These are some of my learnings from the past year, what I’d kind to remind myself more and my intentions for this year.
Let me go straight into it.
1. Self-improvement is impermanent
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Happiness is impermanent. Even if you have worked on your personal growth and happiness for years, ultimately it is still impermanent if you don’t nurture it daily.
This past year I felt this truly.
Any plant will wither if not taken care of properly. It is the same with our happiness and our growth journey.
You have to continue to feed it with the good food of good words, exercise, self-care and whatever that feeds your soul.
Even enlightenment is not permanent. You have to continue to work on yourself and nurture yourself so that your true self can shine.
There’s a saying that goes, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap. but by the seeds you plant.”
Your life is your responsibility. Focus on creating good causes every day.
2. A truly kind person is someone who is kind even when angry.
This is something I realized I need to work on since I become mean when I am angry. I restrict myself from love and affection and say unkind things which I later regret.
I tend to react more than respond when amidst anger and this needs to change.
I used to think I was a kind person, but now I feel that a truly kind person is someone who is kind even when angry.
I am not saying I won’t ever be angry, for I know the seed of anger is there within us all. But how do we behave when we are angry? What do we say when we are angry?
This year I want to be kind and mindful enough to respond and not react whenever I am angry.
I will treat my anger as an opportunity for me to practice responding, to practice being kind.
3. True Love is a decision to make it work.
Love is both easy and hard. Easy because love is free-flowing, playful and full of laughter and the connection you feel between two people in love is effortless and safe.
Yet love is hard because it comes with each one’s flaws, reactions, life’s challenges, misunderstandings and ego.
Even if there is a lot of love between each other, a relationship is hard work.
Ultimately what I have to come to know is that it rests upon a simple decision- the decision of whether you want to make it work or not. The decision of whether you think she/he is worth bearing the hard times with or not.
A person may love you, but if they aren’t deciding, it means that they have doubts about loving you and are not fully prepared to share their life with you.
I once read this quote,
You love someone despite their flaws, their quirks and their issues. True love is a decision to stick with them despite all the challenges and hardships.
True Love is a two-person decision who wants to make it work and then tries the means to make it work rather than just giving up.
So if you think ‘if only this had happened‘, or ‘if only this hadn’t happened, then it would have worked out’, that is not true.
The truth is it didn’t work out because they didn’t decide to work it out.
4. The Ego enjoys you not going after being your best self.
It enjoys sadness even. It tries to make sure the loop continues and that you engage in habits that keep you distracted from being your truest self.
As long as you are away from being your true self, the more the Ego can run wild and free and hold no accountability and responsibility for the self.
But when you come home to yourself, the ego cannot survive. It has to go away, for the ego cannot thrive in a mindful and calm environment.
The ego cannot thrive when the true self shines.
We all have both our ego and our true self. The practice is to shorten the distance from the ego to our true self.
What I want to do is to shorten the distance from me to me.
P.S I had written a newsletter article some time back along these same thoughts: On Heart opening, Intentional Suffering and Being Love
5. Maintain energy hygiene
This year I intend to take energy hygiene seriously and only give my energy to things that fuel my heart and soul, and to people who are truly good for my wellbeing, my future and my happiness.
I found that social media, always being online, going to bed late, texting and talking to people even when I felt there was not that much of a great connection depletes my energy,
I need not be guilty to say no and not spend my energy so much trying to force things if I am not truly feeling it.
I no longer want to exhaust myself by doing things I don’t truly feel certain about, and I no longer want to exhaust myself just by distraction and fun.
This year I intend to be more satisfied than to have fun.
I want to be conscious and more mindful about how and where I am putting my energy and how each thing or person is truly making me feel.
If something doesn’t truly connect with my heart or if it is not energising me, I intend not to engage in it further.
2025 is only about watering what waters me.
6. Don’t cling to an Idea of happiness. Just be happy now.
I thought I wasn’t one of them- someone who clings to an idea of happiness far away. I thought I was a happy person, but turns out it’s so easy to get entangled into one.
What I mean by an idea of happiness is that we so often cling to the idea that something, someone or some event is going to make us truly happier than we are now.
And then we postpone happiness.
We crave it, become anxious and restless and we don’t want to stop until we have it.
We can get entangled by the idea that a good career, a good marriage, a good partner, a good city can make us more happy and then so what we have now doesn’t feel enough.
We keep all these arrows of future happiness to ourselves and don’t release them.
We crave this idea of happiness so much that we don’t appreciate what we have now and end up losing the things that are dear to us at this present moment.
So much gets wasted at the present moment (where happiness is possible just for the sake of this idea of happiness in the future- our time, our energy, our precious moments with loved ones and moments that could have been spent joyfully and being grateful for).
Clinging on to the idea of happiness, we forget to make the best out of what we have.
So it’s good to ask ourselves time and again, “What arrows aren’t I releasing?”
“What idea am I clinging on to that I think is going to make me happier?”
I am now letting go of this idea and releasing myself of it.
I intend to be happy now no matter what, and I intend to make a very beautiful year for myself.
Posts on happiness:
7. Pat yourself on the back more often
I tend to disregard my achievements big and small. I tend to not take them as big and forget to celebrate them.
Even when I was a student and used to study almost the entire day, I would still feel that it wasn’t enough.
When I did my exams well, I would still feel that it went only ‘okay‘.
When someone compliments me for my writing and sends me emails, I do feel nice, but I still feel that it’s nothing so big.
The reason why I had stopped writing on my blog for the past few months or so was also because I felt like an imposter.
When I spend my day in my ideal way, I feel it is nothing
But then only when I am on my off-track days do I realize how hard it is, and what a big thing it is to do what you said you would do.
This year I need to remember to pat myself more often no matter what small or big achievements I accomplish on the day.
“Did my morning rituals?”
“Good job vishaka” I will say.
“Wrote something?”
I will kiss my own hands and encourage my inner self.
And after posting this, I shall pat myself again saying you did it!
It is no small feat to remember your dreams and put in the effort needed no matter how small.
They all add up. And this year I will stop undermining myself and my efforts.
No effort that is leading you to your true self is too small.
Every act you do to make your true self shine is an act of courage.
8. True growth is when you double down on your faith, self-care and self-improvement especially when things go rough.
It’s easy to give in to negativity when things don’t go your way.
Our ego which is our lesser self then quickly tries to creep in and makes us bargain into doing things that are not truly good for us.
It makes you think you deserve this sadness and that you can do anything to distract yourself from it rather than facing it and doing your work- your inner work.
True growth is knowing when to stop.
Stopping is as essential as starting.
Only when we stop, can we be mindful and come back home to ourselves. Otherwise, we’re always on the run.
Thich Nhat Hanh says, “If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less”
If suffering is something that we will all experience in life, isn’t it so much better to learn how to suffer well?
It is a challenge, but when things are stressful, when things are not pleasant and when discouragement seems like all there is, it is when we must double down on our faith, self-care and self-improvement more than any other day.
True growth is doubling down on what feeds your soul and energy instead of falling into past patterns when things are hard.
9. Satisfaction is more important than having fun.
We might feel having fun and enjoyment is all there is to life, but truly satisfaction is more important than having fun.
Calm is better than constantly being on the go.
A day well-lived intentionally brings greater joy than the fleeting pleasure of having fun in cheap dopamine.
I realize I do much better on boring days, days when I allow myself to stop and slow down.
Allowing boring days and enjoying them is much better than always having your days filled with thrill and excitement.
Constantly looking for pleasure is to go after your destruction.
You can’t truly be happy if all you want to be is to be happy.
Yes, Don’t seek happiness if you want to be happy
Other thoughts and lessons from past year:
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