The Magical Realism of New Beginnings

I have experienced lots of second chances in life. Some were personal decisions, while the environment influenced others. Every one of them felt like a new beginning.

Every fresh start feels like a baptism, like a new sprout from a tree bud. While New beginnings can feel magical and exonerating, they can also be ephemeral. If we are not "in sync" with the rhythm of that magic, we tend to fall back to our old habits, and before you know it, all that magic fades away as we wait in limbo for the next magical moment. A new sprout from a tree in spring is "in sync" with the tree; it has been part and parcel of the tree and emerges in time, in due season.

What are your goals this new year? Whether it's fitness goals, career goals, creative goals, academic goals, et cetera, they can't just be attached to a part of your brain circuit, unfortunately. You have to create an identity that fits that aspiration. Building an identity takes time. But it's worth every effort in the end. And it's more rewarding, better than getting an A you crammed overnight for, as neither success nor failure can diminish its effects.

I wanted to start a blog as far back as 2012. I remember starting one and not going past one blog post because I wasn't a good enough writer and couldn't meet a blog's content demand. So I decided to write every day, in any shape or form. I kept this up; until I just enjoyed the art of writing and even forgot that I ever wanted to begin a blog in the first place. I would even write letters to my friends and family for its fun. Now I even have an imaginary pen pal called Harry, who I write to consistently about life and things that I wouldn't freely tell anyone. So my writing has also become therapeutic! So I went from focusing on the goal to 'begin a blog' to shape an identity as a writer. And today, this blog post is a culminated effort at writing. It is a work in progress. At least I have more authority as a writer now than in 2012.

The same goes for my yoga practice. After spending some very stiff years on earth, I felt the need for more flexibility in my life and wanted to be good at yoga. It just felt good to do some impossible moves, like crow pose and headstand. I have been consistently doing yoga for over two years now. I still can't do headstands (more like I'm afraid of breaking my neck and dying alone). But I can do crow, which seemed impossible at first, and I have grown so much in stamina, and my balance is much better. Taking little steps like being committed to a 20-minute practice every day helped me achieve goals that seemed impossible at first.

The thing is that our brains know when we are lying to ourselves, so immediately we set those goals that seem over our heads, our brains freak out. And it's either you give up after attempting the 'impossible' or forget about it like you never wanted to do it in the first place. Your friends and family might be kind enough not to remind you! Let me give you an embarrassing example. For a long time, before medical school taught me to be dreamless, if you ask me why I want to study medicine, I would tell you 'because I want to find the cure to cancer!' On tough days while in med school, I would stop and laugh so hard at my dreams! I mean, who was I kidding? Not even my brain after it realized just how crazy that sounded. But what if I went about it this way. Instead of saying 'I want to find the cure to cancer,' which seemed impossible. What if I said, 'I want to read an article on cancer every weekend or even every month! Over six years in med school, I would have accumulated much knowledge expertise on cancer and therefore built an identity of someone likely to find the cure to cancer, interact with like-minded people and write a research paper on cancer, if not anything.

The thing is that our brains know when we are lying to ourselves, so immediately we set those goals that seem over our heads, our brains freak out.

Let's say you plan on losing 20 pounds in 2 weeks, and on the first day, you are so excited that you spend 2 hours in the gym, hitting it hard. When you get back home, your muscles are sore. Heavens bless you if you desire to get up in the morning for another round. Remember, slow and steady wins the race? You can better complete the journey when you take small steps (at your own pace) and with as much excitement and optimism as when you began. So, as this new year begins and you set those lofty goals for yourself, consider who you are right now compared to those goals. Think of the small steps that you could take that fit into your present everyday life to achieve your goal. Stop with the time limits. Enjoy the process, grow into it so much that you consider the results as just learning curves for improvement. Instead of saying I want to be published this year, say I want to write every day for 10 minutes. And you will find that as you fall in love with the process, your momentum will increase.

I love this 'little steps' way of living so much because it makes your goals an adventure instead of an arduous task that you have to do. It makes anything possible because, with little steps, you can get farther than you ever imagined in years to come. Happy New Year and Many more Years of fruitful harvest!