In hindsight COVID was not the reason 2020 was harsh. It was a melange of a lot of personal, professional and global turmoil.

It was tragic to see the world perish under its threat. But I believe in human resilience. And I know we will rebound quickly! It won’t be in 2021, but by Spring 2022, COVID will be a thing of the past.

Here’s a summary of how I will remember 2020. 

Highlights –

• Family
  • Our 3G (3 generation) Goa trip with both families was the best thing about 2020.
  • Post march, unlimited time with my little family.
  • Our friends and family were safe from the virus all through this time. A few extended family members that did get it, also recovered and are now doing better.
• Tara
  • Tara started school – and despite all odds, the school opened in October for voluntary on campus classes. We took the risk, and decided she needed the school more than anything else.
  • Tara learnt how to ride a bike in just a spur of the moment. She also started riding the scooter with equal ease. She began to read, and write, and draw very creatively. She spent a lot of time with magnetic tiles, and legos and I was finally satisfied with the balance in her outdoor and indoor activities.
  • We actually enjoyed July-August immensely. My mind started to clear up, health resumed, and we enjoyed California beaches every other weekend. We discovered so many gems like Loch Lomond and in general the Boulder Creek area and spent a good chunk of summer – outdoors!
• Cooking
  • I learnt so many new recipes – rasgullas, moong dal halwa, and dosa batter, being the biggest highlights. I recovered a few recipes from my childhood, like the cabbage slaw sandwich that became good comfort foods. I traded recipes with a lot of friends – sometimes teaching, and sometimes learning. We added a lot of one pot meals to our portfolio – like spinach and corn rice, and risottos.
  • We made all our Diwali mithai at home this year. I also picked six families, and delivered them homemade Diwali sweet. Tara loved it. She cannot wait for next Diwali!
  • We made a Thanksgiving feast and enjoyed it with friends. It was an ambitious task to make ~12 dishes, but it was something I had never done before. Gluten Free gravy, mashed potatoes, chicken, and cranberry sauce. Yummy!
  • We enjoyed ~40 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of Whiskey this year. Yep, that’s what Instacart tells me. I am not complaining.
• Self
  • Learned to prioritize my health.
  • Enjoyed a dozen books, or something like that. I didn’t have long stretches to read, like one gets during vacations. But there was time in the evenings. I really loved And Then, Radical Candor, and the latest – Alchemy of Us.
  • I started writing Haikus. I have a good 50+ in the books already.
  • I started Unsaid Untold, and then soon decided to take it private. I don’t know why someone would want to read about my father’s life. But I need to write it. So I still do, just privately.
• Work
  • I took a wonderful course from Tracy Wilk on High Performance Leadership. No one will invest in me, but myself. So I took a class outside of work, over Zoom, and learnt a ton. Including things like I am self reflective, but not always self aware.
  • I serendipitously found a team where I feel like I have room for impact, and execution, along with autonomy and camaraderie of like minded people. Also equally unexpectedly I found a manager who is as human as I am. Being around him makes me want to be thorough and sharp, but not perfect. I have a lot to learn from him, but the relationship is mutual, and hence stronger. I filled a gap for his leadership team and that is acknowledged, not just by him, but my peers. I see a path ahead of me, and I have at least verbal support to build on that path.
  • I learnt five things about myself
    • I need autonomy to thrive.
    • I am a pace setter.
    • I am quick to eliminate clutter
    • I lead with my strengths, but I am equally driven by my quest to overcome my weaknesses.
    • I have high expectations of what people are capable of being. I give them a lot of benefit of doubt with a hope that they will latch on to that leash, and become better. But sometimes that leash becomes toxic, and I am the one who has to cut my losses. I need to learn to tame my expectations if I don’t want to get hurt as often as I do.
• Agam
  • Agam and I shared several lunches, walks and engaging talks together. The pandemic reminded us why we are good together. A machinery that works with very little friction. And companions who will listen, guide, probe and scold, but then set free to the beat of our own drums.
  • Agam switched jobs as well this year. We go through these cycles together. It’s more fun that way! [NO that was a joke]

