Open letter to the new decade.......

 

A Whatsapp forward told me that my words of the year were Creation, Gratitude, Alignment, and Love. I snickered and wished these things were actually meaningful.

But they are, aren't they? It's up to me to decide if these words are going to be my words of the year or not. It's up to me to make them come true, regardless of the validity of these mass-forwards.

I decided a couple of weeks ago that I wasn't going to do a yearly wrap-up because this has been the singularly worst year of my entire life. But when I tried to do one today, I realized how far I truly have come....how much I've achieved even if these achievements are quite insignificant in the grand scale of things.


I read only 25 books this year, but I watched 203 movies & 64 series. I managed to not only graduate college, but got into all my target Universities. I finally started my blog (yes Derek, I know I don't update it regularly. shuddup already.) and discovered the wonderful world of K-dramas.

We often tend to overlook our own achievements because we keep way too high expectations from ourselves. And we're constantly disappointing ourselves, aren't we? But when we've managed to survive a year as wild as 2020, it's important to give ourselves a pat on the back.



I watched a kdrama recently where a character said to another, "you're a cosmos flower. Wait until spring and you'll bloom". We are all walking our own path, just because we're walking side by side, doesn't mean we'll have the same destination or the same pace.


In the coming weeks, you may encounter a lot of things that will make you feel shitty. People recounting all the 179 books they read last year, your friends getting job placements or getting into Unis, a classmate writing a sublime essay that makes you feel like an uneducated potato.....and the list goes on.

But, here's the thing....... You don't know what enabled that other person to be so productive, what resources they had available. And just because you haven't gotten there yet, doesn't mean you never will.

When you are in your teens or twenties, it seems like you must achieve everything right now. Every few weeks I get into this phase where I feel like life is whooshing past me while I'm just falling more & more behind. But I have way more years to live that I've already lived (fingers crossed), way more time to achieve everything that I possibly can.

And it scares me. It scares me that I don't have a 3-year or 5-year plan. Hell, I don't even have a 3-week plan. I have no clue what the fk to do with my life. I don't know where I'm going.

All my dreams & wishes seems to at war with each other. If I do this, I can't do that one. If I be this, I can't be that. Sometimes I almost wish that I did not have all these larger-than-life dreams. That I could just dive into a predictable life where I'm just checking items of the Life-To-Do list handed to me by my parents or the society.

But I'm a dramatic bitch with dramatic dreams, and if I don't have my dreams, I have nothing. So It's okay that I don't have any elaborate plans to follow....any concrete goal to reach. I can figure it out as I go. I can improvise. I can adapt. Isn't that what's life is supposed to be about?

So I'm writing to you, my fellow sufferers. But I'm also writing to this new decade ahead of us. I hope it's kind enough to let us figure ourselves out....kind enough to let us explore.....kind enough to give us the chance to learn & adapt.

To you, I say.... Pick a word for the year...anything....remember it every morning, and channel it with your entire being. Pick a goal for the year.....just one.....then break it down into small doable steps and go hard at it. Be kinder, to yourself & others.

Some days will be good, and somedays will be bad. You'll face newer hardships, and find new positives. But on the whole, you'll come out good, as long as you persevere. We have no fkng clue what this year and the decade will bring, all we can do is try to be more like the person we dream to be. That's all.

Here we go........

P.S: here's a little playlist for all of us. I made it collaborative, so you can add your own songs. ❤