Spectator by Seema Goswami: Looking back…

There is something about the beginning of a new decade that carries with it the promise of a fresh start. We wake up in the new year thinking about how the following 10 years will be – must be, surely! – better and brighter than the decade that just rolled by.

The ups will be followed by the downs, and vice versa; and the only way to cope is to treat them both with equanimity

But strangely enough, as I write this on the first day of the New Year and a fresh decade, I find myself looking back on the 10 years that went by in a flash, and thinking about all the lessons they taught me. Here, in no particular order of importance, are some of them.

Nothing lasts forever

That applies to the highs and lows; to the good days and the bad days; to victories and defeats. No matter how dire things look sometimes, there will always be something better around the corner. Getting there may take a while (or at least seem like it) but in time you will negotiate that turn and get to the good stuff. Make the most of it while you’re at it – because it won’t last forever either. The ups will be followed by the downs, and vice versa; and the only way to cope is to treat them both with equanimity.

Patience is not always a virtue

Life is too short…and there’s nothing quite like hitting middle age to get that message loud and clear. This is when you realise that there is no benefit in sticking it out with life situations that leave you feeling both sad and mad in the hope that things may get better. Far better to just cut your losses and run. I have taken that lesson to heart this decade and I apply it ruthlessly in all aspects of my life. I don’t bother to finish books that leave me cold. I don’t socialise with people who infect me with negativity or make me feel bad about myself. And I certainly don’t engage with trolls on social media; I just block them and move on.

The ability to say no is a superpower

As an inveterate people-pleaser, I have always had a problem with saying the word ‘no’. It seems so disobliging, so uncivilised even, I always thought. So, because of my propensity to say ‘yes’ to everything and everybody, I always ended up stuck with tasks, projects, parties, friendships, that I would much rather have eschewed. But this decade, I made it my resolution to say ‘no’ whenever I feel like that is the only good response. And that decision transformed my life. I no longer went to parties where I would spend the evening bored out of my skull. I no longer agreed to write pieces if my heart wasn’t truly into them. I no longer agreed to do favours for people simply because it was the path of least resistance. I won’t lie; it was tough at first. But once I got into the spirit of things, it was truly liberating.

Working in small increments gets the job done

I had been toying with the idea of writing a thriller based on the world of Indian politics ever since the beginning of the last decade. But when I finally signed a contract, promising to deliver a 1,00,000 words manuscript in a year’s time, I went straight back home for a lie-down. I wasn’t sure how I was going to achieve this in the time period involved. But after I stopped hyperventilating, I decided to do some quick back-of-the envelope calculations. I needed to write 20 chapters in 12 months; each chapter would be between 4,000 to 5,000 words; so even if I wrote 700 words a day I could meet my deadline, and get a few days off as well. Well, that’s just what I did, concentrating on my daily deadline and not thinking too far ahead into the future. And sure enough, by the end of 12 months, my first political thriller, Race Course Road, was ready for publication (though I had overshot the mark by writing around 1,25,000 words!). I am currently applying the same principles to the sequel I am working on – will keep you posted on how that goes.

Friends come in all shapes and sizes – and at all ages

I had always believed that the friends you made in your childhood and youth were the ones that lasted. And that the older you grew, the harder it became to make new connections, let alone new friends. The last decade proved me wrong in this respect. Yes, I still cherish the friends of my growing-up years, but I have also managed to forge relationships in my middle age with an array of people, none of whom seem to have anything in common (except for me). There are my neighbourhood friends, with whom I discuss the affairs of our colony on our WhatsApp group. There are my Lodi Garden friends, with whom I stop by to exchange fitness tips and a few choice morsels of gossip once we have completed our daily rounds. There are the friends I made on my travels around the world, the people with whom I struck an instant rapport that survives the fact that we can only really keep in touch virtually. And then there my Twitter pals, some of whom have made the transition to IRL (In Real Life) friendship, where we meet offline and have a laugh over the vagaries of the online world.

There are, of course, plenty of other lessons that the 2010s taught me. And I intend to put them to full use as I negotiate the 2020s. And with that, let me wish you a Happy New Year and a Brilliant New Decade.

Journalist and author Seema Goswami has been a columnist with HT Brunch since 2004

Spectator appears every fortnight