Lowlights

• After a decade, Christina and Carlos wrapped up their service and we were lucky to find Gloria. We miss our friends, but I am glad they are going further in their lives and have decided to stop cleaning multiple households.
• Since Goa, we had just one trip outside of Mountain View to Capitola over a long weekend. That was travel for 2020!
• I had a particularly stressful phase at work in the first half of the year. It was unwarranted. For the first time in my professional life of 15 years I experienced physical and mental stress. The symptoms stressed me out beyond my own expectations. I have witnessed my mother through an angina attack, and this felt similar, just a prolonged one. Whether it was a combined effect of COVID WFH along with a toxic environment, or just a pronounced case of either. I don’t know. But what I know is that I had to turn that ship around and I did by eliminating stress from my environment. It meant that I had to quit a role I enjoyed, and go find something where I could thrive on my own terms. I lived my darkest months of professional life from April to July this year. No one should experience the delusional few weeks that I experienced. They taught me a lot. But they drained me, and left me so brittle for many months.
• Some of our friends moved to San Diego and Seattle , and some moved back home, to Germany. We could not even say a proper goodbye.
• A close friend, in a short span of time lost his mother and his child. I saw him carry the weight of these losses along with a challenging environment at work. And although I could not materially help in any way. I was there to hear him. He needed to be heard. I know hugs would have helped more. But I had no means to give. A listening ear is all I could offer.
• I missed white boards and people. There were so many moments at work where I just could not make myself heard, or get my points across, or I lost my patience since there are no words that can replace the gap of silence that indicates what was to be indicated. I struggled with the bobbing heads on GVC. When people say they got used to WFH, I stay silent. I did not. And I don’t want to either. I would rather switch professions than to get accustomed to this stale and vegetative state of “meetings” that we now experience.
• I cannot do intermittent fasting. Ok let me be fair. I cannot do IF on weekends. It doesn’t work for me.
• We did not go home for Christmas this year 😦 Santa came for Tara, but I was not there to play Santa for my nieces. There were no Bira’s on the terrace in the sun. Nor any picnics with the extended family.

The world lost two statesmen in a week’s time – John McCain and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Both of them were leaders first, and politicians second. They both led exemplary lives with a strong mission and acute focus on bipartisan leadership.  The world was unfair to both, and yet, in their leadership, we found inspiration. May their souls rest in peace.

In other news, Tara got her first “real” bike this weekend. An within moments of getting it, she had her first “real” fall. Yep! Irresponsible parents were so busy celebrating, and recording a video of her first bike ride, that we could not tell her to stop before she took a tumble on a “bed of thorns”, in Agam’s words, and “a shrub by the side walk”, as I prefer to explain it. Note the dramatic tone in a father’s description. I wonder if he would have used the same phrase if we had a son. Sigh! Tara got her first bike at 3. I got mine at 30. She is already ahead of the curve 😉

Last Friday I fell in love with Google, all over again. The day started on a rough note. I was finding it hard to be an adult. Super hard. The air quality in Bay Area has been terrible last week, and I am very sensitive to the day to day variations. [Yes, I lived in Delhi. No you may not laugh].

The combined effect of the air quality and my state of mind, was just too hard to manage. I pinged a friend, and asked for help.

Me – “I need therapy.”

He – “I am available.”

Me – “I am walking over.”

He – “See you in a few.”

50 minutes later I was not only feeling better, I had a plan, and I was refreshed. I went back to work, super charged. I really value these friendships and cherish this camaraderie that encourages me to seek help (something that is super hard for me to do), without any fear of being judged. I am so thankful for the help I was given, and the friendly advice and a listening ear that was offered. 😀

It did not stop there.  I had two more such engaging sessions through the rest of the day. A sad Friday ended up being a very satisfying Friday. All thanks to the three Googlers who helped me turn my day around.

It is important to have a support system as you progress in your life. It makes it easier to fight the battles you have to, and you build strong relationships along the way.

Lastly, I’ve finished ‘Discover your true north’. I am now on to ‘Build an A Team’, by Whitney Johnson. I picked this book for no other reason but Clayton Christensen’s words at the back – “Management, when practiced well, is a noble profession.” I concur.

