The New Year resolution: 12 things I discovered in my 20s that’ll last a lifetime

There’s something about New Years that gives you a fresh lease of life, a second chance to give a shot at life again. A chance to forget the past and create a future you always wanted. Maybe that’s why, a lot of us look at the year gone by and religiously make a list of things we missed out on and want to do, in the year ahead. In simple words, we make resolutions. I did too, for many years. But then, for a person who is hardly a disciplinarian, it was a mammoth task to make it last even for a week.

So, this year, for a change, I decided to look back at 2013 (in the hope that fate doesn’t have any big surprises in the last 5 days), and list down things that I learnt from the whirlwind of a year. Things that I’ll probably carry to my deathbed. Of course, with the possibility that this list will grow by the years.

1. Despite being confronted with several circumstances, we still don’t know when to say a firm no, when to say a yes or when to forgive. Somehow, there’s always an element of doubt.
2. It’s a fact. We brag about how we don’t care about what others think about us. We stand tall. We stand proud. But, even the most optimistic among us has a tinge of unshakeable insecurity. And, it takes conviction beyond imagination to not let it affect us.
3. Our parents were always right, especially, about the kind of friends we had right from kindergarten until now. They sensed the trouble-kind like a bloodhound long ago, while we took a hit and went running back to them years later, just to hear them say, “I told you so.”
4. Oh, and they know exactly what we do and how messed up we are. They just don’t confront us.
5. We wake up one day and realise, we can literally count the number of friends we are truly comfortable being around. We panic, yes. But, at some level, we prefer to spend time with those few who know us inside out.
6. While on this subject, we realise it takes tremendous effort to keep in touch with those select few. But, we are willing to go ten extra miles to do exactly that!
7. Hangovers are not fun anymore. Our legs start weighing down on us even before the stroke of midnight, and we yearn to go back to that wonderful, wonderful bed at home.
8. Whether we care to admit it or not, when we see our closest friends bear a child, the first signs of growing old and becoming adults hits us like a storm. Of course, not fashionably so.
9. When we were in our teens, we could hardly relate to someone who was even two years older than us. Somehow, we were the more awesome know-it-alls’. Enter mid-20s – we have that shocking revelation that most of our friends are at least two to three years older than us. And the best part? We prefer to be around them at most times.
10. All the things that mattered to us in a ‘dateable person’ seem insignificant and immature now. And what we look for in them now? Well, there’s no list. None whatsoever.
11. For all those of us who make or used to make diary entries in our early and late teens, when we read it now, we can’t help but laugh at the trivial concerns we had as kids! And now, we begin to wonder if the troubles we have now will seem insignificant to what we would be facing in a decade. And that, my friend, is scary!
12. Finally, we oh so miss the summer vacations, when we watched Cartoon Network day in and day out, played in the blazing heat with friends and when the biggest worry was to show our report cards to our parents! We’d give anything to trade lives with a five-year old.