Change and New Year resolutions

We made a rule that one can’t talk about incidents from 20 years back. This is a good rule to apply for old people who love to talk forever about their own childhood some 70 years back.

January 02, 2014 07:26 pm | Updated May 13, 2016 06:45 am IST - Hyderabad

Change is always good and an opportunity to move, of any sort, is even better. When one moved home/transferred, it became a welcome change and a chance to shed what one had not looked at in 20 years.

Some time back I moved into a flat and my friends had a heyday helping me fit into a flat from a house. It’s the heady feeling you get sorting out someone else’s clutter: you have no attachment and the prized shirt I had kept for 20 years in the hope of getting it copied ‘one day’ was happily thrown out. The mantra being what you haven’t touched for 20 years has no place now.

In fact, we even made a rule that one can’t talk about incidents from 20 years back. This is a good rule to apply for old people who love to talk forever about their own childhood some 70 years back. I mean it’s great to hear these stories once or twice but at the tenth time of hearing one starts to feel impatient, especially as the dear old souls are really remembering and so not one iota of detail is changed.

This doesn’t mean you forget your brother because he was born 20 years back; I am only referring to incidents and stories!

I was gifted a book titled Organizing from the Inside Out and it’s a great way to start as instead of telling you how to sort out a room. It asks you to analyse what kind of person you are and remember there is nothing wrong in being whatever person you are unless you are like the person in Manhattan, New York (where apartments are notoriously small ) who had to stay in a hotel nearby as her flat was being used for housing her stuff . I know such people nearer home but that’s another story.

I have been diagnosed (by myself) “Conquistador of Chaos” by this book; in other words I believe I love the thrill of coming to the rescue and creating order out of chaos!

Back to ‘who moved my cheese’ kind of change. It’s a wonderful heady feeling to think you have the opportunity to change everything about you: somewhat like cutting off your hair after sporting a bun forever or shaving off a beard when no one can remember seeing you without a beard. You of course have to go through screeches telling you that you look somewhat nude.

As for New Year resolutions which are also a form of change for the better, maybe the trick is to start the resolutions in November and confirm to yourself that the resolution is till December end. For example I started Yoga on the 27th of December.

(The writer is the Chairman Emeritus of JWT Mindset)

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.