RESOLUTIONS: AN ACCIDENTAL DEMISE

You know that popular thought among the non believers of the book ‘Secret” – “when something gets real good in one part of your life, something else is completely falling apart”. Well it comes true for me very often. I don’t call myself an optimist, but I don’t think life is a beach either. But the one thing I would definitely call myself is a dreamer!! My hopes are unlimited and so have been the resolutions I have taken. In number. 

So I keep making these resolutions every few months – bathe every day, write once a week, read 2 books a month, exercise 5 days a week and so on. I have tried every available strategy from habit forming techniques to journaling, reminders and to do lists. But none of them work for me. You know why? I will tell you why! Because every time I decide to do something, and plan for it, something happens which makes it impossible to follow through my plan. 

Take the bathing example. This resolution is usually taken in summer, when it is hot and taking showers is a good welcome activity. But what follows a few months down the line is winter – the harsh, unforgiving winters of North India. Imagine yourself covered in three layers of woollens, and spending every free moment in front of the heater. Feel the cold rooms and walls and beds. And now imagine you have to shed all that insulation which keeps you alive.... for what? To keep up my resolution of bathing every day? And spend an hour afterwards covered in blankets and shivering and waiting for the heat to come back into the body? No way! Torturing myself with this bathing mania every other day is fine during winters!!!

I agree that was not much of an excuse for not keeping my resolution. But this next one will blow your mind away. Exercise 5 days a week. You imagine yourself slowly getting pumped up. You download the best apps, you buy the equipment or take that gym membership, and you watch inspirational videos. The motivation is slowly building up. You know you can reach that perfectly sculpted body. You feel like the hero in those motivational sports movie where he gets the awakening and he is working hard and going to win the medal. You too are there in that mental plane, and are just raring to go. And the next day you fall sick. Or worse, your kids fall ill. If you have kids, you know how they become when they are ill. They become these tiny wailing, sniffling warm balls which attach themselves to you for comfort and care and you would inhuman if their cries and eyes don’t melt you. I have two of them who catch the illness from each other consecutively, and then pass it on to me in the end. So the whole affair lasts for weeks!! I those days it is lucky if I can do anything beyond make soups or porridge and feed the kids. Entire house and life does become messy but then who cares? All you want at that time is for your kids to stop hurting and become their usual happy self as soon as possible!!

So all my resolutions of exercise, reading, writing etc goes for a toss. To get to the above mentioned motivation for anything after weeks of mentally and physically exhausting caretaking, is impossible. Many weeks, go by. Then one fine day I would chance upon a note or see something which would trigger my head and off I would go to make another resolution. I start pumping myself up again, and get myself raring to go, until the next accident where it gets killed again!!!

ADDICTED

It is official. I am addicted to Youtube. I blame it on Netflix. I am absolutely crazy about movies. I have seen thousands and many of them repeatedly. So you can fathom my happiness when I took up a Netflix subscription recently and got access to some brilliant movies from across the world. But unfortunately, their collection of kid’s series is also brilliant. Hence, my 6 yr old and 2 yr old kids love Netflix more than me. They can binge on Peppa Pig, Miraculous Lady Bug and those zillion other kids series for ages, if given an option. However they don’t have that option, and make do with an hour every day (which is still too much according to many parenting experts). Anyways, they sort of zone out and forget the existence of the world while watching TV and I usually get the chance to do my work without getting interrupted for that hour. A month ago, I didn’t have anything to do for that hour (surprise!!). Yay!! Movie time for me too, or so I thought. I downloaded Netflix in my phone (high time, almost a month since I subscribed) and decided to watch something from my ever increasing watch list of movies. But Lo! My subscription allowed viewing only on one screen, and the kids were watching Peppa Pig on TV. I know Netflix is cool but it is really not worth paying extra for multiple screens viewing in a household of four. Trust me. Anyways, try to convince a 2 yr old to watching something else, five minutes into Peppa Pig – world war would be easier. 

So I was stuck with my phone and unlimited internet!! Well Youtube it was!! And I haven’t stopped since. I have been watching and listening to videos in the most unlikely places and times. In the shower, while cooking, while putting my little one to nap, in the washroom, in my walks and so on. Why if I ever had 5 minutes to myself, I would be glued to the screen. You wonder why such weird timings and occasions to watch Youtube? Well you become a stay at home mom with 2 little kids and a very busy husband, and find time to relax, put up your feet and watch something beyond 5 minutes, and then ask such a question. I make do with what I have!! When the elder one is in school, the little one needs my time and attention, and when the little one is napping, the elder one needs me, and when they both are sleeping I am either dead asleep with them or doing only the absolutely essential household chores like cook food and laundry!!!

And how do I manage to watch Youtube while cooking or putting the kids to sleep? Well Youtube has this feature where it plays the video right in the feed page in silent mode and with subtitles!! Amazing when you have to be quite and immobile while the little one gets ready for her nap. And for the rest of times I use wireless Bluetooth earphones gifted by my husband so that I could enjoy audio books!! Look at what use am I putting them to J

I don’t use much of social media like Face book, Twitter, Instagram or others. Hence I didn’t know how addictive customised feed could be. Yes I have had brief love affairs with Pocket and Pinterest a few years ago. A few months into these relationships, I found that they took up too much time and space in my mind and my phone. You know that popular Indian saying – “Analysis, Analysis.....Paralysis” or something like that. Well, it was just like that between me and Pocket/Pinterest. I had been reading and collecting so many ideas about so many things, but I never, literally never implemented any of them. So I just removed these two things from my phone and life, and it became so much simpler and guilt free.

But here I am again, this time obsessed with YouTube. I just can’t stop myself. There is so much happening in the world!!! I have become a glutton for content on Minimalism, Zero Waste, financial freedom and retiring early, people living off grid in houses built close to nature, homestead, healthy nutritious food, Mandala and Zentangle art, TED talks on productivity and parenting (those two cannot go together, I tell you) and so on. Is there a trend in the above topics?? Hmmmm.....And for fun I binge on Lilly Singh’s Superwoman, and Filtercopy and Blush’s short fun and happy videos!! 

Phew! I think just listing it was exhausting, so imagine the kind of overload on my own mind watching and processing this stuff!! But I cannot stop. That’s because, unlike the previous love affairs, this time I have taken some action steps towards my ideas!! Maybe a few months down the line I will post my progress in minimalism, zero waste and parenting. But for that to happen, I have to get off my butt...rather drag my eyes off the screen and do something. Any ideas anyone???