In 2013, I had this plan of driving my brand new i20 on the Golden Quadrilateral route. (Delhi-Mumbai-Chennai-Kolkata) Itineraries were made and then torn away to give way to the new ones. Friends were informed of the soon-to-be-confirmed one hell of a trip. It was just waiting to happen.
It never happened.
Today, in 2023, I have made peace with the fact that this may never happen. And this trip isn’t the only thing which I have accepted. There are many personal things which can’t be shared but share the same result- may happen but I won’t be losing my sleep over it.
Making peace with these realisations about what I can do and what I am doing has helped me. I have understood what to let go. And once you learn to let go, you are free. To take it slightly too far, you feel liberated.
Let me take an example. For the last few years, I wanted to do X. This thing X is not rocket science and can be done with day job. It is very rewarding if done right. But like any other thing, it needed consistency and discipline.
Recently I admitted to myself (with some reluctance) that I will not be pursuing X anymore due to not being disciplined enough. And I stopped having any expectations from X.
Dramatic it may sound but I now have some more time from the same 24 hours for things I can do. My head is lighter and am no more punishing myself for not doing X which, anyways, wasn’t done correctly. In my quest of doing X; neither I did that with any sort of plan nor I could do anything else as my time was tied up. Those 30 minutes daily and a couple of hours on weekends are suddenly available.
I will be 36 soon. That is roughly half of India’s present life expectancy. With the same number of years to go by; I choose not to be hard on myself for certain things.
I have not forget that I wanted to do X.
But what I know after a few years of trying is that it will need more than 30 minutes in a day to do it. Unless I have that; there is simply no point in continuing it.
There is a point in everyone’s lives when he learns to accept everything with a smile. I think I am there. And I am happy with it.
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