Ingredients from 2023

 A warm cup of coffee with a piece of cheesecake on a day of downpour is what my 2023 looked like. Though it was a blend of sweet, bitter, spicy, and sour emotions and experiences, the final sip of my 2023 cup only tasted of warmth and invigoration for life. And I am certain, my 2024 would be a parody of my 2023-for I have always looked at life this way. A strong desire to pen down my thoughts and learnings is what differentiates 2023 from the rest of the 23 years of my living.  Perhaps, it was the learnings themselves that stirred an intense sense of introspection and invoked the desire to hold my learnings dear to myself, from now on. My learnings aren’t profound or new. But experiencing them as a fully grown adult brought me these learnings in all their newness.

Looking back at them standing right at the brink of 2024, most of these experiences seem banal and silly and all sorts of funny, but hey, as long as I am learning and growing and most of all, enjoying the process, how do they matter?

Here’s my ingredient list for wisdom (?) fetched all the way from January to December of 2023.

• Patience is really THE deal

Honestly, I have not paid a huge price for impatience all throughout my life, or to say from what I remember. So, learning patience seemed rather unnecessary for me. Perhaps, I assumed I was patient enough to make things work out till 2023 happened. From reading my drafts multiple times to refine them for the better to being a leaning shoulder for people going through a bad phase while patiently ruminating not to be perturbed myself- the lesson about patience was glaring. Needless to say, I have to wait till the cake is baked in the oven. It hence, forms the key ingredient for my recipe of wisdom (?) carefully collected from 2023.

• Being smart enough to look at what’s next and dumb enough not to pick the binoculars to look at the next

To me, anticipation and anxiety have been strong forces in driving productivity. The butterfly knot in the gut does not always work in my favour, 2023 taught me. I realized that the tussle between my high-on-optimism imagination and the reality of a situation leaves me feeling anxious and miserably upset when the outcome contradicts my imagination. It is indeed difficult to halt my fast-forwarding, rosy imagination of the outcome of any situation. But I am gradually learning to not pick up the binoculars in my head and only forward sufficient enough for me to work towards the outcome. Though not a key ingredient, the measurement of this one is paramount. It is the salt of the recipe!

• Evaluating priorities, reprioritising and deprioritising

Considering 2023 as my biggest stride into adulthood, it has given me first-hand experiences of what senior adults always speak about-bidding farewells. In all fairness, I was prepared to accept the changing priorities of others and change priorities for myself. Yet, the unexpectedness of life reiterated and accentuated this learning copiously. It was essential to reprioritise and deprioritise to bring some semblance to the happenings in my life. Of course, the ordinal list of ingredients may have some influence on the texture, smell, sight, and sound of a dining experience, like the presence of baking soda determining if we would have a chocolate cake or brownie, isn’t it?

• There’s always another perspective

Regardless of feeling like the most logical, good-for-all, and impactful decision has been taken, there’s always another perspective. Although I was aware of this, 2023 was the year of experiential learning. This learning has seeped into inspecting both the everydayness and sublimity of my life such as questioning which is the healthier adult drink- tea or coffee or ranking the privilege I hold based on my religion, caste, and gender in my immediate society. As long as the Obbattu tastes delicious, it doesn’t matter if toor dal or chana dal is used in the making, 2023 says.

•  If it makes you happy, it is not a waste of time

Adulthood involves being constantly torn between the need to be productive and the inability to combat revenge leisure time. If not for my body announcing and denouncing me for my routine, I still would not have learnt this in 2023. From prioritising sleeping nine hours to binge-watching crime docuseries on Netflix- I have learnt the hard way to listen to my body and redefine productivity for myself. For a first-time cook like me, an edible dish made is a victory, no matter how long it takes to cook. The final ingredient from 2023 is simple- do what makes you happy!

Disclaimer: The final recipe of the dish remains incomplete as the process of discovering potential other ingredients is an on-going kitchen activity. The present list of ingredients is not exhaustive either. The ingredients may vary based on your preferences and learnings, which may also affect the outcome of the dish.