Kicked off the weekend with YT playing oldies on loop, and all of sudden the trend shifted towards Ghazals. Especially when Arth and Saath Saath songs begin to play, you know where this session is going to end. Before it got there, I switched to writing. I’d rather channelize this energy towards something more constructive.

I wonder why such songs are not made any more. Who will keep ghazals alive after Jagjit Singh? Are we giving up on them? Will this be a forgotten art? Sigh! Why?

I don’t know many people of my generation that listen to this stuff. Even Agam does not care much about them. As for me, I will never be able to forget their importance in my life. I grew up with them.  I still remember short couplets from some of Papa’s favorite ghazals and there are several that found new meaning over the years – like  “kis tarah ye gum bhul jaaye hum woh judaa hua, is bahaar mein”.

[YT just switched to Aandhi And then this. It must be my lucky day! I wish there was a way for me to save this list somehow. I am not going to put in the effort. Let the AI tackle that.]

Back to the dying art of ghazals. I hope they will make a come back, some day, somehow. Until then, I have enough to keep my Friday evenings jamming. The only thing to remember is to never listen to ghazals on my drive to work. The salted contact lenses give me trouble all day long.

[We are on to this now. And while we are at it – this is one of my very favorites. And this and this . And finally this, which is actually on the lighter note. I can go on and on and on. ]

Tara and I shared a lovely evening today. I left early around 4 and we got a car wash (which translates to Tara ate free popcorn), went to Whole Foods, and then she helped me put the groceries in the fridge. When I went to pick her up at the day care she ran to me and hugged me so tight.  I wonder if she will run to me this fast and hug me this tight, even when she is 16. She probably won’t. But I will etch these hugs in my memory for future use. Mom will become like a ghazal, old and forgotten.

It was Avery’s last day at the day care. He is joining TK in a few weeks. Avery had just turned one when Tara joined the day care at 4 months. The two of them have been good friends ever since.

Tara’s friends are my friends. So obviously I got a little emotional about saying goodbye to him. I kept watching the two of them circle around each other, and play for a little while, and wondered if we will ever meet Avery again. We all hugged each other tight and Tara and I wished him good luck. Sigh! These good byes only get tougher as we grow up. I don’t think Tara and Avery realize that now. Well they have a lifetime to figure it out. I am calling it a day now.

I feel pretty light and relaxed today. No idea where that’s coming from. Let’s give the credit to the musical evening, and the evergreen ghazals 🙂

My goal with these essays is to write a 1000 word essay on topics near and dear to my heart. The goal is to publish an essay every two weeks. So I can get to at least 25  essays this year, that can be knotted together into a collection of essays I can call “mine”.

#1 – Cabbie Diaries

My first cab ride was a decade ago. Little did I know then that I will one day end up writing an essay inspired by my conversations with the many cab drivers that I have met in the last decade.

I was using cabs almost every week for the first few years of my career. I was a technology consultant who hopped on a plane every Monday and came back home on Friday. I did not have a car back then. I did not even have a driving license, and hence I used to depend on cabs to take me from place to place. I preferred to keep the same cab drivers while I was in the city for a long project. Some times it worked out and some times it didn’t.

I remember a lot of my cabbie friends. They were from all over the world. Armenians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Russians, some times even Indians and only once, an American. I have had cabbies that told me that I remind them of their Indian girl friend, their mother, and even their grand mother. There was one who burnt a CD of a song that I really loved in his car and dropped it at my client’s office without a name or number. Laptops had inbuilt CD players back then.

I have had cabbies explain to me the meaning of death and how to reconcile with it. I have also had cabbies tell me that that they came to the US to follow their dream and it landed them in this cab, driving me to the airport.

  I once met a cabbie who was a Math major from Russia. Such a sharp guy. And once I met someone who was an illustrator for children’s books. My primary cabbie in Denver was an elderly man with two wives and four sons. He always complained about his sons and even asked me to speak to them, so they could find a purpose in life and start to make a living for themselves. I never spoke to them. I told him to start charging them rent instead. It helped.

