Why does the end of a year always inspire us to sit down with pen and paper and make a new wish list? The things we did or didn’t do. The places we missed seeing. The people we added or subtracted.. The achievements we earned or the failures that taught… Why is it that only the end, signals or coerces us to rethink, reinvent and reframe our next path? Perhaps when you know something is going to end, you are compelled to give it one last thought before writing it off. You want to carry with you a little of the past and take with you a lot of your present. You want to rework and rewire the things that didn’t quite work for you and savour the ones that did. And that’s the beauty of a whole new year. Yes, this one was definitely much better than 2020, which a lot of us had written off, for reasons personal. And as we gear up to get into the next, we are doing so with a glimmer of hope and are trusting it to be even better than the year we have had. And why not? After all, we are in the business of promoting happiness and motivation, aren’t we? If there is one thing I would want to leave behind, it would be judgement. I have seen people behave in the most shallow way ever, seen them say and do things I would never imagine a person do to another but surprisingly, this time, it didn’t so much as even cause a flutter inside me. It almost felt as though a mature version of me was staring back at the well, regular me, and that on its own said a lot. And, if there was one thing I would want to take ahead with me, I’d go for love – in all its forms. We spend far too much of our time on frivolities that don’t even matter. We overlook the small gestures while looking for the big ones, least realising that it were the small ones that would have eventually indicated the largest! I am not a hopeless romantic for romance can never make you hopeless. What I am is a girl who believed, still does and probably always will look for the twinkle in everyone she loves. For, what the world really needs is more of empathy. We are so attuned into staring at the best bits of people’s lives on screen that we tend to overlook one minuscule but vital fact – reality is a long cry from whatever we see there. It’s a world that is coated and sugar coated with drama, deceit and an impression. I feel as though I am at a fork on the road. And the difference between the two paths is not based on which one has been more travelled upon but on the one that is not fringing on superfluousness or pretence. I don’t want to be something or someone I’m not. I don’t want to hide behind a façade of duties and responsibilities. What I do want is to be free to choose the road that I want, as me. And that is the beauty of a whole new year. Somewhere inside of us, we all make promises that we want to keep but they don’t always pan out the way we want. And that is okay for no matter which road you take, there will always be choices and it is at those forks, that your next story enfolds. As I sign off to a year that has been kind and generous, I’m doing so with a spring in my step. I’m doing it with the knowing that I am happiest when I am me, not a version of another’s perception of how I am to be. Also Read Cheers! Pooja 30/12/2021