Post # 2 - Goals Galore

One of my closest friends and myself made this pact a couple of years back that we’ll try and meet each month. We did well the first year and almost met our target. The second year we managed to meet 4-5 times and in the third year (which was 2018) we met twice. Any guesses to the one resolution that we've both made this year?!

Making resolutions is easy. It’s the following them through which is hard. I’ve been thinking a lot about my inability to make my resolutions happen and the honest truth is that I expect miracles. I expect the universe to get into action and get the wheels within wheels moving just because I’ve made a list. And we all know that’s not how the universe works. 

Ideal goal list - write, read, party & smell the roses!

So how is this year going to be different? 

I don't have a clear answer to this question. What I do know is that I just don’t want things to continue the way they are. I’ve realised we keep postponing things as if we have endless time on this planet. We don’t. I don’t know when the Grim Reaper might come knocking at my door and I don’t want to go with him (or is it her?) with a long list of regrets. It sounds like such a cliche’ when people say life is too short but it IS too short. When I think of all the days I’ve spent not living to my full potential, I feel like giving a call to the GR. Which is not actually such a good idea considering that I’ve just jotted down a list of goals. 

Another list? 

Yes. It’s not new. Some of the goals are old which have been clinging to me like my son does. There is, however, a different method to the madness this year. Instead of result oriented goals like, ‘I’m going to read 100 books in 2019’, my reading goal is to try and read for 20 mins a day. Even if I don’t meet the 100 book target, maybe I might make it halfway, or end up reading 20 books. Which will be so much better than the six books I read in 2018. My lowest book count to date. *hides under the table*

I don’t know where 2019 will take me but I do know where I want to take myself in 2019.  Hey universe, are you listening?

The belated 2018 post

I have notebooks in which I scribble all the time. I've had notebooks all my life but most of them, fortunately, I destroyed. Those that have survived are of various sizes, shapes and thickness. Why I'm talking about notebooks is because a dear friend of mine is on a decluttering mission these days and her efforts made me think of the various clutters in my life. Which aren't many, mind you, because I constantly give/throw away stuff. Except for notebooks. And here I'm not just talking about the ones which have the secrets of my life inscribed in them. I am referring to the ones which have such mundane entries like travel lists, to-do lists, random doodles made while talking on the phone, minutes of meetings etc - you get the gist but I feel that these notebooks or notepads are also important. Why? I don't know. I'm not someone whose papers people are going to go through diligently after I die. I highly doubt the twins will be interested in them. Unless one of them becomes an anthropologist and wants to know how life for an ordinary woman was in 'those' days.

Being ordinary is not that bad but it's a label I'll like to change sooner or later. More sooner than later. I don't want to become an Instagram sensation, oh no! It's more a lofty goal of contributing to the society in some way. I think the only way I ever did that was when I taught MBA/BBA students but that too is such a distant memory now that it feels like it never happened. 

What else feels like a distant memory is 2017. N and Z are already six months old. Where did the time fly? It seems like only yesterday when I was tossing and turning in the hospital bed after my surgery and thinking to myself, this too shall pass. Well, it passed and is passing mighty quickly. I had a friend get me Matt Haig's new book, How to Stop Time. She, being a non-fiction reader, took the title a little too literally and boy, was she in for a surprise when she sat down with the book on the plane. Time does stop  - it's just that we're in so much of a hurry to reach our next appointment, or get done with some routine task that we will it forward. Always looking at our wrist watches or now, at our mobile phones.

So how to stop time? I find reading a good book is a great way to stop time. Watching a great movie is another way. Reading to your kids also works as a time stopping device. Keeping the mobile phone away from you is a super way of making sure time stops. It is also very detoxing. I've been forced to not keep the phone on me because of N and Z and I find it extremely refreshing. Try it this year. Put some physical distance between you and your phone. Have a no-phone policy during meal times, even if you're eating alone. Above all, please delete the Facebook app. 

I've started this year with no resolutions. Maybe if I have no agenda I might just end up clearing up the clutter that previous unfulfilled resolutions have created.

a new year post - sort of

I'm not a very new year party person. Fireworks are nice but in Karachi the fireworks can be lifetaking so it's much safer to stay indoors and just watch the celebrations in different parts of the world on television. I think I've not been to a single new year celebration party in the past ten years. In fact, come to think of it, I can actually count the number of such celebrations I've attended in the past 35 years on my fingertips! 

[I'm still not sure if that's cool or not].

While counting the various celebrations on my fingertips just now, one particular party stood out. I think it was in 1993 probably. Winter holidays in Karachi, six of us cousins together to celebrate the new year, music in my grandmother's drawing room, and pizza after midnight. We even had a dress code I think - white shirts and jeans. It was a pretty amazing party but then everything seems amazing in retrospect!

A new year with new possibilities and new adventures. Resolutions? Yes, a few. One of the things I am doing this year is the Memory Jar project. Elizabeth Gilbert calls it the Happiness Jar. So it's a simple idea. Every night, or maybe early next morning, write down the things that made you happy that day. At the end of the year or more precisely, on 31st Dec, open the jar and go through your little notes. Not only will you relive the many happy moments of the entire year, it'll also give you an idea of a)basically how happy you were most of the time and more importantly, b) you didn't require a lot of material things to feel great. 

[I even gave my friends small memory jars last year although now that I look at them, they do seem quite small for the entire year]. 

