Hello readers!
I hope you are doing well.
I’m writing this blog post from Jodhpur a few days before the new year begins. Having spent two years in Europe, it’s fantastic to be back home in India, especially when you get the luxury of waking up to a sunny morning every winter day (the benefit of living in sun city 😊). It’s amazing how much sunshine can affect a person: it’s healing, refreshing, and immensely rewarding in terms of productivity.
I like to think of mornings as a sponge soaking the dark night and leaving a trail of sunshine behind. If you’ve walked the trail, you would know its benefits; from Vitamin D to high energy, it’s a source of many free rewards. Like this morning, I woke up and said, I want to get this blog post done, and what you are reading is the result of a sunny morning’s work.
For the past few months that I’ve been at home, I’ve thought about what to write for the coming year’s messages. A lot has happened geopolitically, environmentally, economically and, of course, personally. Having filtered through all the news I received this year, some negative, like the sufferings of the many lives caught between human greed, wars, loneliness, layoffs, natural disasters, well, the list of mishaps is undeniably endless. And some positive news, such as hmmmmmm………….. I guess adding two words, ‘fossil fuels’, in an agreement is good news, right? Or perhaps Taylornomics? India reaching the South Pole of the Moon was definitely one.
Regardless of the pitiful state of the world and its affairs, I’ve come to the conclusion that I should congratulate myself for making it through yet another year. And because I am compelled to see 2024, I would talk to you about persistence as a key message for 2024 or, as we say here in Rajasthan, ‘The art of Jujhaaropan (जुझारूपन).’
Persistence
I am reading a book called War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and am nowhere close to finishing it. I’ve read 150 pages of the 1K pages that exist in this book. Still, being the smart woman I am, I can tell you things from behind the book, hahaha. On its back cover are the words,
Life did not stop, one had to live …
A decent summary of a thousand pages, isn’t it?
If you think of your life through the lens of the soldier, which you are in all regards, you would know sooner or later that battles of life prolong endlessly. You may or may not have caused it, yet somehow, you see it unfold in front of your eyes, unable to make a difference. Yet, you fight. You fight because it is your job to do, and eventually, you bear its consequences, too. In its finale, with the declaration of peace, misery post-battle drags out, the assimilation of which empties the soul that once started its journey in high spirits on a very sunny morning.
What I intend to say as a message of 2024 in plain, simple words, in case the flowery language was too much, is that persistence is important in life. It is important from losing oneself in the depths of one’s vanity. I often think we are the cause and the blame for every problem around us, yet somehow, we’re still living. There’s breath in the lungs and beat in the heart, you know why?
Because the soldier within you chose to fight and persist through life.
Until next time,
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy and DFTBA.
Salti Works: Personal Blog 