By Jai Raj
Hey Guys!
Happy New Year is around and so is the time to decide on new year resolutions!
It is said that the new year resolutions are taken to be broken with a shelf life of around 15 days! I also used to carry the same notion earlier.
However, while running in my sixties now, I realise that there is definite logic in taking and practicing the new year resolutions. Human beings have a constant desire to improve in terms of happiness. So, identifying one’s weaknesses and trying to overcome them takes a person altogether to a higher level of happiness and contentment!
As the New Year takes off, it is the most appropriate time to take a resolution as, with the New Year, start new hopes, and the determination to carry out the resolution is perhaps the maximum!
I was an avid tea consumer – some 7 to 8 cups of tea every day. Lots of sugar intake. Whether getting up from bed in the morning or starting anything during the day, the buzz words were –jara pehley chai to ho jaaye! Reducing the number of cups also seemed undoable. It is just like the policy of honesty where there cannot be a middle path. Either one is honest or corrupt–nothing in between! So, for the year 2023, I took the resolution – no tea/coffee in any form from 1st January 2023. And lo and behold, here we are at the end of 2024, and I could keep my resolve for around 2 years and that seems to continue now with the utmost ease!
I have been fond of “drinks” (alcohol) as well. Towards the end of 2023, I took the resolve to say no to drinks and this resolve has also been maintained right through 2024, though to the utter discomfiture of my “glass-mates”!
With the past success I have become more ambitious and am seriously contemplating for the coming year:
- Leaving white sugar in direct as well as in indirect form with a small exception of having sooji-ka-halwa once in say 15 days that I love to prepare myself;
- Avoiding dairy products–perhaps an attempt towards being a vegan;
- Finishing my meals by 6 p.m.;
- Improving on my reading and writing abilities.
Let me see how it works out!
So, friends, give some time to yourself and consider what you want to change in yourself. This is the right time for this! One needs to love oneself before one can love the world around! One needs to be selfish here! Find out doing or leaving what will enhance your self-esteem and happiness. Take a call on it and plunge into its practice as the new year starts! The first 3 days will be difficult, the next 4 days not that difficult and further 7 days will be relatively easy and beyond that your zone of comfort would begin as your resolve would start becoming your habit. Do not miss the bus this time otherwise it would come after 1 year!
Will be glad to know about your successful resolutions by March end!
Happy New Year!!
(Jai Raj is former PCCF & Head of Forest Force, Uttarakhand.)
