Ring out the old, ring in the new

The past year had been smooth. Uneventful except for my modest career/academic pursuits. Reflecting on my resolutions for 2011, I realize that I haven’t set any challenging goals for me in the first place. And then, at least one is included without much conviction that I would at least try to accomplish it. I can say that I’ve been a moderate success in certain cases and moderate failure at others. On retrospection, it wouldn’t have mattered either way for me. The list was quite short for 2011:

• Register for PhD – Done
• Publish papers (at least 1) – too eager and ambitious: synonymous with too naïve and ignorant. Just took some baby steps. Got a paper accepted for a national conference and nothing more.
• Maintain weight – Done with minor ups and downs
• One book from “Top 100″ list for every book I read – Failed miserably at this. Actually, this was something I came up with out of impulse. I should never have set such a target in the first place. There is no chance that I can possibly do something like this. I pick up my books based on my mood at that point of time and I enjoy my impulses when it comes to reading. Expecting myself to stick to such an impulse for a whole year is something close to impossible.

I should really aspire for greater things and achieve instead of being laid back and content with the status quo. On second thoughts, the latter isn’t actually too bad especially when one can afford it and gets used to it. I guess most people would like to be content and enjoy life leisurely, but surely not at 30. So, I would like to wake up from my long slumber and do something gratifying in 2012.

Of course, having been committed myself to PhD, there is ample scope for me to work and achieve something concrete in the near future.  I look forward to a more satisfying year ahead. While there are so many aspects of myself that I want to work on, I can wait until I’m ready without stressing myself too much and just concentrate on being at peace in the meanwhile. And I try not to think too much about things I cannot do anything about – like, “end of the world”.

I wish everyone a better year ahead.

Reflections on integrity

A person whose words and deeds match; who stands by his/her principles at all times; who is true to oneself is my idea of a person with integrity. We all hold many ideals but in the daily life find it difficult to put them all into practice.

Everybody is doing it, so why don’t/can’t I? if it is done by majority, it’s right or at least not wrong. This line of argument goes with various things like lying, corruption, tax evasion, social irresponsibility and many other less grand things.

It takes courage to hold an opinion contrary to that of the majority and then to stand by it. Believing something and actually putting into practice often seem to be two different things.

In the matter of some of my strong beliefs/opinions , I’m not always sure whether I would retain my conviction when it’s the testing time. But I’m glad to note that I didn’t waver to hold on to my principles on a few important issues of late.

While it’s too personal to reveal what those occurrences are, I consider these as encouragement to do the same in future, in view of the contentment they brought to me. Experiences like these would surely  increase my belief in myself.

My 2010

Yet another year comes to an end and the dawn of yet another new year lurks just around the corner. This time I am a bit too eager to put 2010 behind me. Time doesn’t seem to be running fast enough.

The keyword this year had been “loss”. There had been a lot of it in various forms – money, peace of mind, job, perseverance, zeal, favorite possessions, and the like. The situation might not have been as dismal as I am trying to portray but still the year has left me in confusion and also a kind of desperation.

I know that I shouldn’t put the blame on “the year”, which is such an obviously lame effort to divert attention from myself. But I do hope that along with 2010, I also take leave of the traces of all those losses and plunge into 2011 with new vigour and ardor. All through 2010, it seemed that, I let things happen to me. In contrast, I wish to make things happen in 2011.

Wish me “All the Best”.