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Thank you so much for subscribing and I appreciate each and every one of you who follows my newsletter every Sunday.

First and foremost, I’d like to wish all of you a very Happy New Year. I hope 2021 keeps you and your family safe and helps you grow in all aspects of life!

It is the first Sunday of the new year and this week I do not have a new story for you, just some generic gyaan while I battle this minor writer’s block for a new short story in the coming weeks.

If you know me personally, I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I believe there is little or almost no incentive on following up on them and hence most of the people quit by mid-January. Hence this year, I decided to have simple objectives that could be achieved by the end of this year rather than unrealistic resolutions that I’ll most likely break before next week’s post.

Let us talk about them in a little detail -

1. ✋ Avoid unhealthy habits

Falling on the wrong side of 30 in 2020 made me realize that I have a lot of habits that are unhealthy. Again, I am not going to tell you what these are but my objective for 2021 is to consciously avoid them like the plague. These habits are just going to ruin my mindset and I know it’s been said time and again but it is true, a healthy body is the key to a healthy mind.

2. ☮️ Pursue happiness

2020 took me to some really dark places and my best friend (my guardian angel and savior) helped me realize a major thing. If point A is me and point B is happiness, I run in all directions other than in the direction which would lead me to point B. It is very cliched but everyone wants to be happy and is constantly doing things that would make them feel good, but most of the activities done to feel happy do not give long term happiness. Social and personal validation only make you feel good for a few minutes. Pursuing long-term happiness and contentment is a continuous process. I’ve begun reading about it to understand how it can be achieved and if you want to do the same, my friend suggested the following books -

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
The Little Book of Hygge by Meik Wiking
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

3. 📚 Read a lot more

Despite the ample time I had in 2020, I wasn’t able to utilize a lot of it for reading. My objective for 2021 is to change that and read a lot more than I usually do. I’m not going for insane targets like 52 books in a year, but apart from the 4 books I mentioned above, I plan to read the following this year -

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Sherlock Holmes Reading

Yes, as you may recognize I’m a huge Murakami fan. In fact, I believe some of my writing has been inspired by him. I wrote about it as well, in my post a couple of weeks ago which you can find here ⤵️

December 20th, 2020

4. ✍️ Write, write & write

I’ve been writing on Instagram since 2013 and for the last 3 months on Substack. And I intend to keep writing and building an audience here for years to come. Writing is very close to my heart. It is the best form in which I can express my thoughts and feelings. I hope one day I will be able to write a book (that would be a bestseller 😉) and probably make a career out of it, but till then, I will write, write & write…

So, this is my gyaan for you all in this new year. Resolutions suck and objectives are more productive. I hope this post helps you set your 2021 objectives and I would like to know about them as well. You can share yours by clicking on the button below ⤵️

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See you next week with a short story! 👋

- Darshan Pania

Lost Meandering Thoughts

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