Photo courtesy: Batool Curmally

So here's what I really have to say in my new year post:

Try and appreciate the little things in life. It might sound clichéd but it is something we almost never do. Share a good laugh with a friend and cherish that. Good friends are so hard to find (and someone recently told me that it is almost impossible to develop meaningful friendships after 35. Is it?). Read. Whenever you find time - in the car, in waiting areas, departure lounges, on a flight. It's a wonderful escape and don't we all need an escape now and then. Watch good films especially foreign language films (may I recommend La Grande Bellezza and Youth?). Do at least one new thing this year. Just one can't be so tough. Create something. 

And write it all down, everyday, and put it in your memory jar. 

The Year that was and wasn't

At the beginning of the year I made a resolve to write more, to live more and to make everyday count. 

When I sat down to write this post I was thinking how I had not managed to reach any one of my rather lofty goals. It is at these times that a diary comes in handy so I quickly turned to the diary entry of Dec 2014 and found a list. One of those 'What I want to do in 2015' lists. My worst fears stared back at me, incomplete and in some cases, not attempted!

And then I had an epiphany; didn't I do a lot of exciting things this year that weren't even on the god forsaken list!?

Sometimes we aren't able to reach our plans because we are busy doing something equally or more cool. I made a Grand Reading Plan this year because I wanted to well, read more books. However I had started reading the Malazan Book of the Fallen in September 2014 and now, finally, in Dec 2015 I've reached the final volume in this awe-inspiring, magnificent ten book saga. Do I regret not reaching my Grand Reading Plan goal? Hell, no! I read one of the most epic fantasy series I've read since Tilsm-e-Hoshruba and it inspired me to write my own fantasy saga.

The NaNoWriMo Karachi gang at the wrap-up party at T2f - 11th Dec

And talking about writing my own fantasy saga....yes, my very own fantasy saga! It sounds incredibly unbelievable even as I write this. This year the one thing which I had never seen coming was the amazing experience of participating and winning (yes, you read that right!) NaNoWriMo. Writing 50k words in one month not only made me overcome a lot of my writing demons but it also helped me discover a lot about myself, both as a writer and a person. I think the entire NaNoWriMo experience with my friends and fellow writers was definitely the highlight of the year. 

Hubby Dear with Sarmad Khoosat in a still from the film, Manto

There were so many other great and not-so-great moments this year. Going on an all girls' trip to Dubai and losing my luggage on the way back home! Meeting school and college friends after the longest of time and starting the conversation right from where we left off. Hubby dear starred in three movies this year and I had my first red carpet moment with him in March. Our theatre group, Qissah Farosh, did a super performance at The Second Floor in September and all proceeds from the two day performance were donated to the Sabeen Mahmud Foundation. 

But the year wasn't full of happiness and cheer only. I lost a few amazing people, both friends and family, and as the year ends, it is heartbreaking that they aren't there anymore. 

With 2015 almost over, I've realised that life is too short for regrets. It is too short to hold back too. And I'm going to wake up with this thought on the first morning of January 2016. It's only afterwards that I'll make my list! 

The First Step

How do you make a resolve to change your life?  

Resolve. To decide firmly on a course of action. And not be distracted by both external and internal forces. It is the internal forces which usually derail me. Once upon a time I had decided on a course of action, shut myself away from the world and prepared for an entrance test. 99% in my external environment believed I had no chance but I knew I'll nail it. And I did. (Of course, the irony is that in retrospect I think it was probably the worst decision of my life).

I keep repeating this story to myself a lot and I keep asking myself, why can't I do the same for the things I want to do most now? Why can't I shut myself in my study and write? Something I've wanted to do since I was eleven. Why is it so hard to stay up creating stories and weaving narratives when I had done it all so many years ago for a boring, good for nothing business school entrance test?

I've gone over these questions many times and I think I've found an answer. I'm afraid of failure. Of not writing something good enough. This fear is so great that I'm terrified of putting pen to paper. This fear is a reason why I've kept away from the blog. And if I'm really honest, I've sort of used this fear as an excuse not to write. 

Today, the third day of the new year, I decided to chuck this fear out of the window and started writing. Even if it's just this blog entry. One has to start somewhere...

2014 - The Year of No Resolution

It's not a good idea to pen down resolutions and keep them neatly in a folder. You're bound to find the paper (or papers if you are ambitious) when you're throwing out the old to make space for the new (an exercise some of us indulge in when the new year starts) and once you've come across those lined sheets there is no other option but to make a trip to the guilt motel.

After making several trips to the guilt motel last year, I have deleted the word resolution from my life. Resolutions, in my experience, are dangerous creatures. When I made resolutions last year, which I duly noted down, I limited myself to those six or seven points. I made a parameter around my life and put in 'ifs' and 'buts' over every action. 'If I do the above in two months' time, I am entitled to this. If I manage to finish this by ------ I will -----------'. I had become my own moral, emotional and spiritual policeman. A control freak. A sort of nasty departmental head.

Resolutions made me lose my spontaneity. If I wasn't able to meet a certain task at a specified time, I lost interest in doing it. Listing things down into neat sentences and keeping it all together in a folder did not make me a more organized person. It made me an unhappy person. And yet I kept going back to the list, hoping that by rearranging bits of it I'd find answers. It was only in the latter half of the year that I realized that the answers lay OUTSIDE the list. 

The past year I did a lot of things which were not part of my resolution wish list. And it was these unplanned events which made me a different person; more fulfilled, happy and confident. As soon as I let the resolution list collect dust, I was able to leave my comfort zone and discover the new old me. 

So I resolve to make no lists this year, except for grocery. Unplanned grocery shopping is a one-way ticket to the guilt motel! 

Think, write, read, create...

....and live in the moment, all through this new year.