I am a natural when it comes to striking conversations with strangers. And most of the cabbies I have met have been really easy to chat with. They are reflective, contemplative and they open up rather easily. A common theme that unites me and my cabbies is that they are also usually immigrants. We immigrants, we always have such rich stories.

I just remembered, I once had a cabbie in LA who saw me struggling while trying to untangle my necklace, from his rear view mirror, and when we reached the office, he offered to untangle it for me, with patience, sparing good ten minutes of his very busy morning.

Although in reality I am a very chatty person, to my cabbies I always prefer to be the listener. I feel a sense of obligation to hear them out. As if I was the chosen one to listen to their struggles and their journeys from far away lands. They needed someone who would listen without judging them. I played my part. Sometimes I even saw them wipe their tears as they shared their stories. And sometimes I wiped my own.

Our relationship is so transactional, and yet so intimate. We meet and part, with no expectations of ever meeting again.

The cabbie we hired in San Diego, when my parents were visiting me, was another special character. The conversation started when we found Swami Vivekananda’s books in his front seat and the boot of his car. He was an avid reader, and an ex professor from a small town in Arizona. He came to California for his kids’ education, and loved it so much that he decided to never go back. That’s when he started driving cabs to make money. His family shrunk their expenses, and lived in San Diego on his meagre income. His kids went on to get their education from Princeton and MIT on 100% aide. He still drives the cab, because of his love for people.

The cabbie who drove me from to Jessica’s funeral was another one that I can never forget. I was leaving Tara at home for the first time ever since she was born. I was worried about her since I was putting her to sleep way before her normal bed time. I was struggling to balance the two personas within me – the mother and the friend. I wanted to meet Jess’s parents and tell them what a wonderful daughter they had raised, and how much she was loved by everyone. They deserved to know much she loved her parents and how apparent it was in her conversations that she was raised in a wonderful family.

Of course Tara slept early without any issues. But the cabbie was able to tap in to my nervousness. Little did he know where I was going, when he said, “Probably as a mother one has to learn to smile when you grieve, for the child can catch every sliver of emotion and can internalize it without understanding the context.” The entire journey he told me about his mother’s strength of character, her sense of duty and her righteousness. And as we approached the city, he shared that he had lost her to cancer, little over a month ago. He was grieving too. We shared our grief together for the rest of the journey, in silence, and prayer.

Recently there was the cabbie who dropped me at SJC, who told me to go follow my dream. It was after he shared how he went on to become a rock band lyricist after running a construction business for twenty years. I was going to Vegas for a work related conference. His parting words crushed me. I was speechless and found it hard to recover from his innocent blow. My dream does not require me to travel to Las Vegas. But my work does. And the work I do, is not my dream. It will never be. The light pat on my shoulder, that might as well have been of my own father still shakes me up. Reminding me in subtle ways that my life is drifting in a direction I set the sails for, and yet, the mind is not certain of its willingness to follow the wind. I might as well have written an anthology of my cabbie experiences and published them. But here I am, following my dream, in some way. 

I feel so fortunate to have met so many amazing people, and have carried a part of them with me wherever I go. Be it the Gurbani in a desi cabbie’s car in LA that is still in my music library, or the image of the Christ’s cross hanging in the car I went to Jess’s funeral in. Be it the trick the cabbie taught me on how to untangle my necklace, that I still use, or the whiff of Addis Ababa coffee that I recall, when I think of the Eritrean cabbie who I met in Vegas who told me that coffee is roasted in sand in some parts of Africa.

I carry these stories in my heart, the words of these cabbies reverberate in my mind and their kindness and wisdom continues to inspire me.

Cabbie Diaries will resume…there’s more travel to be done, many more memories to be made, and a lot more stories to be told.

2018 is here…

It’s been 10 years since my younger self celebrated her bday by indulging in a shopping spree on the 5th Avenue in NY. It was an experience to check off from my list and so I did. My life was very complex back then. I had education loans, a long distance relationship, a demanding travel intensive career, few friends, fewer hobbies, and a very busy mind. I lived in NY and I did not know what I really wanted to do with my life.

