10 Lessons – 2023

1. You will have to face the hard times. There is no way you can escape that, no trips, vacations, or catching up with friends can make you escape that. You will have to live through it, breathe through it, and take yourself together to the other side of the story.

2. It is natural to feel alone and lonely in uneven times. Accept it or not, people always want to be around happy and chirpy people (we already have our share of crappiness). Don’t feel tempted to share everything with everyone, even with your close ones. Don’t seek to validate your storm when others are happy in their breeze. Keep it in you, talk to yourself, feel, and face it alone.

Be comfortable with your crappiness first and then if you want, talk about it.

3. Friends are very important. Have 3-5 close friends with whom you don’t have to pretend, you can be the way you are. And there will be days when they might also judge you (we all are humans) or be concerned about your life decisions, but as long as they are there for you, that’s enough.

4. Never miss your old school friend’s wedding even if the road was rough and your bond was affected. Forget the bad and remember all the good, and you will have your reasons to dress up, attend that wedding, and dance your heart out.

Some relations bend so that you can amend them.

5. There will be times when you will have to make a tough decision. No time or situation can make you feel enough prepared to take it. This is your life, if you make one wrong decision, you can make 100 right decisions to make that one wrong, right.

Have faith in your gut feeling, and do it.

6. There will be days when the smallest of things will make you cry, will make you fight with your loved ones, and your overwhelming emotions will force you to be incapable of sharing even your happy moments. Remember to not be tough on yourself. Don’t explain yourself to others because you are already tired of explaining why(s) and how(s) to yourself. Don’t expect others to understand the obvious of things because what is obvious for you, is vague and bizarre for them.

Love yourself a little more that day.

7. Apologize. But apologize when you don’t blame the situation, but when you simply feel that you were wrong. In most of the situations, (if not all), it is you, not the situation. Accept it and then apologize.

Don’t take too long to apologize. Life is short and f*cking unpredictable.

8. There will be instances when the other person might have hurt you and now you are on the other side. Forgive that person, if that mistake for you is forgivable (not all mistakes are forgivable but most of them are). Forgive them because it would have taken many personal talks and courage to come and apologize. Give yourself a warm hug after this episode because you took a lot and you let that slide like a feather.

Sometimes, to forgive someone is harder than to ask for forgiveness.

9. Try to not fall into a situation that it is hard for you to cry. Cry when and wherever you want to, with a promise to yourself that you will also laugh whenever you want to.

Let those tears not make you forget how to laugh.

10. When one thing goes bad, there is always a series of bad things that wait for us to happen (for some funny reason). As I always say, the ‘This too shall pass’ mantra can survive the series of the bad.

You will have to live it, breathe through it, and meet me on the other side of the story.

PS: 2024, don’t teach me too much.