We have long gone past the half-year month and yet here I am going over my new year’s resolutions once again and realizing that I still have way too many things to accomplish, and way too many uncrossed items on my To-Do-List. I can’t believe how fast this year has flown by…

Joy in my soul
For some reason though, I do not have the antsy feeling that normally sweeps over my body upon realization of yet another ‘year of failure’ to cross off—especially those items related to adventure and fun; the ones meant to force me out of my comfort zone, ‘of my list. This time around, I am not stressed or bothered at all. I think it’s because the majority of the uncrossed items are trivial things like sky jumping, bungee jumping, traveling, and the like.

This year’s first resolution was to be joyous, and this was influenced by a conversation with a stranger last year. A total stranger if I may emphasize. In our conversation as humans momentarily drawn to each other by circumstances; call it destiny or fate, talking about life; its ups and downs, the stranger uttered words that resonated and changed my outlook on life forever.

A stranger’s Words
The essence of the stranger’s words was that ‘the most important thing in life is to find joy because anything other than this is temporary. Emotions like happiness and sadness are temporary, they are fleeting… These, we don’t control as they are influenced by the external. But JOY, once found, is permanent.

With joy, it’s much easier to navigate all the negatives life throws at you without losing yourself. You see, we don’t have control when it comes to life, we have wants, we have desires of how we want our life to pan out, but that does not mean we have full control of steering that wheel, and that’s where joy comes in.

I went out and sought my joy. I am proud to say not only did I find it, but I also managed to find and keep my peace. In those moments of insanity, moments of crumbling and glasses breaking, I simply shut my brain and have my emotional ‘Namaste’…

Spring cleaning my soul
And if I said it was easy, it would be a lie because to be where I am today; the happiest I have ever been in my life, I had to lose some things; shed some pounds… drop the baggage I had been carrying for a long time.

As part of the ‘a better/newer me project’, I decided to renovate my house-quite a big task for someone who had never been engaged in any construction project. It’s still ongoing with its challenges, but I learnt something during this process: ‘ it’s okay to start afresh’.

When needed, you break down the walls, remove the roof, peel the rugged carpet off the floor, and start over again. And so, like a house under renovation, such is my life… nothing is perfect.

When relationships are for a season
Hard decisions had to be made for me to be where I am today. Decisions such as walking away from a marriage to a man I had always sworn was my soul mate, decisions to walk away from a job that paid me well but, was just a job and not my career, and decisions to let go of relationships that existed as only a phantom of my imagination, the ones that I had been holding onto so tightly hoping for a better change, better bonds, just because there is DNA involved.

Not every relationship is meant for a lifetime, and coming to that realization lightened the burden of loyalty. Another lesson in 2022 is that life has so many curve balls that it may choose to throw at you. The trick to a joyous life or survival is not in finding a way of dodging the balls; let whatever may come your way come. The real trick is in finding a way of minimizing the impact. A positive outlook will numb the pain, a positive response will defuse the explosion before it erupts and harms you with its flying shrapnel.

New Beginnings
I decided to start life afresh this year. 50 percent of the decision was forced upon me by life, and the other 50 percent was a conscious decision I made so I could give myself a genuine chance to find my joy.
As a stranger looking in from the outside, I would not fault you for declaring to the world that you are certain that I have not achieved anything in 2022 because my achievements are internal. They are not on display as they are for me and not for the world.

This year, my achievements are not boastful or showy because they are not materialistic but rather, are about the peace of my emotions. My sanity, my joy… Dare I say, I found it.