In the last 10 years, I made my career, I made my family and I made my identity. And I de-cluttered my life. I like where I have landed. But there is a lot of scope of improvement. I can be so much better. To myself and my loved ones.

After a decade,  it’s time to turn the page. From me to others. From establishing to dwelling, adventures to stability, and from dabbling to adopting.

Forming new habits and perhaps a new lifestyle. One that is anchored in simplicity.

I sowed the seeds for this simplification in 2017 by first simplifying my career. I took the most natural next step and gave up on my coveted IC status. I want to build teams, not just my resume. I want to become better at being a multiplier. The word means so much more to me now, than it did when JFab shared the concept with me. In a 1:1 that I will never forget and will one day owe my career to, he told me that I am a multiplier and not a diminisher. I need to get even better at being the multiplier.

I also simplified my wardrobe this year. 5 capris and 5 cotton tees. That’s all I wore this summer. And 3 hoodies, 3 sweaters, 3 full sleeves tees and 3 jeans is what I plan to wear all winter.(Add a dozen or so scarves to that). Screw the rest.

Next I need to simplify health. There is too much confusion. Reduce carbs, increase protein, watch calories – which one or all of the above. I am not a fad follower. So the Paleos, Ketos are not for me. I need a balanced diet which is natural and easy to follow. I need to find time for a 30min physical activity daily. And I need to commit to it. Like most folks I fall prey to the “I have no time to spare” syndrome. I cannot procrastinate any more.

We as a family have also simplified our lives by deciding not to have another child. I am not selfish for my time, its just that I just cannot love another child like I love Tara. I cannot imagine doing anything that disturbs the wild spirit that my child has. She needs to stay the way she is and I cannot disrupt this environment she is in.

Also, we have greatly simplified our travel plans. We want to visit family during winter vacations. Winter in Delhi is just amazing. And as our parents age, and Tara grows up, we want them to meet every year. Apart from India, one international trip and one domestic trip, with a customary Hawaii trip if possible, ensures that we have something to look forward to each quarter.

I need to create some space in 2018. To start doing side projects. Something more than just work and family. Some hobby, volunteering or some project on the side. Not quite sure what it will end up being. My only requirement is that it has to be simple and thus achievable.

I am sure I have shared this before. But I love growing old. It is rewarding, these years lived. So much to learn, adapt to and assimilate. And, so much to simplify 🙂

And now for the Yays and Nays of 2017

**Yays**

– Agam recovered from his accident at a pretty fast speed.
– I switched teams and roles
– We spent a LOT of time with family throughout the year.
– Mom stayed with us for a few months and we enjoyed her company and surveillance 😉
– I ran a lot in the first half of the year.
– Tara is potty trained (yeah that’s a YAY!)
– I checked off two bucket lists – Hop on Hop Off in NYC and Sakura in Tokyo.
– We established a Will and Trust for Tara.
– Tara started eating sushi.
– Our new ride – Subaru Outback.
– We went home for the Holidays!

**Nays**

– I did not run at all in the second half of the year.
– We were naughty from Thanksgiving to New Years about our healthy eating habits.
– Mom’s diabetes went through a rough patch.
– Posture issues plagued my weekdays and weeknights

Not too many Nays as one can tell. 2017 was kind to us. And we hope to keep up the trend.

Yesterday I received one of the most rewarding compliments of my professional life. It made me extremely happy and I felt grounded in the beauty of what Larry, Sergey, Eric and now Sundar have created. An ecosystem called Google.

I have had the pleasure (and to a certain extent displeasure) of watching several organizations from up close. Organizations big and small, technical and retail, political and philanthropic. I have also had the pleasure of pursuing and landing my dream job at a very progressive and aggressive organization like Salesforce.

All to say that I have never felt that sense of gratitude towards a company, that I feel for Google. I found managers I wanted to work for, or peers I wanted to work with, and maybe leaders I wanted to follow. But it was never the organization as a whole that won my love and loyalty.

Google is made by its people. Not it’s products or benefits. I choose to work at Google, because I love the people who work here. And I believe that the organization plays an important role in hiring such people, bringing them together in a professional setting, and allowing them to bring their true self to the table.

