Here’s why I don’t make resolutions.

When I quit my job (again!) last summer I had a whole list of things I had put down as to-do.

1. Read a book, at least one in a week
2. Write more often
3. Develop interest in some craft
4. Learn to cook more traditional from-grandma’s-kitchen recipes
5. …
6. ..

I don’t remember the rest of that huge list. I knew even when I jotted them down that I wouldn’t be able to do all that I’m setting myself up for. But I really hoped that I would at least try and succeed in one of the many. They seemed important yet pretty easy then.

Cut to six months later.

It so happens that the only reason I remember these four items are because these are the things that I’m most guilty about not trying.

Being at-home, it’s not like I don’t have the time. And it’s not like I have lots of free time either. Daily chore or important work, that being irrelevant, I have my hands full. I’m fully occupied throughout the day with one thing or the other. And in the daily grind of things, personal to-do lists, or in other words personal growth, seems to have a taken a back seat.

So I’m loaded with guilt for not pursuing my interests(?!?), embarrassed that I don’t have the needed will power for keeping up resolutions and irritated at why I even bother setting up goals and so on.

Anyways, that being the prelude, I was reading ‘By the river Piedra I sat down and wept’, which I’m attempting to finish for a long time. And yesterday a particular line struck me. Exercising the Other! The book advises us to release the “Other” from our being so that we can truly understand the point of “Living in the moment”.That surprisingly caught my attention.

{Aside:To state what would now be the obvious I have not proceeded any further with the book so I don’t know if my take is correct on what the Other is. But if ever I get the book renewed or rather if I ever get my Husband to renew the book for me (as the library card is in his name/ account; well apparently if you don’t own a credit card you don’t amount to much, not less rent/lend/loan a book) I hope I’m right in my understanding of it, as meant by the author.}

To confess, when I read the line "The exercise of the Other" I thought the Other could be anything; Anything at all that’s tying one down. Could be laziness, jealousy, hatred, anger, disappointment or just another vice.

I have lots of such, I know I’m deeply flawed as like any other if not more, and I have been carrying a lot of negativity in me. Mulling unwonted thoughts over and again so much that it has become a standard and it is, I feel, starting to tint my view of the world and people.

That leads me to think I would be a proper candidate for the exercising or rather exorcising the Other.

Negativity, if removed from the being what would be left, I’m curious to know. So I have decided to the ‘Exercise', to keep a log and me on track. So predictably, I hope to publish a daily status update kinda thing about what particularly strikes me every day as a problem (or situation or event). It could have another advantage too. Instead of churning the thoughts round and round in my mind I can pour it out here and try to clear my mind - kind of my own version of ‘Disassociative therapy’ (if there is one such. I think there is some: My dad used to tell me to view myself as a third person in times of stress so that I can objectively evaluate and gets things in perspective).

Realization is the first step toward understanding the problem and trying to find means to solve it.

And that’s “My Project 365”.

One day at a time.

{Aside: Is it mentioned anywhere in Harry Potter series that after Dumbledore and Snape store their memories in the Pensieve did they really forget about that? More like they had index in their mind and the actual content is in the Pensieve?}