life any less and in need of improvement 🙂 In fact life is always a fun adventure in pursuit of what one wants or more appropriately what one “chooses” to want.

The adventure of life

So in a sense life is always great and ultimately we have something or dont have something and it doesnt mean anything unless we make it mean something.
So lets just handle our life as an adventure to get what we want and sometimes there are barriers in getting what we want, which we can either attack with passion and overcome or give up with the understanding that its not really *needed* in life for life to be great.
Finally a look at why we want certain things could reveal we only want it because someone else wants it or its important to some people and in truth we really dont want it!