It goes even further in allowing them to be authentic, and influence with that authenticity and passion. There is no template to win at Google. The people here challenge the norms and allows people to lead with the qualities they chose to lead with.

Although I am not a very social person on the weekends, I make it a point to meet several people during my work week. I keep my lunch promises and keep seeking out new folks who can add to my list of Humans @ Google. These are friends, peers and leaders who contribute to my emotional and professional development, without them even knowing about it.

Just yesterday, I met someone for the first time for an intro meeting and left the conversation feeling nourished with some management insights. For lunch I met up with some ex-colleagues and we enjoyed an intense conversation about the car accident I was in earlier this week and how I must report it to Google, excitement about a colleague’s new role and our collective advice on not tying the actions to the outcomes, and a commentary on the performance review process, all in one hour while we munched our yummy salads in an open air cafe. And then I ended my day with a hilarious chat with a peer about being approachable, and the importance of constructive dialogue and forums that allow for such dialogues to ensue.

After a lull of a few years, I finally have a lot of friends. I never thought I’d say that as an adult. I always felt that our ability to make friends dwindles with age. But that rule does not apply when you are here at Google.

Through this post I want to express my gratitude to all the people who make it so worthwhile for me to come to work every day. You are all amazing. And together, we make this company amazing.

In case you are still wondering what was the compliment that made my day – “Keep me on your speed dial for whenever you need me.” I took it as a compliment since I was meeting this person for the very first time and we had chatted for little under an hour.

Here’s to more rigorous, engaging and insightful conversations, at Google.

Last year I caught up on a lot of reading, quite a bit of travel, a little bit of writing, plenty of cooking, and just enough socializing. It was a good year.

I grew up a lot. I discovered new possibilities as a parent, a wife, a daughter, a friend and an employee.

I am **happy** in my almost mid thirties and I am quite proud of that achievement. I am satisfied with all that I have and all that I am. There will always be room for improvement. But if I were to die today. I won’t have any regrets.

My biggest power is my ability to reflect and learn from my own life. Here’s my most favorite learning from the last year of living

As you peel the layers of the onion, you need to prepare yourself for the outbursts. Tears there will be. It is up to you, if you choose to let it out, or to soak it in and ruminate over it’s complex flavors.

The hard truth is that you can very well walk through this life with your eyes closed, dancing on the tune set by the world, believing the narrative that was told to you and your forefathers. But if you decide to question, to look under the cover, to dig a little further, you will be disappointed at first, a tardy bit curious at second, and then you cannot turn back.

And once you have scraped the surface and glanced at the hollow pit, you cease to partake in the narrative that is inconsistent and self fulfilling. You start filling the hole that you only you know exists. And in that attempt, you are alone. 

That is when you have to find your allies and vet your early discoveries. It is not easy to share your world view out in the open. It is all very controversial. You are questioning the very basis of relationships. You are calling murder, murder. It won’t be easy. But you must keep at it. My ally is my husband. Between the two of us, we are shielded.

As I munched away Chilaquiles for breakfast, I was passively over hearing a bunch of conversations in the cafe. I could barely grasp any of them, because they were in languages I did not understand. And that made me extremely happy.

In that moment I internalized the feeling of comfort I derive from being in a place where everyone is different.  A place I know nothing about; where I need to start from the ground up. That internalization led to a lot of dots connecting all of a sudden. It was, as if, some neural network was activated, and there were light bulbs glowing everywhere.

I derive a lot of pleasure and comfort from being in a diverse environment. I’d rather be in a room with people who are different from me, people who don’t speak my language, nor share the color of my skin. I am psychologically safest in a room where I am not one amongst many similar people. I like to have my own identity, my own flavors. Where there are no pre-conceived notions about how to operate.

This is also what motivates me to travel to places that offer a contrast. I prefer to be in Japan than London. In all of Europe the one place I was most peaceful is Venice since I ran into language issues there. This is also the reason I was so in love with NY. And perhaps this is also the reason I was good at, and so in love with technology consulting. The more the unknowns, the happier I am.

