And so another collection of 12 months have come and gone and we are here, almost two months into a fresh new decade that once seemed resolutely unattainable, lodged within a science fiction future. For the longest time now, I approach new years with some contradiction of both apathy and trepidation. That pressure to have achieved honour badges to meet society’s approval at certain milestones has always been a struggle.

I never do well, emotionally, spiritually and materially when arriving upon the cusp of a new decade, age-wise. Things start to kick-off usually a year or two into it. I don’t know what’s in store in this decade, and I would be absolutely content if it replicates the pattern of the last. But these past years, I’ve stopped measuring growth based on externals. I would definitively say that my best memories of highest points, have so much more to do with my internal welfare than possessions or achievements.

Having said that, I’m not immune to wanting more, in the material world. It’s always a transient hunger though… forgotten once fulfilled in spiritual, familial, spousal and communal relationships. Perhaps when I was younger, I thought I wanted to not have a career at all, and be a full-time mother. Circumstances changed, and now, that is not a space I want or can inhabit. I derived so much of my evolution owing to a career, and am more often searching to quench spiritual thirst through work. Cruelly, staying connected to global trauma is one of the avenues I seek to achieve such an objective, which means individual and self-serving happiness comes drenched in guilt and rejection. But, just like how I’ve discarded external markers of growth, I’m slowly letting go of the notion of continuous happiness as the cherry on the cake. The goal is more towards gratitude, and being useful.

May that be the theme of these upcoming years.