Introspection

Year ends make me a wee bit nostalgic. And I think a lot of you will agree with me here. The end of a year is a time to think back to moments spent, moments lost, moments that zipped by. A time to walk backwards in your own footsteps and relive, albeit hazily, what you did and didn’t do. Year ends can bring on a whole lot of regret and embarrassment, for things you feel you should have done differently. Fortunately, they can also bring pride and a glimmer of hope for the coming year.

2009 was a year brimming with opportunity for me. I began the year with the decision to quit working as an employee and do my own thing as a freelancer. The start was rocky, and I wanted to rethink my decision. But I’m glad I didn’t, because way past mid-year I found out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. This brainwave didn’t come about as a eureka moment one fine day. It came in the form of my business partner Kavita Machiah.

Kavita and I struck the right chord from day one. We’ve been working together for 4 months now and I have enjoyed every moment of the journey. I don’t think I fully understood the meaning of teamwork till we started on our venture. As freelance writers we have been kicking up our own little storm from the cosiness of our homes. We both love the independence and freedom that working from home and working for ourselves has given us. If you know us you’d agree we are different as chalk and cheese. But when it comes to ambition and work methodology, I have yet to meet anyone else who is so like me.

So as I draw the curtains shut for the last time in 2009, and I think back on yet another year that rushed by too quickly, along with a lot of other introspection I’m going to be thankful for what I got this year - business partnership, life long friendship, and several other ships to keep me afloat during the years to come.

It’s what’s written for you.

I stole the above line from a friend’s google talk status message. She’s been displaying it for a few days now and every time I look at it, it gets me thinking. I love the way the line seems to resonate when I read it. I can imagine hearing it being said in a hushed yet firm whisper and yet it echoes in my ears.

I am a firm believer in destiny. I accept that our life’s story has been written by a higher power and that who we are is decided by this plot. Is the plot decided by who we are? Yes, I think this holds true as well.

I know there are no such things as coincidences. Actually I’ve seen coincidences happening so often that they have seized to be classified as coincidences. I believe there is a reason behind incidences, happenings, meetings, gains, losses, successes and failures. Everything leads to something else. Some occurrences have the capacity to be complete life-altering events. Some are so discreet that we might not even notice the events they unfold. So we don’t always get the drift of why something happened. But it has a purpose behind it nevertheless.

That sentence got me thinking about all this. Even though I believe in destiny, it is so much easier to let emotions get the better of you, to get caught up in the moment and forget the wisdom of your beliefs. So when I looked at the line today I said to myself that I need to say this out loud to myself when things are beyond my control. The sooner we learn to accept the things we have absolutely no control over, the more successful we will be in handling our emotions as well as the challenges life throws up.

Preoccupation with change

What is it about change that scares me? The fear of the unknown perhaps. Unpredictability, unfamiliarity and uncertainty. These are what my nightmares are about. How do I explain these fears to anyone? Do I need to? I’m not entirely sure. I’m swinging between hope and despair and wondering where to land.

I think I don’t give myself enough credit. I’m tougher than I think. I know I can will myself to look forward and carry on without delving on the past too much. I know I have it in me to embrace change, and to take each day as it comes. I’m desperately looking around for inspiration. For some manifestation that makes me realize the finiteness of my worries. I haven’t found it yet but I know it will arrive soon. And the sun will shine soon enough.

Channelling Negative Energies towards Creativity

For a few days now, my mind has been preoccupied with a number of things. Hopes, desires, wants, needs, family, work, lifestyle, ambition, future. Everything has been getting intertwined and is causing much consternation. The easy way, or the more appropriate terms would be ‘the loser’s way’ would be to mope about, frown, get bugged with everything and generally have a negative attitude about what is happening around.

But I don’t want to be like that. Too many times in life I have already chosen this wrong way of looking at things. Today I want to be different. I want to approach the New Year with a positive outlook. I want to absorb positive energies as well as emanate them. Despite things falling apart, I want to pick up pieces of hope and create something brilliant. Something that I believe will give me the power to succeed. After all, it is all a matter of attitude. We are only as happy as we allow ourselves to be.