Perhaps that’s why parenting is my favorite vocation. It is full of unknowns. There is never the feeling of – ” I have landed.”

Simply said, I am at peace when I am uncomfortable.

I don’t have the right words to describe this. But just as I start making sense of the madness around me, my interest in that madness drops. A feeling of – “I guess this is figured out. What’s next?” clouds my perspective on things from that point onwards. It is very difficult to motivate myself in that environment after that point of time.

If this is how I operate, I must use this to my advantage – both personally and professionally. I don’t even know where to begin. Or if I need to pay heed to this internalization. May be all of us are like this? I don’t know.

In my early career, I thought of myself as a control freak. And I still carry that image as a baggage. The way I have now understood that behavior is that I am a control freak up until I have it figured. Once I do, I am at peace. I enjoy the flow. Just a little while. And then I get bored of it and go attack something new.

I would not have understood this nuance about myself ten years back. But I am ripe to comprehend it now. That’s why we must give life a chance to simplify itself as we grow up. For now, I am at peace. I have a whole new area to explore and master. Myself.

What is so unique about a change of date, that we wait for it with so much anxiety and fondness? I am growing more and more cynical lately, so it is possible that I don’t have my rosy lenses on. But why do we wait for the date to change to start adopting new resolutions and habits? If the rationale is that one can start from a clean slate. Well we do that each day. Can’t we?

Agam and I saw more sunrises than sunsets in 2016. Tara’s morning wake ups and our interesting lives contributed to that. But I think there is a trend beginning to emerge here. As one grows older, we stop chasing sunsets, we start reaching out for the sun rise. Perhaps there is so much more to do, as one grows old, and you simply need more hours in the day to keep your boat afloat. Or you realize that there is no point chasing something that is short lived and temporary, like a sight of a dipping sun. You value things that give you energy and hope and have a longer run way. Just like the rising sun that gives way to a new day.

On to welcoming 2017. Nothing special about this year on the onset. I am looking forward to resuming our life that hit the pause button last quarter. And apart from that we hope to have a lot of family time this year, and may be some travel.

I don’t get marred by incidents easily and hence in retrospect, 2016 was a fulfilling year for me. I did a few things differently last year that I want to continue to tweak and a few things wrong, that I want to correct. And a few new that I want to dabble with.

**So what worked in 2016**

– Fixing things. An attitude to take what’s broken, and fix it.
– Let others lead – Once you set the direction, you can let other lead. They are as capable as you and you cannot do everything in the 24 hours that you have. Applies to both personal and professional domains.
– Meal planning and intense focus on healthy eating.
– Crafty execution on long term projects like the Nook/Nest swap.
– Responding to love and affection regardless of the source. Renewing old friendships
– When I observe Tara’s caring and social personality, I feel warm and happy. She is my mirror, and I think I did well there.
– Nothing made me more happy this year, than seeing the expressions of my friends and peers when I told them what makes them special.
– Some sort of meditation and journalling

**What did not work in 2016**

– Trying to discipline Tara about eating. I failed at most of my attempts. The fact is that she eats when she is hungry, not when the clock says its time, and she usually picks the right thing to eat. I spent endless hours in the kitchen making the most healthy things for her but it was a waste.
– I did not write much in 2016. I let the busyness of life get to me.
– My transparency and matter of fact honesty was rewarded at work, but not on the personal front. I learnt some lessons about being discrete.
– Advance Planning – a lot of trips had to be canceled, changed and moved.
– We were frivolous during the holiday season.
– I give way too much advice even when no one is asking for it. Not everyone is receptive to random trivial advice. Gauge your audience. Not everyone is worth your time.

**What are we going to do in 2017**

– Be a good role model for Tara
– Make people happy – Let them lead, let them know why they are special, let them help
– Keep the focus on health + add some workouts to it too. Keep at the meditation routines.
– Manage spending
– Be discrete. The world does not need to know all the things that make you happy. Only you do.
– Plan judiciously
– Listen more than talk
– Focus on building new skills. Learn something new every month. Be accountable.
– Create more and consume less