Yessss! Its inching closer and closer. 2019 is going to be my year! All that I want to be I will be.. All that I want to achieve I will achieve! Wiser, smarter, sharper, fitter...so many words, then out of the blue - an epiphany - "This is exactly what you said to yourself a year back, bugger" - I'm thinking out loud. Is this deja vu?
Cut to exactly 365 days back. I was King of my Castle; building success stories of my own whims and fancies. 2017 was a roller coaster ride - professionally and personally. Ups and downs like you wouldn't believe it. I thought I left the worst behind me as I was stepping into what was to be a glorious 12 months ahead! Optimism theoretically breeds naivety - and there I was - Exhibit A.
The year started on an fairly positive note, professionally. Personal front - totally different scene. Someone from my family went through a terrifying ordeal and I knew she needed family around her. Left everything behind - a successful program nearing completion - to be with her in her time of need. Looking back, this one incident cost me dearly at a later stage. Emotional fool? Perhaps. But I grew up knowing that the buck always stops at you. When no one else takes responsibility, stand the hell up and give two shits to what the world has to say. (Ekla cholo re.. playing in my naive head)
Then started a shit-storm that would go on to change almost everything I thought I knew about people, work, friends and life in general. I got sucker punched and gutted at work with an almost 'Take No Prisoners' approach. And for the longest time, I could not believe what was happening to me. I mean, I've always operated a certain way and that would usually bring me bouquets, not brickbats. Where was I going wrong? And its not like I did not try. I reached out to everyone - colleagues, mentors, family, friends for some reprieve, some way out, any way out. But this rabbit hole had other plans for yours truly. And this is how 2018 became my very own 24/7 nightmare.
I have to admit this - I was broken. To a point where I would wake up dead in the night panicking, fearing what the next day had in store for me. At this point, its fair to mention this was all new to me. I've never been timid or shied away from a knife fight. 13 years away from your folks and living out of a 9 different cities will do that to you I guess. I was the Alpha, the guy who would swing hardest and longest and knock the bloody ball out of the yard. Yet, this fear came from familiar territory - knowing that I was truly and suddenly alone in this sea of sharks. It jars you to your bones, this unfamiliar feeling of incompetence, to forget all you have achieved and to be treated like an unwelcome addition to your team.
And so, I bent over and over to accommodate till I could take it no more. It is ironic, I guess, we find our true worth only when the world around writes us off. I had my back against the wall, for the longest time, so I broke the damn wall down. I will no longer play or be the victim, I promised myself. And all the bitterness built inside found its way out through one act of brevity after another. The first one was a supposedly foolhardy decision to take a road trip to the Himalayas during the peak of monsoon season. Everyone was confident I had lost my marbles. Maybe I did. But I had to find that 20 something Alpha who wouldn't take no for an answer and bring him back. And so I did. It was tough, it was almost fatal for my spouse and me, but we made it! I'll save details for a different post. (For reference, google monsoons in Manali between the 10 - 17 August 2018)
The most important lesson learnt though, was to let go. I was guilty of looking at someone I admired with the same coloured lenses that I would have worn half a decade back. And that was my mistake, another near fatal one. The fact that I refused to change, or stayed in denial as the world, people and their circumstances changed caused my metaphoric doom. The day I decided to look at people exactly the way they were is the exact day I could sleep well again. I became admittedly more self serving than I used to be and it made life so much more peaceful for me and my loved ones. And to those I would idolize and demonize, I saw them as who they were - just people who were playing their parts in this stage.
So why take this up now, 5 minutes before the clock strikes 12? I don't have an answer to that, neither is this a chance to play out my first world problems to the world. This post is a silent prayer, a chance to reminisce all that I thought I lost, and all that I gained and so much more. Was 2018 a bad year? Not at all. It was a year that gave me everything I deserved, not everything I desired. Am I the same guy I was exactly 365 days back. No, Thank God for that! What will 2019 hold for me?
A new life, an interesting cross-road of personal desire and professional ambition. 2019 will come with a plethora of personal and professional milestones - and opportunities that have taken years to take shape. And I had better be ready for all of it. With the same trademark optimism that I thought I had lost. Wiser, Smarter, Sharper, Fitter and Larger Than Life! 2018 was my best friend, a rascal who kept sucker punching me while giving out a glimpse of hope at the end. 2019 will be my poetry, my book - written, shaped and forged with all that I am and all that I will be.
Wish you a Brilliant Year Ahead, Universe! Here we go... 3...2...1
Cheers,
Debansh
(Blogger, Survivor, Realist, Achiever)
