By this time I have become so consistent in setting up my goals that I don't even have to think twice. The goals haven't changed for me for quite some time. It is so much easier when you are the only one to review how well you have done with your last year goals. And it becomes even more interesting when you have a philosophical mindset. If the year didn't go as well as you thought, you always have the perfect excuse like 'happiness is not measured by material success'. But there are few things in life where philosophy doesn't really help, like getting up at 6am in the morning, even though that always featured in my top 5 new year goals consistently so far.
You both successfully navigated the treacherous 11plus exams with flying colours. I wish I had taken the complete responsibility of it from the beginning. Your success was pretty evident for me, after all it is my own genetic material. But Ashwini always finds her ways to breed enough insecurities in mind mind, giving the very same reasons. When your job is finding fault in what others develop, you become so good at it. So I lose again and share the responsibilities and credits equally. It is still a big win as in reality I am pretty convinced our efforts had no influence on the outcome. Anirudh made it through comfortably and satisfactorily, but he was very consistent from the beginning in not showing any additional improvements. The additional military drills were mainly to quench our thirst only. On the other hand, soft skinned Arjun showed unbelievable improvement towards the end, but it was way over what we needed. So the overall impact on the end result was really nill. But as parents we did wonderfully well to get our medals. While it was an immensely proud moment, our medals did come with a hefty price tag of moving the home, which is normally considered as a daunting task.
I was told humans naturally tend to worry about things more often than not due to evolutionary reasons. But for some reason I have less evolved skin(it is certainly only skin) that is pretty thick and insensitive to most kind of pains. I consider the reasons to be more philosophical. It is futile to worry about things that you can't control, so being slightly lazier is a feature of highly talented people and not necessarily a defect. But when you have to wake up at 6:00am to drive your kids 50 miles to their school everyday, I reluctantly agree it was a bit of poor planning. And it becomes a clear mistake when M25 comes on the way where you end up spending two hours atleast while going back.
But on the positive side, these are different experiences that keeps you alive. What is a Life which is monotonous with the same routine every day. These whinings add some color to it. When we initially thought of selling the house, we didn't had huge expectations. But then came the greed, sold nicely by a cunning estate agent, paid with our rational thinking. It is fine to do mistakes, but it is not wise to repeat the same mistakes again. So we ended up accepting an offer that is way below the initial estimate, yet it didn't feel like a bad decision, because we made that decision. The value of house differs from buyer to buyer and it is purely determined by their circumstances. We bought this house mainly for the convenience of school access. Our buyers changed their mind in the last minute because they badly needed another bedroom in the ground floor. I don't think we would have done any better overall if we started with more realistic offer from the beginning. Often we think too much trying to be perfectionists while in reality they hardly matter, like your 11 plus preparations. Yet, we can't and we shouldn't escape those rituals as they provide the comfort of doing our best in whatever we do.
It was also a great experience waking up at 6am every morning. I almost felt I would continue throughout my life as if I was actually missing something in life all these years. It is really hard till you wake up, but once you are up, you feel the real warmth of early morning, even in cold winter. Those are divine experiences for people like me who never getup before 8am. But my experience has taught me that anything that is overly used will become a routine, losing its preciousness. That is the only reason why I went back to my old routine reunctantly, to preserve those divine moments. In fact I even stopped putting that as a new year goal from this year.
It also provided a great opportunity for our friends to help me by providing food and a place to work during your school hours. In this busy life, people are uncomfortable taking help from others, thinking it will be an inconvenience to others. I know that is outrightly wrong and I have almost convinced Ashwini on this. I love helping others, atleast majority of the people, that I get along very well. I genuinely think it builds stronger 💪 bond between people. It is certainly not about testing true friendships. Trust must always come implicitly. It just multiplies when you provide these opportunities for people to help.
You also achieved another great feat last year. Arjun ended up playing for the U-11 nationals in the table tennis. Being 9th rank with such poor technique is no small achievement. It shows hardwork always wins over skills. Despite being priced heavily for the great techniques, Anirudh couldn't make it. It was no different from 11 plus exams really. Though the training sessions were bit more fun than repeated mock exams, it is the same rituals. If you want to achieve something big, you do need to sacrifice your happiness. Or find a way to enjoy those rigorous drills with a firm focus on the end result. Is that really worth it? You will only know when you have achieved something you have always longed for.
Not everything was great last year, but that is the life. I lost my chikkappa, the last one to demise from father's siblings. He was the pillar of our big family and much of the credits of our well-being really goes to him. He was also one of the few I loved and admired greatly. We visited him a month before his death and there was completeness, satisfaction in his eyes. His death was painless, something he was really wishing for. But none of them really matters, death is indeed death. Two years back when we lost Manu, I never thought life can be normal again. It is really not normal in many ways. But we need to be like water 🌊, flowing fluently, observing closely, feeling everything, yet not getting stopped by anything.
I finally finished the year by completing one book, Siddhartha. A beautiful philosophical story about an intellect who tries to find meaning in life. I am really happy for him to discover what I had discovered already 😁 It's a real shame that I don't have a very good memory, so I will have to read that again and again.
